Yahoo Lifestyle Dichen Lachman is Ready to Explore More Sides of Gemma Scout After ‘Severance’ Season 2
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When Dichen Lachman jumps on our Zoom call it's like a burst of color. It helps that she's in an all-pink room where not a single wall (or even the door) is left untouched. It is the total opposite of the grey and white walls of Lumen, the very place that her character, Gemma, is trapped in the recent season of Severance. Fans were first introduced to her as Ms. Casey, a wellness counselor who would offer sessions to the innies of the severed floor at the company. But things quickly took a turn when the truth was revealed: she is actually Gemma Scout, the long believed-to-be-dead wife of Adam Scott's Mark, who has been stuck and forced to repeat various scenarios over and over again while going through the severed process each time.
Dichen's longtime fans know that this familiar territory for her. After playing characters with multiple personalities inserted in them like in Dollhouse or where memories are stored in a chip in Altered Carbon, they were elated to see her back at it again in the season's seventh episode, "Chikhai Bardo." And it unsurprisingly connects to her job in real life as an actress where she is always taking on new personalities, stories, and characters in various projects as her career continues to skyrocket.
Cosmopolitan got to catch up with the actress before the season 2 finale to talk about the real Gemma, the season's emotional ending, and how it all connects to her love for acting.
Throughout your career, you've played a lot of characters that have gone through multiple personalities. Do you get a sense of déjà vu playing them?
I feel like I'm manifesting them. I'm attracting them to me. Perhaps it's because I'm so curious about the mind. Before I discovered acting, I wanted to be a psychologist. I've always been really fascinated by how powerful the mind is, but also how it is capable of doing so many things at once, like keeping you alive, for example. We don't have to think about breathing. It does it.
On the more spiritual side, we compartmentalize different parts of ourself and the construct of the world around us affects how we put these little chambers in our minds of the different aspects of ourselves. The things that we tell ourselves, and the way we label ourselves, and the roles that we play. Who you are at work and who you are in different relationships, it wakes up different parts of yourself that you didn't even know were there. So those aspects of being a human has always got me excited to think about that stuff. Perhaps I'm just drawn because of that. It's finding me.
It's fascinating too because it's similar to the art of acting itself. You are taking on these different personas, living them, and experiencing both the good and the bad before just going home and moving on.
I think that's why I wanted to be an actor, because I wanted to have the permission to do things and explore things that I knew I wouldn't be able to in my life. And maybe that's really diabolical. Just coming from like a mixed background and different cultural norms, I felt a bit limited in my life. Also, moving to a new country, you don't feel like you fit in. There's sort of these constraints around you. Maybe you're a bit self conscious and you don't feel like you can live out this fantasy. Everyone feels that when you're in your life and you wish you'd had that moment that innie can come in and be that person for you. I think that's why I wanted to pursue this creative space, even though I love being creative in so many other ways. Every time I get to play a character that really gets me excited, it's like a catharsis I get to explore.
We're first introduced to Ms. Casey and it's not later that we realize who she really is. And, even then, it's not until Chikhai Bardo that we really see Gemma again. How do you approach a character with almost little to no background?
The writing was so quirky and peculiar and I think everyone was trying to figure out the tone because Ms. Casey is so bizarre. I remember being in my hotel room in New York and coming across an Eckhart Tolle interview and I found a way to approach Ms. Casey through that. I just stayed really open to being flexible. When you're doing something like this—which is tonally completely unique and other worldly—there's nothing like it. I didn't want to be precious about it and be really committed to thinking how a scene should go.
With Gemma it was so so different. I didn't want to let anybody down. In my opinion, maybe other people disagree, to justify why Mark would put himself through this—I think someone wrote online, "garage brain surgery"—in order to get her back, we really wanted the audience to care about them. We were very lucky that we had time one weekend to rehearse. Dan Erikson wasn't there because he was, I think, finishing episode 10, but Mark Friedman and Ben Stiller and Jessica Lee Gagné and Adam and I spent an afternoon in that house just really talking through all the scenes and finding the moments to try and keep them grounded. I didn't so much have an approach like I usually do, because often I feel like you have to move along and sometimes there's not enough enough time. But, because we had that time, it was really nice to actually work on something where we discovered things together.
