Where Is Severance Filmed? Every Major Location Explained

As a dedicated gamer, I can’t help but be captivated by the mesmerizing allure of “Severance” on Apple TV+. It’s not just the mind-bending science fiction enigmas that hook me, but also the visually breathtaking cinematography that sets this series apart. The evocative backdrops play a significant role in shaping the show’s essence, earning it an Excellence in Production Design Award from the Art Directors Guild last season. Intriguingly, the second season has expanded its horizons, revealing fresh locales for both the chilling inner offices where the “innies” toil and the mysterious external realm inhabited by the “outies.

The team behind the popular series “Severance” has enjoyed sharing insights into their creative process through backstage videos and the show’s official podcast. They’ve combined intricately designed sets with carefully chosen real-world locations to maintain the right atmosphere. If you’re keen to discover where various scenes were shot or even visit some filming locations yourself, here’s a rundown of where the crew constructed or scouted the key places in “Severance.

Lumon Industries is Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey

As a devoted admirer, I’d like to share a bit of history about the location where the enigmatic Lumon Corporation resides – a building initially constructed from 1959 to 1962 as a research and development epicenter for Bell Labs, focusing on telecommunications. Situated in Holmdel, New Jersey, this campus was eventually sold for redevelopment in 2006 and has since been transformed into the vibrant mixed-use “metroburb” of Bell Works. Glancing at a real-world photo, you can detect that the series slightly altered the building’s two reflecting pools to give them a more symmetrical appearance.

In the premiere of “The Severance Podcast”, director/executive producer Ben Stiller shared that cinematographer Jessica Lee Gangné (who later directed Episode 7 of Season 2, titled “Chikai Bardo”) discovered the location during Google searches for office buildings. She stumbled upon an aerial shot of labs in Holmdel, New Jersey, which had a colossal egg-shaped parking lot surrounding the building. From above, it was astounding to see the sheer size of this structure. When they visited the location, it was the first one they scouted and significantly influenced their decisions. The most striking observation they made upon arrival was that no filming had ever been done there before.

The Severed Floor was built at York Studios in the Bronx

In the TV show “Severance”, most events unfold within Lumon’s network of offices on the Severed Floor, which are primarily sets constructed in studios with visual effects instead of actual locations. This method adds to the eerie and dreamlike quality of this strange underworld office environment. The majority of the soundstage sets for “Severance” were built at York Studios in the Bronx, New York, where the series was principally filmed.

When designing the sets for Severed Floor, production designer Jeremy Hindle took cues from 1950s and ’60s corporate architecture, M.C. Escher’s artwork, and the city set created by Jacques Tati for “Playtime.” As he explained to The Hollywood Reporter, these backgrounds are intentionally unconventional, featuring asymmetrical designs that challenge viewers’ perception. In an interview with Looper, actor Tramell Tillman from Milchick admitted it can be quite disorienting to navigate these intricate and complex sets.

The Perpetuity Wing used the Hudson River Museum

York Studios encompasses five distinct areas spanning a total of 81,300 square feet, yet not all rooms on the Severed Floor can be accommodated within these stages. For the Perpetuity Wing, an area resembling a museum showcasing the Eagan family’s history that the macrodata refinement workers explore in Season 1, Episode 3, titled “In Perpetuity,” the Kier Eagan Replica House necessitated a scale so large that it couldn’t be constructed as a set within the studio.

For this particular scene, the team opted to film at a location where Jeremy Hindle referred to as a museum in the Bronx, accompanied by a striking brutalist structure and a well-preserved house. Observant spectators have pinpointed this site as the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, with the focus being the Glenview Historic Home, a Gilded Age edifice designed by Charles W. Chilton in 1877. Notably, this location has also been showcased in HBO’s “The Gilded Age.

Mammalians Nurturable is a Brooklyn golf course

Goats play a significant role in the TV series “Severance,” appearing both as a whimsical motif and as a crucial element of the central enigma. In the Season 2 finale, it was unveiled that Lumon breeds goats to discover the ideal sacrificial animal for their research on eradicating pain, although numerous doubts persist regarding the specifics of this process. In Season 2, Episode 3, titled “Who Is Alive?,” characters Mark (played by Adam Scott) and Helly (performed by Britt Lower) revisit a section of the Severed Floor, commonly referred to as the “goat room” or “Mammalians Nurturable.

