{"id":90880,"date":"2025-08-18T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/90880\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T02:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:40:08","slug":"severance-director-dp-jessica-lee-gagne-on-mysterious-season-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/90880\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Severance’ Director\/ DP Jessica Lee Gagn\u00e9 On “Mysterious” Season 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJessica Lee Gagn\u00e9<\/a> is the first woman ever to be simultaneously Emmy nominated for both Directing for a Drama Series and Cinematography for Drama Series. Since that drama series is Severance<\/a> \u2014 a show about people who are effectively split into two consciousnesses, it seems only right that Gagn\u00e9 be serving double duty on the show. As cinematographer from the show\u2019s beginning, she was instrumental in setting the aesthetic tone and now, as she puts on her director\u2019s hat as well for this latest Season 2, she finds the sweet spot where her skills overlap. Here, Gagn\u00e9 talks about her key influences, her specific style and her collaboration with the show\u2019s director Ben Stiller<\/a>, with whom she also worked on Escape at Dannemora<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Are you currently working on Season 3? Where are you at with it and are you planning to direct more episodes?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I\u2019m working on a lot of stuff. It\u2019s a big shift for me, moving into directing and DPing. I\u2019m really trying to give myself a shot at the directing thing, which means I have to stop the DOP train and focus on finding the projects that I want to do, and that takes a lot of time. And then you have to push those projects. So I\u2019m in that. I\u2019m in the like, OK I\u2019ve got to believe that the right thing\u2019s going to come along. It\u2019s an interesting, a different pace.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Tell me about first connecting with Ben Stiller back before you worked together on Escape at Dannemora?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: He saw a movie that was directed by a Canadian director called Jamie M. Dagg, it\u2019s called Sweet Virginia, and it was shot in Vancouver, but it was an American production, so that\u2019s why it kind of hit his sphere because most of the films that I DP-ed before were foreign language films or French from France. And I had never done films for the American market with American stars. There always was this inkling that I wanted to shoot stuff in the US and I felt like I was going to work there. I just didn\u2019t know how\u2026 When we met on that first Skype, he was like, oh, I saw Sweet Virginia and the camera work and the cinematography, the tone. He couldn\u2019t figure out if it was film or digital, all those things. He was really, really intrigued by it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: How did he explain severance to you in the beginning? I know you initially had some reservations about a workplace story as a DP?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: I think that every DP\u2019s nightmare is doing an office show with white walls and it\u2019s not even, there\u2019s no windows in this office, what am I going to do? So obviously it wasn\u2019t like the project that I was pushing for, but then I started doing my own visual research for it to see what I could bring to the table, and I found these references, these books, that really inspired me, and it opened me up to another aesthetic. I got excited at that point, but at first I just felt like it would be limiting as a cinematographer to do this kind of work.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What did you discuss with Ben early on in terms of your visual concept for Severance?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: Well, it\u2019s interesting. I think Ben and I always connected over a certain kind of filmmaking, certain films from the \u201970s. The show has these two universes that are ultimately very different in nature, even though they still work together cohesively. So that outie world, we kind of knew what it could look like, because of Escape [at Dannemora] and just things that we both like. It was really working with a production designer a lot also, and us all being on the same page and sharing certain references and then an architectural style that we were all aligned on. I feel like it happened organically. I don\u2019t think I ever had to impose anything. I just am always someone bringing visuals to the table to make sure we\u2019re on the same page. And I do that a little bit in my approach to cinematography and filmmaking in general in the early stages of projects. I like to schedule tests, but they\u2019re not just hair and makeup tests. I have a whole process.<\/p>\n

\n\tI feel like we\u2019re not always given the opportunity or other departments are not always given the opportunity to really understand what the look of something is. You go into something and it\u2019s always a little abstract, but with this, we were really trying to create something new, and we did a series of tests over several months where the first ones were just mostly art department driven. The actors were not in any of these tests.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Severance\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDichen Lachman in the \u2018Severance\u2019 Season 2 episode \u201cChikhai Bardo\u201d, directed by Jessica Lee Gagn\u00e9<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What does it mean to you to have this double nomination? You are the first woman to ever achieve this specifically in Drama Series.<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: Honestly, I\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s bigger for me than other people, but the thing that I find really beautiful is I gave myself a chance in something that I had always told myself that wasn\u2019t for me, that that was for other people. The directing thing. I was really never after film school, I completely forgot about that and kind of put it away.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Why do you think you thought it was for other people?