Season Two of the Apple TV+ hit series Severance recently racked up a whopping 27 nominations to lead the field headed into the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards later this summer. While Apple certainly put in noteworthy promotional efforts both before and after the latest season, it’s the show’s commitment to workplace satire, stunning cinematography and a vibrant fandom that launched Severance into the zeitgeist of this past spring.
Amongst the individual episodes recognized in this tidal wave of Emmy love, fan favorite “Chikhai Bardo” is up for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series under first-time director, and Severance director of photography, Jessica Lee Gagné. While Gagné has been essential to the visual style and language of Severance from the start, she still turned heads in her directorial debut; not only did she showcase her flair for camerawork, but she was able to bring viewers into the emotional lives of characters who have almost always been cold, distant, and broken under the weight of a brutal, endless winter in Kier, PE. Gagné’s success is a reminder that showrunner Dan Erickson and Executive Producer Ben Stiller are just as interested in lifting up other creatives as they are in exercising their own talents.
Severance recognizes the power of every detail and the value of every member of the creative team, including the stand-ins for the series’ stars. Adam Scott’s Severance stand-in, Eric J. Carlson, known lovingly to fans as the Mark Watcher from “Chikhai Bardo,” is no exception to the rule. He is passionate about doing his part to keep things running smoothly on set, enamored of the creative team at the helm of the series and excited to tune in whenever a new episode drops. If you want to know who watches “The Watchers,” look no further than Carlson and his fellow stand-ins.
Carlson emerged as a very public fan of the show on social media in the wake of the debut of “Chikhai Bardo.” He offered thanks to the whole creative team and praised Gagné’s directorial prowess. What made these kind words stand out from typical professional gratitude was the fact that they weren’t just coming from a colleague – they were coming from a fan of the show. Carlson and his fellow “Watchers” not only celebrate the artistry of the series, but they love theorizing alongside other fans. In fact, Carlson even made a prescient observation just before he was tagged to portray the Mark Watcher on screen:
“Literally a few days before Ben [Stiller] said he wanted to put me on camera, I was having a conversation with my Severance bestie, Jen Stepanyk [Britt Lower’s stand-in], about the tiny camera lenses above the screen on all the computers in MDR. This was midway through Season 2. I offhandedly asked her if we ever established who was behind that camera ‘watching’ Helly and Mark.”
In the coming weeks, Carlson and Stepanyk would become two of the mysterious “Watchers” and introduce a whole new category of Severance theorizing: “I love being able to say, with a straight face, that I have the greatest reveal in the history of television!”
While Carlson is clearly proud of his performance as the Mark Watcher, his love for Severance runs much deeper than one big on-screen moment. It dates back to his earliest days on set.
“I immediately felt like we were a part of something more along the lines of a Star Trek or Star Wars,” explained Carlson, “Amazing sets, props, just everything. This was a world television had never seen before.”
Carlson said that the only other time he could sense the potential impact a project was about to make came during his time standing in for Adam Sandler on the set of Uncut Gems.
Even though the power of Severance was clear to Carlson and his coworkers from the start, he recognized that it needed some time to simmer: “Season 1 was a hit, but nothing like season two.” In fact, before season two, namedropping Severance was just as likely to prompt a confused fan to say, “Oh, I love Succession!”
Luckily, in Season 2, The Roy family was out of the way, and Severance was able to take the world by storm; a storm that sucked Carlson into a vibrant fandom alongside the other viewers:
“We knew [season two] was a stunning achievement, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be received that way. You never know what’s going to hit, and when this show, that we loved so dearly, believed in, and worked so hard at making, was being seen the way we saw it, it was impossible not to engage with these people that were clearly on the same journey that we had been on for five years.”
When fans took to social media to theorize about the show and we here at The Pop Break were launching episode-by-episode coverage complete with weekly theorizing, Carlson and his friends were asking each other all of the same questions. “We don’t know what we are,” Carlson said of the Watchers, but he has considered all the crazy fan theories and even spent time wondering whether or not the Watchers could be clones. Sometimes, Carlson’s on-set experience even makes its way into his theorizing. In fact, before he learned his character’s official name was “Mark Watcher,” he saw the name shortened to “Mark W.”
This led him down the sort of black hole that every fandom theorizer has travelled at one point or another: “Bob [Balaban], who was one of the first replacement MDR people, was also ‘Mark W.’ so I thought, ‘maybe there is a timeline shift and I’m really a young version of Mark W. or a cloned version, or whatever.’”
That might sound like an unusual theory to a casual viewer, but it’s par for the course amongst Severance superfans. In fact, according to Carlson, that is exactly the energy that holds the show together:
“We are all unusual people. That’s our home, on Severance, where being weird is cool.”
