Adam Scott knows there’s a weird connection between his Severance character, Mark Scout, and his Parks and Recreation character Ben Wyatt.
Scott, 51, appeared on the March 21 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live — the same night that the Severance season 2 finale aired — to talk about the hit Apple TV+ series.
Kimmel, 57, told the actor, “Your character on Parks and Rec, they’ve connected to your character on Severance. You know about this?”
“There are clues there in things that you said to Leslie on the show that somehow apply to Severance,” the host explained.
In Parks and Recreation season 6, episode 11, newlyweds Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben are both back working at city hall, and they struggle to find a balance between their work and home lives. Ben suggests a “firewall system” to keep a line between life with Leslie at home and their life at work — not all that different from the root idea of the severance procedure in the AppleTV+ series. In a further coincidence, Leslie crosses this “firewall” when Ben pulls their car into the parking lot, not dissimilar to how Mark’s workdays on Severance start with him pulling his car into the Lumon lot (with coordinated times so he never sees his coworkers’ outies).
Scott confirmed that he had heard this theory before. “And it actually is pretty close,” he said. “The thing my character was sort of pitching to Leslie does sound sort of like Severance.”
Kimmel got to the bottom of it and asked, “But that is a coincidence?” Scott confirmed, “Yes.”
Kimmel pointed out another Scott role that’s a little similar to Mark Scout — the first job he ever did, an MTV series called Dead at 21. In the short-lived 1994 show, teenagers are given microchips in their heads that give them heightened abilities, but the chips kill them on their 21st birthdays.
Back in February, Scott reflected on how the show’s executive producer Ben Stiller (who also served as a director) fought hard to cast him in the series, despite his lack of drama experience. “I couldn’t really blame [Apple TV+] at the time,” Scott told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was thought of as more of a comedic person, and it’s a big swing. I’ve never experienced anything like that before in show business. No one’s ever stuck their neck out for me like that.”
But Stiller told the outlet he thought the comedy background was an asset.
“So much of the show is based in The Office and Parks and Rec and Office Space, and that genre,” Stiller explained. “The humor in the script that [creator Dan Erickson] wrote was in that world but had this other layer to it. Casting was about figuring out who could handle that.”
Stiller and Scott had also worked together in 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
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