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: I mean, it\u2019s a little sensitive, but when I was in school, I think that I really only got attention for being the visuals person and a lot of people would come to me to shoot their projects. And I\u2019m also just a doer in terms of an organizer and making sure I\u2019ve always made sure other people were happy and not myself. And I just got in the habit of making things for other people, and doing things for other people, and not considering my own desires and what I really wanted. And then I lived some personal experiences outside of filmmaking after Season 1 of Severance. It had nothing to do with Severance, it was just me in my own life where I had realizations that I wasn\u2019t putting myself first. And then this opportunity showed up and I was like, why not try? You\u2019re surrounded by people who care about you and who want you to succeed. And it took other people believing in me more than myself to be able to do it. It\u2019s almost like the comfort of knowing that Ben thought I could do this. Well then, maybe I should trust him. So, it\u2019s been really cathartic and to get the nomination for both things, there\u2019s nothing more beautiful than that.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Do you plan to direct more? What about for Season 3?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: Well, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on with Season 3. I\u2019m kind of like everyone in that department. Severance is really mysterious, so I\u2019m focusing currently on movies. I\u2019m looking for films that I want to direct, and those, you never know where they\u2019re going. Movies are very fragile, but I have an erotic thriller that I\u2019m trying to push through. I just don\u2019t know when it\u2019ll get made.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: How did your DP role evolve into directing the Season 2 episode \u201cChikhai Bardo\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: This whole experience of directing and also working with the writer on Severance, Mark Friedman, who wrote this episode specifically, being in the shoes of the director. And now in my own personal life, being in the shoes of a writer, I have so much more respect for writers and for directors now, the amount of energy, first of all, that it takes to write, to create a world. I didn\u2019t see it coming. It is overwhelming, but I\u2019m trying to show up and do it bit by bit, and then I have to kind of block off time to do it for myself. And then directing \u2014 I don\u2019t think you can understand what it is until you do it. The amount of questions, the amount of decisions, is overwhelming. And I\u2019m saying that from a perspective of someone who\u2019s been a DP for 15 years, and I\u2019ve shot so many. I\u2019ve shot 40 short films. I\u2019ve shot about 10 feature films, four seasons of television, I don\u2019t even know anymore. It\u2019s hard. Sometimes everything drives you crazy, but the stress on set is a real thing. A lot of pressure. I just couldn\u2019t have done it if I didn\u2019t have the people around me. And it was already an established show. And what was inspiring about [this episode] is there was world building, there was new characters. So, I did get to prove to myself that I could handle that. But then there was still a base of, OK I know everyone who works on this. We know the language. It was a good in-between in terms of proving to myself, I can actually do this. But there is a safety net.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Severance\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAdam Scott and Dichen Lachman in \u2018Severance\u2019 Season 2 episode \u201cChikhai Bardo\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What was something about this particular episode in terms of direction that makes you proud?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: I think working with Dichen [Lachman] was first of all an enormous pleasure for me. I think what I thought was the most fun was developing this character with her, really working on building a history to this person, who she is, what happened to her in her life, because these things weren\u2019t very clear at the beginning. So, we got to do that together and with Mark the writer, and it was like, well, what was her life? What kind of woman is she? And for me, I related to her a lot\u2026 I feel like building the nuances and the character within each scene and within the larger storyline, for me, that\u2019s the thing I enjoyed the most and I\u2019m the most proud of, because I think she really did end up coming off real and genuine and connecting with women.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: How would you say that your dynamic with Ben Stiller specifically has evolved over all this time?<\/p>\n

\n\tGAGN\u00c9: It\u2019s definitely a relationship of growth between us. I feel like we\u2019re different people than we were eight years ago. We\u2019ve really kind of anchored ourselves in what we want in the future and things become clearer for both of us in a way. We met at a time where I think we were looking for something different in our experiences on set. I think he was looking for new storytelling style, and I\u2019m not a predictable choice. That\u2019s kudos to his instincts, to knowing when something can work. I had all these art house films that are really niche and are not commercial at all. I\u2019ve done some work that\u2019s really challenging for audiences\u2026 I don\u2019t want to put Ben in the commercial box, but he is larger-audience kind of person. But there\u2019s this super artful person within him that I don\u2019t think people had recognized. And I think I helped pull that out of him, and he pulled out of me this more commercial, more sensitive to audience-type person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Lee Gagn\u00e9 is the first woman ever to be simultaneously Emmy nominated for both Directing for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[60737,15819,88,61989,61990,13021,92],"class_list":["post-90880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-awardsdialogue","tag-ben-stiller","tag-entertainment","tag-escape-at-dannemora","tag-jessica-lee-gagnu00e9","tag-severance","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}