Carlson loves the high expectations on the Severance set, and described the project as the perfect fit: “I was always considered, perhaps, excessive for what I would do. Some things we do on Severance surprise people who come in and they’re like, ‘what do you mean you guys wear suits and ties and stuff?’ Cause they’ll just wear a shirt or whatever, and some productions don’t care … Some people come through and they are like, this is not for me. This is crazy. This is too meticulous.”
As far as Carlson is concerned, that’s just life on the Severance set.
He continued, “Ben [Stiller] cares. Ben saw this craziness in the people that were there, this fastidiousness, and it was welcome, and it was almost necessary for this show where everything had to be perfect. We definitely were attracted to each other, to people that were going the extra ten miles… I would be able to rely on people. Say, I need a prop for a scene. I know that prop is going to be in my hand by the time I walk to my chair. It’s going to be in my hand before I sit down, because the props people, I can depend on them, and the set decorators, and all of these people. It was as crazy as maybe you would imagine Severance was. We were all going for the gold at all times.”
Speaking of going for gold, when asked about Adam Scott’s famous Tom-Cruise-inspired hallway run in the season two premiere and whether or not he got to attempt his own version of the maneuver, Carlson was quick to point out that Adam Scott and stunt double Justice Hedenberg did the bulk of that work. Nevertheless, Carlson did get to take his share of stabs at the iconic run. “I may have even slipped a couple of times,” he added.
Carlson praised showrunner Dan Erickson’s command of the story and world-building; he also credited Ben Stiller for setting a high standard on set: “From day one, I was just so glad to be around somebody as crazy as me…Ben’s coming over, moving erasers around and everything, because it had to be right for the shot.”
Of course, the praise didn’t end with Erickson and Stiller. Carlson’s magical moment as the Mark Watcher gave him a front row seat to Jessica Lee Gagné’s directorial debut. “My little Watcher scene took at least 10 principal days,” explained Carlson. He was referring to an artsy shot from “Chikhai Bardo” that travels through the floor from the MDR office down to Lumon’s Testing Floor, revealing Carlson’s tapping foot before panning up to a close-up on his intensely-focused face and revealing three additional “Watchers” – one for each member of the MDR team.
“That shot literally took all season. Camera tests, ideas, designs, practical ways of doing it…that camera REALLY made all those moves, went through walls, and landed on a mysterious tapping foot. In hindsight, I realized that I had actually been working on some of these tests before I knew what [the shot] was – and that the foot was going to be my foot!” In fact, that reveal of that tapping foot was the result of a lot of work on set with the director in both principal photography and on set. Throughout all of the testing, they tried nervous foot taps, bored foot taps and everything in between. Ultimately, Carlson says they landed on “a ‘human’ tapping. It’s a little rhythmic, and the guy is probably human.” Sorry, clone theorizers!
In addition to the “Watchers” shot, Carlson also experienced the unique warmth that Gagné brought to the characters in “Chikhai Bardo.” Another strength of her episode is tied to the flashbacks of Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) before their fates became entwined with Lumon. Carlson explained that it “was clearly a different episode. We were laying in the grass outside…it was a special time.”
Carlson isn’t at all surprised that Gagné is on the short list for an Emmy. “She was meant to be there…she had a calmness and a direction in her mind of where she was going,” said Carlson. Even though it was her first time directing, she knew exactly how to handle Carlson’s questions about his character’s motivation while cameras took extreme close-ups of his face.
In an attempt to put his best foot forward, Carlson politely went digging for clarity, asking, “I know there are secrets here, but am I a clone? Am I really Mark? What am I doing?” He then explained how masterfully Gagné navigated those waters: “She really broke it down, what [my character] was concerned with and not concerned with, without giving away whatever they are planning on doing in the future…I was surprised. I was like, ‘wow, that was very comforting.’ She gave me the time that I needed. I was able to focus without knowing [all of the secrets].”
In fact, Carlson was so confident in Gagné that he even made a prophetic comment on set: “After many, many days of working on this shot, it started occurring to me how good this was going to be. How unique and how cool. At one point, very late at night when I had that crazy camera bouncing around my face, I jokingly said out loud, ‘Jess, Ben’s going to be pissed when you win the best director award for this episode!’ Everyone laughed and she jokingly yelled at me to be quiet and look into the camera.” Now, Carlson says he is sitting back and hoping he will get to watch Severance sweep every Emmy category.
Of course, working as a stand-in on set isn’t Carlson’s only role in the industry. He and his wife both frequently book car work for film and television. Despite playfully insisting that they are “not car people,” Carlson and his wife maintain a few vintage vehicles, including a ‘64 AMC Rambler, a ‘75 Pontiac Ventura, and an ‘87 Chrysler LeBaron that “has worked on Severance.” The cars require frequent review of oil and fluid levels, and Severance has offered a whole new shorthand for Carlson and his wife: “If [the levels] are good, I do get back in my car and tell my wife, ‘The Severance barriers are holding.’”
