A Severance Actor's Audition Made The Creators Change The Character

Undoubtedly, creator Dan Erickson's "Severance" was able to capture audiences quickly when the show premiered in 2022 because of its sprawling mystery. First and foremost, the series' premise and plot presented a thrilling and virtually indecipherable enigma that was, at the least, matching the sensation that "LOST" created almost two decades before it. But just like in J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof's classic, we also fell in love with the show because it gave us intriguing, funny, and relatable characters to watch and root for week by week. As much as it was addictive to speculate what Lumon's purpose and ultimate evil plan were, it's also been crucial that we could do that alongside likable and charming characters we inevitably grew close to in the debut season and its follow-up.

Zach Cherry's Dylan (or his innie, to be precise), the loudmouth employee of the Macrodata Refinement department, is very much a pivotal member of that core group we love beside Adam Scott's Mark, Britt Lower's Helly, and John Turturro's Irving. But as it turns out, Erickson envisioned him a little differently when the character only existed on paper before Cherry came in to audition and blew him away with his peculiar and enticing charisma.

Given how quirky and goofy the character has turned out, I think we can all thank Cherry for steering the creator(s) in a slightly different direction as far as Dylan's personality goes. At an invite-only event that The Wrap held recently to talk with leading writers of highly successful and popular television shows (such as R. Scott Gemmill's phenomenal medical drama "The Pitt," or showrunner Lauren LeFranc's gritty HBO hit "The Penguin"), the "Severance" head talked about Cherry's first audition, and how the actor shaped the character he dreamt up before he first appeared on screen. Erickson said:

"I initially envisioned him as this really kind of twitchy, almost like cocaine energy kind of guy who's all over the place. And then this guy Zach Cherry comes in, who is the most even-keel human being mathematically that could exist, and hearing the stream of consciousness dialogue coming out of his mouth was suddenly the funniest thing I'd ever heard in my life."

Cherry has managed to find that golden path between familiar and fresh, giving us an earnest yet sometimes brash and foul-mouthed little weirdo who delivered some of the most hysterical lines throughout the 19 episodes we've seen so far. And here's another funny bit: As Erickson told IndieWire in an interview, he had a nightmare before production began on "Severance" season 2, in which Cherry called the creator's mom to say that "her son doesn't know what he's doing." Erickson said about the dream, "Zach is the last person who would ever do that, but maybe that's why my brain selected him." Good luck trying not to imagine this in Dylan's feisty voice as he berates the man who created him.