Few men in the history of cinema have more famous runs than Tom Cruise, so it makes sense that Adam Scott turned to the movie star when it came time for his major running sequence in the Severance season 2 premiere.
Scott discussed the opening scene with executive producer and director Ben Stiller on the official Severance podcast and also explained just how long the sequence took to shoot.
Stiller explained that the opening shot, which is a simulated long take, is actually composed of about “10 different pieces.”
“And we shot those 10 different pieces over a period of five months,” Scott added.
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“Each one had a different need in terms of what had to be done with the set,” Stiller explained. “So there was one where we had to do it completely with green screen and have you on a treadmill and have a motion control camera. There was one where we had to pull one of the walls out, and we were using this machine called a Bolt arm, that’s a motion-controlled robot arm with the cameras on.”
Scott also said that he’s been asked about how he trained for the sequence in the days since the episode premiered, explaining that he didn’t actually do any training at all.
“Of course, I should have trained,” he said. “You know what? The training was doing it. I got into good shape from doing all of this running.”
Stiller then chimed in to say that he should have studied Cruise’s running technique. “Which is actually what I did. Anyone that wants to train for running of any kind, just watch Tom Cruise,” Scott replied.