Ann Marie Baldonado
Appearances
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
That's a scene from Parks and Recreation. Now, people who watch the show know that there are some funny character traits thrown in there. I think this is maybe the first Calzone reference. Maybe?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Maybe. And, you know, you're a character. You're usually the straight man in scenes. But in this one, you're a little bit wacky. And I've read that the writers of Parks and Rec really use the actors and lean into their strengths when they're building the character. Yeah. What is it about you that gets written into Ben?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
You know, a character you played for many years and there are these, you know, this long like theme that Ben is really nerdy. Like Leslie buys him a replica of the throne from Game of Thrones. Like that's just one of the ways. But so what's the bleed there between you and the character?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Your turn to comedy came with a role in the movie Step Brothers, which came out in 2008. How did you get that part? It kind of changed the course of your career.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
She's cast a lot of some of your favorite things.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Let's play a scene from that movie. So you play Derek. He's a successful businessman with a family, an unhappy family, with two kids. And your brother is Will Ferrell, and your mother is played by Mary Steenburgen. And she just got married to Richard Jenkins, whose son is John C. Reilly. What a cast. I know. It's great. The Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly characters are like these man-children.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
They kind of— Like, they're not successful, but you are this yuppie, douchey guy. And in this scene, you're talking to Richard Jenkins for the first time, who's very impressed by you, and you're talking about selling his house.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
That's a scene from the movie Step Brothers. Now, you know, you, now a few times, like also on The Good Place, you play this like bro type, this douchey bro type. Why are you so good at it?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
You talked about the difference between doing the kind of stuff you're doing before Step Brothers. For example, you're on an HBO show called Tell Me You Love Me. And then you did this movie, you know, surrounded by all these comedy people. And it was such at the time, you say it was such a big difference.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Can you talk about the difference of, you know, filming more dramatic shows and then entering this world of comedy?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
I want to ask about Party Down, which is a show that also kind of put you on the comedy map. And you got that show after Step Brothers and a couple other comedy roles. It's about a group of caterers in L.A. who begrudgingly work at parties. But most of them want to make it – maybe all of them want to make it in the entertainment industry. It ran for two seasons. But there is a revival.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
And I believe you just finished shooting the third season last month. And it was a huge, you know, it was a cult hit. And everyone's so excited that there is this third season. I want to play a clip from the show. It's from the first episode.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
And you are talking to another one of the people who works for the catering company, played by Lizzie Kaplan, who ends up being your love interest in the show. But you're talking for the first time.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Adam Scott, welcome to Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
That's a scene from the first episode of Party Down. Your character, Henry, was a guy who's trying to make it as an actor, and he has one commercial with a catchphrase. At the time, did the show feel autobiographical? Did it feel close to your experience?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
It's obvious that office work culture has changed. Pre-pandemic, there was this fear that because of technology, people would be working all the time, leaving little time for outside life. And with the pandemic, those lines between the two have gone kind of beyond blurred.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
What was it like going back and shooting the series that wrapped, like you said, 12 years ago?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Well, Adam Scott, thank you so much for joining us.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
And people are really reconsidering what work means, how much time one should work, how much of their lives should be devoted to it. You know, this show goes dramatic in the other way, like separating the two. And because it's so much about office culture, is that something that appealed to you and, you know, everyone who works on the show, like thinking through those issues?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
The production design of the show, the look of the show really leads to this feeling of strangeness, creepiness, also isolation. For example, your character Mark lives in this sterile corporate apartment in this snowy landscape, and that's his outside life. And the offices are very stark. They're empty, but symmetrical. It's all fluorescent lights. And there are so many hallways.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
There's this one scene when you first get to the office where you're walking through hallways and I timed it. It's like 90 seconds. It's like the longest walking in a hallway sequence ever. And, you know, it sort of lends to this like kind of weird, eerie feeling. So the look of the show certainly helps build this dread. What's it like filming in that environment?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
I've read about some of the actors who inspired you when you were younger. And you mentioned Christopher Walken. And he just plays like such an interesting, fun character in Severance. Can you talk about working with him?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
In the first episode of the series, your character is crying. He's weeping in his car before going into the office. And at first, we don't know what's causing him that grief. But we do find out as the episodes go on that his wife was killed in a car accident. The show's also about how a person deals with grief.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
And at one point, it comes out that when your character's wife died, Mark first tries to go back to work as a professor. after three weeks and he couldn't do it. And that's part of the reason why he chose to work at this company and get the severance procedure done. I recently lost my father and I had to make that calculation.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Thanks. But it's a calculation that so many people have to make. And it was the three weeks thing, because I think that maybe that's maybe what people think is the right amount of weeks, but how much time it takes and when it's time to focus back on work or on something else. And if this is too personal, just let me know.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
I read that you lost your mother shortly before the pandemic, before filming Severance, and I don't know. It's, you know, this show kind of deals with the idea of the proper amount of time or the proper way to deal with grief.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
You've said that your mom was a big influence on you and exposed you to movies and comedy as a kid. What were the movies and TV shows that were important to you growing up?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
A lot of people know you and love you from your role as Ben Wyatt on the show Parks and Recreation that ran for seven seasons and you're in six of them or a little bit of that second season. And love for that show has just grown over time. Let's play a scene from Parks and Recreation. This is from the fourth season.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
And speaking of themes of work, in this scene, Ben, your character, is out of work. He just resigned because he started dating Leslie, played by Amy Puller. And your character is a guy who likes to work. And so you're a little bit spiraling, not knowing what to do with your time. You're wearing your letters to Clio T-shirt. You're a little bit disheveled.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Yeah. And your friend, Chris Traeger, played by Rob Lowe, comes to see you because he's a little bit worried.