Yes, It’s Keanu

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Warning: This discussion contains spoilers for the first episode of Severance season two, titled “Hello, Ms. Cobel,” which debuted on Apple TV+ on January 17th.

Indeed, that’s correct. ‘Lumon Is Listening,’ and the voice you heard responding to Branch 501 Innie uprising is an actor whose four decades of work span Kier Eagan’s four Temperaments. As Shadow the Hedgehog, he portrayed malice; as Neo and John Wick, dread; as Johnny Utah, sorrow; as Ted Logan, joy – now, as a personification of Lumon, Keanu Reeves has moved into cheerful propaganda. Mythmaking is one of Lumon’s preferred methods, and Reeves’s authentic tone made him an unexpected yet fitting choice to deliver their agitprop, according to Severance creator Dan Erickson. “You might imagine the Lumon building as having a grand, lofty way of speaking,” he explains. “Somehow, Keanu’s voice is the perfect contrast.

In the premiere of season two of “Severance,” Reeves delivers the narration for an animated sequence titled “Lumon Is Listening.” This dynamic stop-motion segment serves as a short movie within the show. Mr. Milchick introduces this video as Lumon’s reaction to the macrodata refinement team activating the overtime contingency at the end of season one, an event that resulted in Mark S., Helly R., and Irving B. moving their Innie consciousnesses into their Outie bodies, with Dylan G. remaining behind to manage the technical aspects of their escape from their mental prison. As they return to the isolated floor for season two, the Innies are unaware of what transpired after their brief excursion to the outside world or how much time has elapsed. To calm the group and subtly manipulate the company’s narrative, Mr. Milchick shows them a video entitled “Lumon Is Listening” using a projector.

The video uses a mix of stop-motion puppetry and real dialogue from the MDR team, indicating they were under constant observation. Moreover, Reeves’s voice breathes life into their building, offering enthusiastic praise that suggests their “Macrodat Uprising” has led Lumon to implement “generous changes” aimed at enhancing workplace satisfaction. Reeves expresses his gratitude for the unfolding drama at Lumon with a sense of excitement, subtly capturing the slightly insincere tone many employees seem to adopt.

Over the course of ten episodes in “Severance,” Lumon Corporation has been portrayed as a vague yet indisputably powerful entity that heavily regulates its employees’ lives, especially those who are Innies and live only on the Severed Floor. The episode titled “Lumon Is Listening” served to emphasize the company’s influence over these workers, shaping their thoughts and actions. As explained by Erickson, a significant aspect of the show is the examination of how companies deal with whistleblowers, often using rebellion to strengthen themselves. Lumon has unique control over the narrative because they have such a grip on information flow. The series’ mix of whimsical puppets and foreboding narration aligns well with “Severance”‘s established balance between the absurd and the ominous. As Ben Stiller puts it, “It’s a friendly, fun, and cheerful facade, but beneath that, it’s essentially Lumon saying, ‘We know what you did. Don’t do it again.’

In Erickson’s initial concept, “Lumon Is Listening” was a live-action short film, modeled after a PSA from his childhood that warned students not to litter in school. As he recalls, it featured two children at school after hours who received instructions over the PA system, such as “Don’t put tape on the chalkboards, kids, because I don’t like that.” He described it as a somewhat cheesy and odd production. When Erickson pitched this idea to Stiller, Stiller proposed stop-motion animation instead of live-action due to the questions it might raise about the actors involved, given the secretive nature of operations on the Severed Floor. Instead, Stiller suggested drawing inspiration from the classic Rankin/Bass holiday specials produced in the 1960s and ’70s, which seemed to align with the nostalgic aesthetic of the Severance world, particularly Lumon’s penchant for performative flair (think back to the dance in the Perpetuity Wing).

When Stiller and Erickson chose stop motion animation for their project, they revised the script to ensure all roles within the video would be filled by either members of the MDR team or anthropomorphic structures (including Reeves and Sarah Sherman from Saturday Night Live as the water tower’s voice). Subsequently, Stiller contacted Duke Johnson, a stop-motion expert who co-directed 2015’s Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman. Johnson connected them to Starburns Industries, where he serves as creative director. Alyssa Choate Rusche from Starburns assisted the team throughout the process, as Stiller puts it; they provided a pencil-drawn storyboard to establish sequence timing, and after that was finalized, built custom puppets for Scott, Lower, Cherry, Turturro, and others based on images supplied by Severance’s production designer Jeremy Hindle. Additionally, Teddy Shapiro’s new score for Severance and a voice-over scratch track guided the frame-by-frame filming process, which took place under the supervision of director Michael Granberry at Starburns’ Los Angeles headquarters in September 2022.

The title “Lumon Is Listening” offers a wealth of information about the enigmatic corporation, including its global reach as it operates in 206 countries. It also incorporates references to the show’s background, such as a goat drinking from the pond outside the Lumon building, and an allusion to the Rankin/Bass special, The Year Without a Santa Claus, with Irv’s hair catching fire upon saying “Let’s burn this place to the ground,” reminiscent of Heat Miser. Stiller, who retained certain stop-motion pieces from Starburns for the Severance production offices, explains that during the filming of the Innies watching the video, Reeves had not yet been confirmed, so they watched an animatic with Stiller himself providing the narration. After Reeves agreed to voice Branch 501, he and Stiller recorded their voices via Zoom. Stiller found Reeves’ dedication during the recording session impressive, but wondered if his presence might distract. However, when he heard Reeves’ voice paired with the building, it took on a unique character. Erickson, who conceived the idea of having Reeves voice Branch 501 in a dream, shares Stiller’s enthusiasm for the performance, describing it as an incredibly joyful experience.

The project titled “Lumon Is Listening” was completed towards the end of December 2022, while the filming for the second season of “Severance” had only been underway for three months at that time. As a result, Stiller likened the process of wrapping up the initial part and transitioning to the rest of the season as sealing it in a time capsule. Now, over two years later, fans of “Severance” can analyze it, but Stiller refrains from clarifying whether Reeves’s narration suggests that Keanu is actually within the “Severance” universe and on Lumon’s payroll. Instead, Stiller leaves it as a larger, more intriguing question about where Kier is and what the world of “Severance” entails, stating that they intentionally avoid any explicit cultural references to allow viewers to unravel these mysteries themselves.

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2025-01-21 20:54