Why ‘Severance’ DoP Jessica Lee Gagné Chose Season 2 for the Big Leap to Directing

It’s all in the eyes, as they say, and Apple TV+’s “Severance” provides these windows to the soul at an almost uncomfortably close range. You can’t help but latch onto the emotional complications of the show’s “innie” (work self) and “outie” (life self) characters within its altered parallel universes of Lumon Industries—and those eyes are often key to deciphering the intentions of both.

One of the standout Season 2 episodes, the moving seventh installment titled “Chikhai Bardo” (a Tibetan Buddhist phrase relating to the moment of death), recalls Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and her court- ship and marriage to Mark (Adam Scott). Personal tragedy unravels them before they are unknowingly united again in Lumon land, despite Mark’s outie thinking that Gemma died ages ago.

“In Season 2, we go through a lot more stuff through eyes, through vision,” said Jessica Lee Gagné, who has been the series’ chief cinematographer for nearly all of its 19 episodes. “I don’t think it was like a super-conscious motif in the beginning, but there was something within these transitions about moving through the subconscious psyche, accessing parts of yourself and also memories. When you create a side shot of someone’s face, right on that side of their eye, it’s like you’re in their head. There’s nothing else you’re seeing. It’s hard for me sometimes to visualize something that I don’t already know how to achieve. But the first spark is always a visual spark, and then it’s followed by how to achieve it.”

Her eye is one of the paramount reasons “Severance” is pored over in artistic circles, but “Chikhai Bardo” showcased Gagné’s POV in an entirely new light: It is her directorial debut. “They had kind of hinted, ‘Would you like to direct?’ which is a way that people try to keep DPs on shows, right? But then I read the synopsis of Episode 7, and it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this one is for me.’”

Gagné was nervous about the undertaking but felt nothing but support from Ben Stiller (a frequent director and her “Escape at Dannemora” champion) and showrunner Dan Erickson (who cowrote the episode with EP Mark Friedman).

“There was an immense amount of trust in myself that I had to just own,” said Gagné about being in the odd position of not having someone to bounce ideas off when you’re directing and filming on your own. That double duty is common for some major male directors (Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderbergh regularly do it), but less so for the small pool of women directors and the even smaller pool of female cinematographers.

Because of the nature of crafting television, Severance is not shot in sequence; for instance, the flashback sequences that dominate much of “Chikhai Bardo” were shot on film stock at the end of the Season 2 shoot, which is why they have a certain grain and moody texture. The actions in the episode are a mirror of the intense season finale, where Mark must make a crucial life decision that could save Gemma’s life.

Now that Gagné has made the move from cinematographer to director, does she expect others to do the same? “It’s not an easy transition to make, to be honest, because people like to put others in boxes, right?” said Gagné. She is encouraged by women like Rachel Morrison (“The Fire Inside”) and Ellen Kuras (“Lee”) who made the jump in recent years.

“I think television is one of the best mediums to allow for that transition, because not every cinematographer wants to become a director. It’s not everyone’s thing. I didn’t know to what extent it was going to be something I wanted, but over the years, I realized something was missing for me. TV allows you to do that in a very supportive way.”

This story first ran in the Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine, coming soon.

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