Before she was cast as Lorne, head of the mysterious Goat Department on Severance, Gwendoline Christie had a love/hate relationship with the Apple TV+ series.
On one hand, Severance was the Game of Thrones star’s absolute favorite show. On the other hand, she hated the fact that she wasn’t on it. In fact, she had a “dark night of the soul” the night before she was asked to join the cast!
“When the show came out. I was really excited about it and my mind was genuinely blown from the first time I watched that opening scene and saw Helly on the table, and every single element of its strangeness, and the suspense, and the relationship between the characters, and the dysfunction, and the clinical environment,” Christie explained on Season 2, Episode 3’s episode of The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott.
“Cut to about 2022, I’m having a dark night of the soul. I’m really like, ‘I want to do something I really want to do. I’m not being creative enough. Why am I not on Severance? I’d never be asked to be in Severance. No one would ask me to do that,'” Christie recalled. “The show made me angry. I was angry because I loved it, and I wasn’t in it… [I was] really bitter and finally get to sleep early hours of the morning, and — this is true — I wake up and there is an email from [Ben Stiller’s] producer asking me if I want to be in the show.”
Severance Season 2, Episode 3 spoilers ahead.
Christie’s highly-anticipated Severance character, Lorne, made her debut in Season 2, Episode 3, “Who Is Alive?” when Mark (Adam Scott) and Helly (Britt Lower) headed back to the Goat Department (aka Mammalian’s Nurturable) in hopes of learning more about Ms. Casey’s (Dichen Lachmen) disappearance.
In a room full of goats, grass, and two dozen of her Lumon colleagues, Lorne questioned the MDR workers, initially denied knowledge of Ms. Casey, and threatened to report Mark and Helly’s search to Milchick. After Mark stressed the importance of standing up for fellow innies and the threat to Ms. Casey’s life, however, Lorne softened a bit and revealed that Ms. Casey used to hold Wellness sessions for them, so she won’t hinder their search. Before they left, she even asked Mark and Helly to show everyone their bellies to disprove the rumor that they have pouches, which Burt shared in Season 1.
On the podcast, Christie dove deep into her character prep, which included crafting the perfect wardrobe with costume designer Sarah Edwards, to consulting sheep farmer friends and spending time in the country with animals in hopes of become fearless around Severance‘s goats.
“I would go down to the countryside to be around sheep and walk through the fields for hours, for days, weeks to develop this, to find this, to be fearless…when I was put with the goats,” Christie explained. “I did everything I could to be around those animals and to also lose my natural prissiness and to get into the guts of the situation. I loved it so much. It was thrilling.”
When it came time to work with the goats on set, however, nothing prepared Christie for an interaction she had with a goat while filming. “A goat came up to the desk and was butting its head against my knees under the desk while we’re shooting, and I am quite good at not laughing, and I laughed. I laughed, and I laughed, and I probably made some ‘woo!’ noises,” she said.
When Stiller confirmed, “It was chaos,” Christie assured him, “I was there for it. It was amazing. I loved every second of it.”
As a fan of Severance Season 1, Christie admitted, “The goats were one of my absolute favorite, favorite moments of the first series, because when I was watching it and I heard the goat cry, I thought, ‘Are they putting goats in it? They are not. They are not putting goats in it. They are not’… It was just sensational. I think I did some cursing and some pacing, and then when you said that I was in charge of the goats, it was a hallelujah moment.”
Since we now have confirmation from Stiller that the goats are, indeed, a key part of Severance‘s story, here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of them or Lorne this season.
Want more behind-the-scenes goats stories from the show? We also spoke with Adam Scott about his “challenging” goat co-stars. Be sure to read Decider’s Severance Season 2 coverage for more insights, and check out The Severance Podcast while you wait for Episode 4.
New episodes of Severance Season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.