Of course, it’s not just the LeBaron getting all of the car work on Severance. As Adam Scott’s stand-in, Eric has spent a lot of time in Mark Scout’s 1997 Volvo S90, and thanks to Carlson’s formal training in stunt driving, he has worked the occasional car stunt on set. At the end of the day, Carlson seems eager to do just about anything to contribute to a team he believes in, a philosophy that he attributes to his coworkers as well: “We were there as a group of stand-ins to get things perfect.”
In addition to the creative fulfillment of working as part of the team, Carlson enjoys what he describes as an incredibly respectful and encouraging work environment: “We’re also fans of each other – nobody is shy about admitting that we are. Ben [Stiller], Chris Walken, [John] Turtorro, Patricia [Arquette], Adam [Scott]… Ben is a fan of Uncut Gems. He’s asked me a bunch of questions about that.”
Carlson also spoke fondly about his working relationship with Adam Scott: “Adam and I do have a great relationship and camaraderie, but probably not like you would think. The better we are at our jobs, the less interaction we have. When he is super focused, which is most of the time, I give him his space. 100%. Conversely, when I’m setting up the shot for him, I make sure everything is going to work and be 100% ready: camera, lights, marks, props, director, etc. If anything is drastically changed, I will make him aware of it, but short of that, he walks onto set, we hear ‘picture’s up!’ and it’s a quick, smooth transition for him. That is our camaraderie. The trust that everything will be ready to go.”
This trust recently reunited Carlson and Scott: “When I first saw him on set for The Whisper Man, he gave me a hug and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ I said, ‘Me too!’ To me, that’s camaraderie. No small talk or nonsense. We’re both glad to work with each other again, and off we go!”
Carlson went on to recognize the talent and professionalism of just about every performer on the show, but no Severance fans will be surprised to hear which performer left the strongest and most unique impression:
“We had people like Chris Walken, Robby Benson, John [Turturro], Patricia [Arquette] and on and on; [we got] to watch Britt [Lower] and Dichen [Lachman] take charge and do incredible things, but I think the actor that influenced the WTF factor most in me was Tramell [Tillman]. He was odd, spooky, handsome, charismatic and downright scary. Watching him work was something else. We would all just kind of step back and ask ourselves if we were actually seeing what we were seeing.”
When asked if his years on Severance have impacted his career, Carlson spoke to the show’s positive reputation within the industry: “There’s definitely a huge camaraderie with the Severance alumni, but there’s also a level of expectation of your work ethic from people who don’t know you…Clearly I’m very blessed, and I’m very lucky to have [Severance] on my resume.”
While Carlson is humble and eager to praise the efforts of his Severance family members, it seems fitting that he found his way to one of the most unique shows on television. Even as a child, he grew up celebrating great filmmaking. Carlson traces his love for film and television back to the time he spent watching daytime TV during a childhood in which he fought chronic illness: “I’m like seven years old watching The Godfather and everything because I never went to school because I had asthma and I was in plastic bubbles and everything else.”
Despite his lifetime passion for film, Carlson used to make a living in real estate until the 2008 housing market crash put him on shaky ground. He quickly went from flipping houses in Rhode Island to turning his real estate camera equipment toward his own filmmaking. He started filming performances for friends and landed his first stand-in job for Nic Bishop when Body of Proof filmed its first season in the Ocean State. After that, he had the bug for the industry: “I went down to New York and started dabbling, and just kept going and going.”
Eric is still a filmmaker. His most recent film, Forever Home, starring his wife, Bonnie C. Harper and their late dog, Krypto, is currently making its rounds on the festival circuit. This film strikes a deep emotional chord with viewers due to the subject matter: canine dementia. Krypto, an American Foxhound, also suffered from cognitive issues that inspired the short film. Despite his health struggles, Krypto was named after the comic book dog due to his incredible feats of strength and agility. Most notably, he had a habit of stacking outdoor lawn furniture on top of the picnic table.
Sadly, Krypto recently passed away, but it made Carlson and Harper’s recent viewing of James Gunn’s Superman a cathartic experience: “We cried our eyes out.” After the film, Carlson took to Instagram to post a photo of himself and Krypto from Forever Home alongside a promotional photo from Superman. It was an ode to a beloved pet, but also a nod to the personal investment and value that Carlson brings to every project – a personal investment that is sure to help Severance shine once again in season three.
In any case, if you want to know who will be watching the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, the answer is simple: the Watchers.
If you don’t want to wait for Season Three of Severance to catch up with Carlson, be on the lookout for his next appearance in the upcoming Netflix series The Beast In Me, starring Claire Danes (Homeland) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans). You can spot Carlson as a party guest alongside Rhys and Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad) trying to make the best of an uncomfortable exit from a gathering. If you’d rather check in with Carlson in real life, he is currently running to represent his fellow industry members as a SAG-AFTRA New York local board member.
