On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will have fun the creators and stars answerable for among the most spectacular and interesting work of this TV season. Curated and chosen by IndieWire’s editorial group, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind tv properly value toasting. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews main as much as the Los Angeles occasion.
Eight years in the past — nonetheless two years earlier than Apple TV+ launched, and 5 years forward of the “Severance” premiere — Ben Stiller was “desperately in search of a cinematographer.” He was in pre-production on the Showtime (bear in mind Showtime?) restricted sequence “Escape at Dannemora,” a jail break thriller that might mark Stiller’s first serialized directorial effort, and he couldn’t discover a director of pictures match for the lengthy shoot forward.
On the identical time, Jessica Lee Gagné was transferring to France. “I used to be truly deliberately not transferring to the U.S.,” she mentioned. “I believe it’s sort of scary to maneuver to america for those who don’t have a much bigger challenge. You’ll be able to sort of get misplaced on this sea.” So the Canadian cinematographer bought all her issues and headed to France, hoping to make extra European movies.
“On the day of my flight, I used to be popping out of the cash trade place — that is how way back this was — and I obtained the e-mail from one in all Ben’s producers,” she mentioned. “Once I learn the e-mail, there was a small description of ‘Escape at Dannemora.’ I used to be like, ‘Whoa, I really feel like I may crush that. I really feel like I ought to try this.’ After which I cried as a result of I felt that it was going to occur.”
Stiller had heard about Gagné from his good friend Christopher Abbott, who labored on her first American movie, “Candy Virginia.” When he requested for a hyperlink to the film, he noticed “an attractive rigidity and artfulness” within the camerawork and was impressed with how, regardless of utilizing digital cameras, Gagné was capable of make the footage “really feel very filmic.” When he came upon she was residing in Paris — or, extra precisely, on her strategy to Paris — he invited her to fulfill him in Cannes, the place he was headed for the premiere of his newest performing challenge, Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Tales.”
“I needed to chug a glass of wine proper earlier than that assembly,” Gagné mentioned, in a joint interview with Stiller. “Did I ever inform you? I don’t know if I advised you that.”
“You had been drunk after we first met?,” Stiller mentioned.
“No, I wasn’t drunk. I simply took the sting off.”
“That explains lots,” Stiller mentioned, laughing.
“OK, let’s not say that I used to be drunk. No, no, no.”
Any nerves could be greater than comprehensible. Whereas Stiller was searching for a brand new collaborator on his newest challenge, Gagné was making an attempt to wrap her head round what the worldwide famous person behind “Actuality Bites,” “Zoolander,” and “Tropic Thunder” noticed in her work. Every of her movies utilized “fully completely different aesthetics.” She didn’t have a trademark fashion. She didn’t know Stiller had even seen “Candy Virginia,” not to mention that he was searching for a D.P. who may shoot digital for movie.
“I used to be simply making an attempt to not mess it up as a result of, for me, this was an attractive alternative. I attempted to belief that there was one thing in me that he favored,” she mentioned. “So earlier than our first assembly, I made this piece of paper to remind myself of issues in films to carry up that I felt could be related for this challenge. So after we had been speaking, I used to be taking a look at my little cheat sheet — I want I’d’ve saved that cheat sheet. It had ‘Klute’ and ‘Canine Day Afternoon’ on it, and people are the issues that we ended up bonding on.”
“It was bizarre that she had all these reference factors that had been from my technology,” Stiller mentioned, who’s roughly 20 years Gagné’s senior. “She introduced some cool pictures books to our assembly, too, at no matter resort restaurant it was in Cannes. For me, I used to be simply making an attempt to really feel out what her aesthetic was, and I instantly noticed that she had this unbelievable eye.”
Nonetheless, there’s solely a lot you’ll be able to study somebody at a lunch, they usually each knew a leap of religion was wanted.
“I’ve been doing this for some time,” Stiller mentioned, “and I’ve by no means actually gotten higher at determining the best way to do interview conferences the place you by some means challenge ahead into what it’s going to be like once you’re on Day 50 of taking pictures. The one factor I believe I’ve realized is that you simply by no means know actually. You may have a fantastic interview and a fantastic assembly, however then once you get into it and also you’re actually within the weeds, it may be actually completely different.”
To everybody’s delight, Stiller and Gagné’s lunch on la Croisette mirrored their eventual working relationship. The preliminary belief that they had with one another “developed fairly rapidly” on set, and the success of “Escape at Dannemora” — which earned Stiller a DGA Award, together with 12 Emmy nominations — led to “Severance,” which has already gained two Emmys, two WGA Awards, and a Peabody on its strategy to changing into Apple’s most-watched sequence ever.
Gagné’s brainstorming through pictures books paid off in setting the sequence’ eerie, distinctive visible design, and even the “cheat sheet” she delivered to Cannes turned indicative of her obsessive pre-shoot preparations.
“I like prep. I’m a prep freak,” she mentioned. “I can prep without end and ‘Severance’ has taught us that.”
“Jessica makes these unbelievable notebooks with cutouts and footage and diagrams,” Stiller mentioned.
“I sit on an workplace flooring and I lower images.”
