You’ll never believe who almost starred in ‘Severance’ season 2

Severance is arguably the best TV show streaming right now, and a very famous person nearly increased the show’s profile even more.

Severance tells the story of Mark S (Adam Scott), a man who’s been “severed”—had his work memories made separate from his more personal memories—to cope with his wife’s death. Except she’s not really dead, and some very, very dodgy stuff (some of it involving goats) is going on at his workplace. Sounds weird? You ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s very weird … and very, very good.

There have been many twists and turns in the second season’s storyline in just the past few weeks alone, but try to remember the Severance season 2 opener, “Hello, Ms. Cobel.” In that episode, the MDR team is shown a claymation video (one that is equal parts funny and unnerving) about what Lumon Industries is supposedly doing to improve the lives of the severed “innies.” In the video, the Lumon building where the innies work is given a cartoon face and voice, Disney-style.

One of the issues for the production team was: who would voice that building? At first, it was Severance executive producer Ben Stiller, one of the main factors behind its success. Animation director Michael Granberry told IndieWire, “For the Lumon building itself, we had a temporary dialog track recorded by Ben that we used until we got the final voice track featuring a certain, uncredited-yet-legendary A-list superstar whom the internet has already identified.” That A-list superstar was none other than Keanu Reeves.

However, it was nearly someone even more famous! Who is more famous than Keanu Reeves, you might wonder?

Ben Stiller went on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, March 3 and revealed that his original choice for the “creepy talking Lumon building” role was former U.S. President Barack Obama. He was the one Stiller asked before Reeves, and while he obviously turned the role down, Obama did send a kind note to Stiller afterward.

“I didn’t ask [Obama] in person,” Stiller explained. “I knew someone who knew his lawyer, and his lawyer said: ‘I can relay the request if you write an email, so I wrote this email to him saying: ‘Hey, we have this show … whatever.’ Two days later, I get an email back from President Barack Obama saying: ‘Hey Ben, big fan of the show, love season 1, can’t wait for season 2. Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen.’”

So, Obama is a Severance fan! Well, along with millions of other Americans and other fans across the globe, of course—but it’s nice to have one’s tastes in television dramas validated.

“What’s more important than doing the voice-over for the animated building in Severance?” Stiller joked to Kimmel. “But it’s pretty cool that he responded.”

It is! Hopefully, just like the rest of us, Barack Obama is waiting with bated breath to see what Lumon Industries is up to inside that creepy building.