One of the most bizarre moments of the Severance season 2 premiere, in an episode full of bizarre moments, was a cartoony video that the group was shown that documented their own “uprising” story and the changes that have allegedly been made to Lumon’s severed work policies.
That video is narrated by an anthropomorphic building that sounds…a bit familiar. “Is that Keanu Reeves?” I remember thinking. And as it turns yes, fresh out of his voice role as Shadow the Hedgehog in Sonic 3, that is in fact Keanu Reeves. Here’s Severance creator Dan Erickson speaking to Collider about ultimately casting Keanu:
“All I can say is that we talked about a couple of different people for that role. We always wanted it to be somebody that people have certain associations with, but also, it had to be a very warm presence. The Lumon building is very friendly in the context of this video, and there’s a friendliness to that particular voice and a heart to that particular voice.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love Keanu Reeves, but “warm presence” is not how I would generally describe the action star’s voice. I mean again, he just voiced the villain in a movie a few weeks ago. Still, I suppose it worked well enough for the scene. It’s not clear whether or not we might hear Keanu again on the show, if the building will come back for more Lumon narration or not in other scenes. My guess would be no, but if we’ve learned anything about Severance at this point, it’s that it’s impossible to predict anything it’s going to do.
There are a number of new additions to the Severance season 2 cast that are not secrets, as it’s been publicly announced that they are joining the series. Perhaps the most notable of these is Game of Thrones/Wednesday veteran Gwendoline Christie, who has not shown up yet. I also certainly recognized Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development as a member of Mark’s new team, but we may never see her again after that brief appearance, given that Mark wakes up with that team gone, replaced by his old squad again. And of course it’s certainly possible that other actors show up, though Severance is generally known for its somewhat minimalistic cast.
As for Keanu I found that a little distracting, but I’m not going to actually complain about it. Severance can really do no wrong, and that was certainly true of the season 2 premiere. I’m counting down until episode 2 on Friday, certainly.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.