I thought it was very powerful to see a woman going through the process of fertility and miscarriage. It's still something so rare to see in media. Why do you think that is?
I've heard like people have said that that was quite a trigger because they've been through it. It was difficult, but they felt how it was depicted was needed. That was very important to Jessica (who directed "Chikhai Bardo") and everyone. Dan and Mark and Ben were so open to having Jessica and I there because it's something that obviously they wouldn't have experienced.
It is tricky, but it shouldn't be. I feel like it's more common than I think people realize. I'm really glad they just handled it with just such care. Jessica really emphasized to me many months before we started shooting how important that was.
And then, opposite to seeing Gemma in the shower, you see her not reacting at all to taking the crib apart in the finale.
We spent a lot of time putting that together, and then breaking it apart and putting it back together. Well, I didn't put it back together. She's an innie, a different one I'm assuming, so that's how I approached it. And Dan's always been pretty open about the fact that they're not completely clueless. They have some sort of instincts and awareness about things. I also use my confusion about about what we were doing in the character, because there are so many questions and not all of them you can have answered sometimes. Even though they're so generous with helping you find it, I use that to play in that moment.
Now that Gemma is out, we're definitely going to see a different side of her now as we uncover who she truly is in season 3.
I certainly hope we get to. There's so many possibilities. She has so manny innies and I'm curious what that means for her. If we get the chance to explore that, I will be absolutely more than thrilled. The finale is brutal. I think of that meme of people throwing things at the screen. It'll break the internet. Maybe the audience doesn't know how to feel either about what should take place. It's pretty wild. When I read that, I was just like, Oh, wow! The fans are going to like...emoji of the brain exploding.
It's particularly interesting because we've also never seen Gemma's actual family at all. So we've also never seen how that has affected her or what she's gone through before Mark.
Yeah, that's funny. I probably should have those asked those questions. I was so focused on having a relationship with the two characters, Mark and Gemma, and try and make that feel authentic that I didn't even think about that. It's really interesting that you pointed it out. Now I'm going to be asking about that.
I did start reading some Russian literature and doing some pondering around with that stuff. I talked to friends who've miscarried and had trouble conceiving and also talked to Jessica a lot about where is Gemma at on the testing floor. It was just surrendering to that bit of hope that she can get out of there.
You got to interact with a lot of the cast members in season 1, but this time you were really separated.
Sometimes I feel a bit like Ms. Casey. They're filming and they're like, Oh, you're coming in or I don't get to because obviously things move around. The art does imitate life a little bit in that sense. They're all incredible. I would love to have scenes with all of them.
I've working with Adam, who was obviously incredible. Robby Benson is just, even though he plays a character who is slightly—slightly is maybe too mild—weird, he's the nicest human being in the world. And the stories he has! Sandra Bernhardt, another extraordinary woman. Those days on the testing floor were so much fun in season 1! I just loved John Turturro's personality. I mean, everyone's so different and they bring something different. I also totally trust Dan's creativity.
So who would you love to work with if you got the chance to pitch it for next season?
I'm just going to be like, Just tell me where to be. I don't want to color the creative process. In collaboration with Ben, Dan and the whole team have created something so extraordinary. Sometimes it worries me, because of how invested some of the fans are and some of the things they say. It's so intense. I'm like, I hope they're not serious. But it's captivated people on such a level that it's really incredible.
It's rewarding when you work so hard on something and it gets well received by people. The amount of creativity it has inspired—the fan art, the clips they make with little videos, and the cosplay. People are having Severance-themed parties! It's amazing!
One of my friends is having one!
Well, you need to go as Ms. Casey!
Now I definitely have to!
Season 2 of Severance is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Watch 'Severance' on Apple TV+
Photographer: Amanda Peixoto-Elkins
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