Britt Lower
Stars in Apple TV series
Severance
Interview by Tessa Swantek
Photography Sami Drasin
Creative Director Deborah Ferguson
Britt Lower, like her character Helly in Apple TV+ Severance, is not one to be constrained. Severance opens with Helly laying across an office table following her severance procedure in which her work life identity or “innie” is severed from her personal life identity or “outie.” From the second Helly wakes up, she knows something is wrong and spends all her time within the labyrinth-like confines of Lumon Industries crashing through doors and running past violent neoclassical art on sharply turning eerie green walls that practically whisper promises of resurrection. The show explores the idea that autonomy separates man from machine, and Helly’s “innie” is certainly the least machine-like in her Patti Smith-esque rebellion that becomes a force field within the office. Lower, like Helly, is rebellious in a similar way, as she doesn’t seem to conform to the norm. Lower tells us that her childhood was anything but normal as she grew up in a house overflowing with costumes, face paint, and performance spilling through the walls (which were likely much more colorful than those in Lumon). Lower learned that art is something you can become, which is an ideology that served as her inspiration for her debut into directing, writing, and producing, with Circus Person, a gorgeous film about a woman who joins a circus after her fiancé leaves her for someone else. In our interview with Lower she tells us more about Circus Person and how it was inspired by her childhood, details her time working on Severance, and hints at her own possible future in a circus tent, all with an intelligent humor that seems to define her well. Read below for our full interview!
I wanted to start off discussing Circus Person a bit before we get into Severance! Congratulations on the Best of Festival win at the 2021 Catalyst! You’ve said in other interviews that you grew up painting faces with your mom, and you have a family tradition of putting on a talent show in the town you grew up in. Is there a particular childhood memory you could share relative to this that sticks out in your memory?
Thank you so much! After a really great festival tour, I’m thrilled to share that Circus Person has now landed at www.circusperson.com for anyone to stream, for free. Permission for readers to go watch it and then come back to read the rest of this interview!
You’re back? Okay, so yes! The seed for this film was planted when I was a teenager running a small face-painting business with my mom and meeting a lot of circus performers while we worked. I grew up in a very tiny town 20 minutes south of Normal, IL, and my childhood was anything but. My mom’s philosophy is that art is for everybody and should be accessible all the time. Our kitchen pantry was filled with art supplies instead of dry goods, costumes lined all the other closets, and every year during the holidays, our whole house turned into a stage. My friends and family would dress up like characters out of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and put on a loosely Scrooge-themed talent show with poetry, music, dance, and SNL sketches my brother and I stole and repurposed. Growing up in a house like that taught me that art isn’t just something to look at, it’s something you can become—whether it’s through face-paint, costume, or performance. Basically, you don’t need anyone’s permission to make things, and you can make something with whatever you already have. It was a very unpretentious approach to creativity that has carried me throughout the fickleness of a career in the arts.
Circus Person marked your first time directing, writing, and producing. I would imagine seeing a project that you were a part of so intimately would make it feel much more sentimental. Do you feel that your experience behind the camera influenced your work in front of the camera?
Speaking of art you can become! So many times during filming, I’d be covered in paint or washing paint off my body and I’d think to myself “I am literally the canvas!” It’s like in The Tempest, when Prospero says, ‘…we are such stuff as dreams are made on.’ I used to think it was ‘made of,’ but it’s ‘made on!’ I think that’s so beautiful, the notion that our dreams are made on us, not of us. They come to life on us through our lived experience. Circus Person follows the inner thoughts of Ava, who, when her fiancé leaves her for someone else, develops a spontaneous desire to join a circus. The film itself becomes a cinematic letter that Ava is writing to the ‘other woman’ in her head. It was meaningful to make because it mirrored my own heartbreak chapter, and bringing it to the screen became another layer of the healing process for me. Circus is one of the most egalitarian art forms, and even though I wore a lot of hats, I couldn’t have done it without the help of so many incredible artists. We were so inspired by the group mind we forged together that my producing team (Alex Knell, Sam Fox, Desiree Staples and I) started a film collective called GREATGRANDMA dedicated to helping each other make films.
Now shifting to Severance, you play Helly who we find laying on a table in the first episode following her severance procedure, separating her work identity from her personal life identity. Helly raises hell at Lumon Industries and shows her grit through quite a few very physical and dark scenes. Was there a particular scene that was your favorite to film?
With this being a show about an office environment, there was something incredibly physical about this project that I didn’t anticipate at first, but Helly brings a spirit of rebellion and defiance that demands action. To prepare, I watched a lot of Patti Smith’s early concerts to hone into an unapologetic punk energy that also felt really alive for me in the character. We started filming about 8 months into being cooped up in the pandemic, so it was super cathartic to tap into Helly’s ‘get me out of here’ mindset as I was dashing through hallways and smashing through windows.