To gain a more comprehensive perspective of the goat pen, which was unwittingly encountered during the initial season, demanded an inventive touch in the stage setup. Instead of opting for a conventional studio, a structure comprising 15-foot high walls and a safety canopy were constructed over the Marine Park golf course in Brooklyn, NY. This arrangement provided ample green spaces for the around 50 goats on set to explore. Computer-generated imagery (CG) was employed to eliminate the tent and make the walls seem taller.

The town of Kier combines several upstate New York locations

As a devoted fan, I’ve discovered some fascinating connections between the fictional town of Kier from “Severance” and reality! In the show, Kier is set in a fictitious state called “PE,” but interestingly, the screen locations that make up this town can be found throughout beautiful upstate New York. For instance, Irving’s apartment is one of the Strand Apartments in Kingston, New York, and many driving scenes were captured within the city itself.

In Season 2, Episode 2, titled “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig,” the exterior for the Great Doors company was cleverly portrayed by The Red Owl Collective, a vintage store in Kingston. And in Season 2, Episode 6, “Attila,” Zufu, the Chinese restaurant, was magically transformed from Eng’s Restaurant in Kingston, New York.

If you fancy dining at the fictional Pip’s Bar & Grille, I recommend heading to the Catskills and visiting its real-world counterpart, the Phoenicia Diner in Phoenicia!

In Baird Creek Manor, where characters Mark and Harmony Cobel (played by Patricia Arquette) reside, were filmed at Village Gate Townhouses in Nyack. Other exterior shots of Kier were taken in Beacon and Utica, New York. The scene depicting Petey’s death in Season 1, Episode 3, titled “In Perpetuity,” occurred outside the Gulf Gas Station in Nyack, a location also used in the initial “John Wick” movie; his funeral was held at Trinity Lutheran Church in White Plains. The house shared by Devon and Ricken is the Bier House in Usonia. The train departure of Irving in Season 2, Episode 9, “The After Hours,” was filmed at Utica’s Union Station. The entrance to the birthing retreat featured in numerous Season 2 episodes is the Mohonk Testimonial Gateway in New Paltz, previously seen in the 1985 horror film “The Stuff.

The ORTBO was in Minnewaska State Park Preserve

In Episode 4 of Season 2, titled “Woe’s Hollow,” the inner refiners experienced a shift from their usual routines. This was the initial occasion when they were permitted to venture outdoors as part of an ORTBO (Outdoor Retreat and Team-Building Occurrence) at Dieter Eagan National Forest. Interestingly, this snowy adventure was filmed in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, located in Ulster County, New York. The dramatic Woe’s Hollow waterfall was depicted by the park’s Awosting Falls, and the dream sequence featuring Irving was set in the Sam’s Point area.

Filming scenes at the park posed some difficulties, as Jeremy Hindle pointed out on the “Inside the Episode” video. He explained, “Parks are incredibly tough places to film, so we arranged a site visit with the rangers and others to ensure they understood our plan for setting up without causing any damage.” To avoid disturbing anything in the forest, they constructed a bridge about a quarter-mile long using scaffolding as a means of transporting all equipment. Ben Stiller found the planning process for the outdoor shoot to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of production, and the hard work resulted in one of the show’s most visually stunning episodes.

Salt’s Neck was shot all the way up in Newfoundland and Labrador

In this episode titled “Sweet Vitriol,” which is part of Season 2, the entire story unfolds in a different setting – Cobel’s economically stricken hometown, Salt’s Neck, that contrasts with the other locations previously seen in the series “Severance.” Unlike the studio location based in New York, Salt’s Neck was filmed far up north, specifically in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The scenes were captured on Fogo Island, the Bonavista Peninsula, Keels, and Port Union. A former fish plant in Port Union served as a stand-in for the abandoned Lumon ether factory. In an “Inside the Episode” segment, Patricia Arquette expressed the filming experience in Newfoundland as extraordinary, stating, “The scenery was simply so cinematic.” She elaborated that the environment mirrored her character, explaining, “It was so cold, and icebergs drifted by. I felt it perfectly represented Harmony’s inner world.

2025-03-25 21:30