“It’s like arts and crafts, nevertheless it’s wonderful,” Stiller mentioned. “It’s actually one {photograph} or one thing. We each have a look at the {photograph} and go, ‘Sure, that’s it!’ Then it’s such as you’re off to the races. You’ve obtained this belief as a result of you recognize you’re each going for a similar factor and also you’re talking the identical language.”
Whereas Season 1 was constructed from scratch — Gagné describes the method as a “large temper board social gathering,” the place the hallways had been lined with images and concepts that might be referenced throughout manufacturing — Season 2 required them to shift their focus from making a world to increasing on one audiences already cherished.
“I believe it was simpler,” Gagné mentioned. “However, I imply, Ben additionally gave me the mandate of making an attempt to make it look higher,” which prompted a giddy giggle from Stiller. “I believe the phrase he at all times used [was] ‘lush’ — like, ‘costlier.’”
“And Apple’s like, ‘Extra costly?,’” Stiller mentioned.
“I’m undoubtedly, between the each of us, the grittier one, however we did go lusher in Season 2,” Gagné mentioned.
“Season 2 scared me slightly bit, as a result of Season 1 was fully its personal factor that had no reference factors when it comes to individuals having seen it or judging it or liking it or not — we simply made it,” Stiller mentioned. “Then, unexpectedly, it was well-received by lots of the individuals, and it was now like, ‘OK, what wouldn’t screw this up and nonetheless broaden it? What do individuals actually love about this? Do they love the newborn goats? Do they love the hallways? Do they love Mark and Helly’s relationship? All people has various things they join with, so [the focus for Season 2] was extra like making an attempt to not lose the factor we’d created.”
A key issue on set was flexibility. Whereas Gagné mentioned she prefers prep to post-production (and Stiller leans the opposite method), they each prioritize being open to discovery as they go. That wasn’t at all times the case. Gagné described herself as a “very control-oriented particular person” who “struggled” to embrace spontaneous change. When he was directing and performing without delay, Stiller mentioned he would plan out each scene in rehearsals so he may focus solely on performing when cameras had been rolling. However that proved too limiting.
“Crucial factor in directing for me is that once you get there, you see what you have got, you see what’s by way of the lens, you see what the actors are doing, and you then react to it, and that’s the place it turns into actual,” Stiller mentioned. “It’s a must to go, ‘OK, properly, this doesn’t really feel like I would like it to really feel.’ You’re coping with the truth of what you have got and making an attempt to get it to the place you need it to be.”
“Ben, you have got a really natural course of, and it’s truly sort of liberating, particularly for a DP,” Gagné mentioned. “As a DP, you need to ensure you’re on the suitable path for the director and utilizing references, however you by no means need to lean in too closely since you don’t need it to turn into one thing that’s already been made. It’s nearly making a language with the filmmaker and with the group the place we will say one phrase and everyone knows what we’re speaking about. So we are available with a plan, however then we’re additionally capable of throw it away and create on the spot, understanding that concepts come from many locations.”
“I’ve additionally labored with filmmakers that block that out,” she mentioned. “They’re not capable of go there, and often it’s an ego factor. I imply, I’m making an attempt to be respectful right here as a result of I recognize each challenge I’ve labored on, however I really feel like I turned slightly allergic to those methods of approaching initiatives the place it’s like, ‘Oh, it must seem like this’ earlier than we even make it.”
For a duo taking dwelling IndieWire’s Auteur Award, it could’t be overstated how a lot Stiller and Gagné careworn the worth of wholesome collaboration — individuals who share and reply to concepts with out an inflated ego or false modesty. Narcissists aren’t good companions, however merely deferring to whoever’s in cost doesn’t assist both. Discovering artists who strike the suitable stability may be exhausting.
“Consistency is useful for any present,” Stiller mentioned. “I bear in mind after I met with one in all our administrators for the primary time, he confirmed me all these frames he’d pulled from the present, and I may see that he understood the language of the present very clearly, however he was additionally impressed by it. And I believe that’s the factor: When there’s one or two individuals on set who’ve been doing it the entire time, no matter their type of consistency and imaginative and prescient is, you need that to then encourage the opposite individuals who come to work on the present. They get what the language is, nevertheless it additionally conjures up individuals to carry their very own creativity to it.”
From a cheat sheet on a slip of paper to mood-board events and creating their very own language, Stiller and Gagné have shaped a working relationship richer and extra rewarding than anybody may’ve anticipated after that first lunch in France.
“I believe we had 186 days of taking pictures on Season 2,” Stiller mentioned. “That’s a very long time. Some days somebody’s going to return in in a greater temper than another person. Some days you’ve obtained lots of stuff happening in your actual life and also you’re much less collectively [at work]. So there are going to be days the place Jessica’s like, ‘Hey, let’s go, let’s do it.’ And days the place I’m like, [groaning] ‘Oh God.’ However I really feel like when you have a belief in your working relationship and your friendship too — a belief as individuals — then you’ll be able to assist one another out by way of the method.”
“Perhaps that’s extra like a friendship factor, you recognize what I imply?,” he added. “Versus a conventional cinematographer or director. However these artistic relationships, they’re primarily based in that. The baseline is the work, however when you have got that belief, then it’s actually simply understanding the best way to navigate it day-to-day as a way to get the most effective out of one another.”
“Severance” is obtainable on Apple TV+.