A favorite scene for me, in contrast to the escape sequences, was when Helly and Mark discover the baby goats. They were completely unpredictable, biting the camera cords and jumping all over the dolly rigs. It was chaos! And it was also a significant moment in Helly’s journey. Seeing these sweet innocent animals, a glimpse of nature, marks a turning point for her. She goes from being single-minded in her pursuit of freedom to forming an alliance with Mark, Dylan, and Irving.
Personally, I was a big fan of the “5-minute music dance experience.” It was just so weird and wonderful. If you could have a 5-minute dance experience right now, what song are you choosing?
Ah yes, when the Macro Data Refinement team discover their hips! This was also one of my favorite scenes to film, for completely obvious reasons. For my song choice now, I’ll go with “Lovin’ is Easy” by Rex Orange County, Benny Sings. It’s only 2:35 minutes, so just play it twice to reach the full 5-minute music dance experience. Please enjoy each repetition of the song equally.
In one episode of the show, Helly writes “Let Me Out” on her arms which made me think of your “body parts of speech” artwork on your website. Was this your idea or coincidental?
A total coincidence. They came up with that in the writer’s room. But my sincere wish is that for every project I’m a part of moving forward, I get to either decorate my body or do a strange dance. Can that be a thing?
Dress, platforms sandals: Etro Tights: Anne Isabella
If you could write one word on Helly’s arm to describe her best, what would it be?
REBEL
I’d love for you to talk a little bit about your thoughts on the use of artwork within the show since you’re an artist yourself. They seem to be Francisco de Goya inspired who was known for his work reflecting historical upheavals which is really interesting within the context of the show.
I totally see that. The paintings pack even more of a punch for the severed workers because they have never seen any art, outside of the one-dimensional drawings in the handbook. And by contrast to all the cool, crisp, clean angles inside of Lumon, these fleshy neoclassical/romantic paintings are the only splashes of warm, saturated pigment that the workers ever see, either. My best guess is that they are meant to invoke feelings of rapture and to bathe the Kier legacy in a sense of religious awe. I think? Art historians, help me out!
Dress, jacket: Maisie Wilen , Padded flip flops: Reike Nen
I also wanted to talk about the set a bit because the visuals of the show make it that much more interesting with maze-like hallways, green monochrome designs, and retro-looking computers and TVs in the workspace. In an interview, Patricia Arquette said she felt like “a rat in a maze” on set. Did you feel the same?
Absolutely. We all got lost, all the time. Going to work felt like stepping into a confusing art installation. The halls were literally labyrinth-like, these cavernously long tunnels devoid of sunshine. As a cast/crew we all bonded over our collective Vitamin D deficit and the strangeness of it all. For me, the design was very effective at inspiring Helly’s sense of feeling trapped.
Top and pants, heels: Sportmax , Under top: Jean Paul Gaultier from Tab Vintage
A lot of the mystery surrounding Helly throughout the series is the identity of her Outie and why her Outie won’t let her resign. I know we can’t spoil anything but at the end of the season we learn details about her Outie and how it would play into the second season. Can you tell us a little bit about what you are looking forward to from the second season?
It’s so human, to feel at odds with oneself, and because of the severance procedure, we watch a person literally waging a war against herself. I find it compelling that right now the audience can empathize with Innie Helly’s journey much more so than Outie Helly. And that makes sense. After all, we’ve been with her since she first woke up, we can follow every decision she is making. But Outie’s actions are harder to comprehend because we have only seen—primarily presentational and video-taped—-glimpses of her side. I’m looking forward to discovering what the two parts of Helly have to learn from one another.
Thanks for the interview! What can we look forward to from you next?
This summer I’ll be acting in an indie film adapted from a book, writing a script about basketball and flowers, and if I have my druthers, I’ll spend some time performing in a real circus. Fingers crossed I can juggle all three, and with any luck… finally learn how to juggle.
Dress: Stella McCartney , Croche bag: Tory Burch, Heels: Stella McCartney ,Tights: Anne Isabella
So many times during filming, I’d be covered in paint or washing paint off my body and I’d think to myself ‘I am literally the canvas!’ It’s like in The Tempest, when Prospero says, ‘…we are such stuff as dreams are made on.’ I used to think it was ‘made of,’ but it’s ‘made on!’ I think that’s so beautiful, the notion that our dreams are made on us, not of us.
Top, skirt: Tory Burch, Heels: Chanel from Tab Vintage, Tights: Anne Isabella
