Sarah Bock Terrified the Severance Set

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Sarah Bock was a high-school student who had never seen Severance when she landed an audition for the series. “I ended up bingeing the entire thing the day I got the audition,” she says on a Zoom call from her dorm room at Northwestern University, where the freshman is double-majoring in psychology and theater with a concentration in acting. “I was only planning on watching the first episode because I had to go to bed, but I couldn’t stop. I made it to episode nine and that cliffhanger, and that was great motivation to get the role: I needed to figure out what happened.”

Bock, whose other major Hollywood credit is the 2022 Hulu film Bruiser, ultimately landed the part of Miss Huang, season two’s most intriguing addition to the Lumon team. Despite being a teenager who had only ever worked as a crossing guard, Miss Huang has taken over as deputy manager of the severed floor beneath newly promoted Mr. Milchick, and she has no qualms about asserting her authority over the macrodata refiners twice her age. There are many questions raised by Miss Huang’s hiring — how exactly did she get this job, and why is this not a massive violation of child-labor laws?? — and Bock, a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, says the character was a mystery when she began pursuing the part. “I had the first season as source material to look at for the tone,” Bock says. “But everything else, I was in the dark.”

How much did you know about this character when you auditioned?
I knew she was the deputy manager, but it was pretty mysterious. We built the character throughout the audition process. From my first self-tape to the last audition, or even to the first day of filming, the character changed quite a bit.

How did the character evolve during the audition process? 
The first one was a self-tape, then a month later I had a Zoom with Ben Stiller where he gave notes. For my first self-tape, I played her more timid and nervous because it was her first day as the deputy manager. But when I met with Ben Stiller, he shifted it in the polished and almost scary direction it ended up going. After that, I had a callback in New York with Tramell Tillman. Getting to interact with and play off him gave me a lot of information about the strength of the character.

That word: scary. There is something a little sinister about Miss Huang.  
When I played her, I didn’t feel very scary. But at the end of the day, crew members would come up to me like, “You freaked me out. You’re terrifying.” I was like, Okay, heard. I understand who this character is.

When they’re preparing for Irving B’s funeral, Miss Huang tells Milchick she doesn’t think they should be having the service because “it makes them feel like real people.” What does she mean? 
The way she says it, it’s very innocent and almost throwaway. This is just a thought she’s having. When I read that, I was like, This is just the way she’s been raised. She’s so young, and she’s being raised by this company. She’s at an impressionable age where their values and beliefs are definitely gonna be in her.

Does she believe that Innies aren’t people, or is she concerned about them starting to feel more like regular humans? 
I think she’s trying to reinforce what she’s been taught, which is that they’re not necessarily human. Because the funeral does make her see them as people. There’s a moment where Dylan G. is giving his speech about Irving where there’s a glimmer of empathy: Maybe Dylan G. is having feelings and I should feel for him. That’s something she’s been taught not to come to terms with.

Do you think she looks down on them? A much younger person trying to be an authority figure to these adults might feel awkward about that, but she doesn’t seem to.
She might look down on them a little bit. She’s in upper management, and although she is technically younger than them, she is older experience-wise. It’s an interesting dynamic because she’s younger, but she has more knowledge.

In that same scene when she’s talking to Milchick, she mentions his performance review. It seems as if she’s trying to get into his head or already knows it’s going to be negative. 
She definitely knows some of the information that’s going to be in the performance review. She and Milchick are in this weird position of tension because she disagrees with how he handled the ORTBO, but she’s also his subordinate, so she has to listen to him. There’s a fight for respect between the two of them. By bringing up the performance review, something she knows he must be nervous about, she’s trying to get in his head and establish power: I know this is coming up, and I know your job might be in jeopardy.

Do you think she wants his job?
She’s very ambitious. She would jump at any opportunity to have some more power in the company. She wants to prove herself, especially because she is so young.

Others are constantly asking, “Why are you a child? Why are you so young?” Does that bother her? 
She’s probably prepared for it, but that’s part of the reason she’s so guarded and doesn’t show much emotion. Being a child puts her at a disadvantage. By being guarded and not showing any vulnerability or weakness, that’s her strategy for hanging on to any authority she holds over the Innies.

In the funeral scene, you have the honor of wheeling in the fruit head of Irving. I imagine that was a weird thing to witness in person. 
I mean, it was a beautiful piece of fruit art. My first time seeing it, I had to take a second because it looks so much like John Turturro. It was really impressive.

Honestly, wheeling the cart was harder than I anticipated. We had to have a set rehearsal because it was really heavy. But it was an honor to get to wheel in that melon head.

Did they just make one head?
I think there was just one. I believe it was made of Styrofoam, though, so there weren’t any worries about it getting messy.

What was it like when you first walked onto the set of the severed floor? 
It’s so immersive. When you open a drawer, there’s gonna be fully-filled-out reports that the audience never sees. The people who work in the props department write the reports anyway, in that Lumon language. Everything is so specific and detailed.

Did you ever read the reports?
Oh yeah, always. If I ever had a second, I would go exploring on set and see what I could find.

There are already multiple Reddit threads about your character. There’s a theory that your character is actually Gemma or that you’re Gemma and Mark’s daughter. Do you follow any of the fan theories about your character? 
Reddit scares me. But my best friend, she’s a huge fan of the show, and she’s definitely a lurker on Reddit and Discord. She sent me a couple of theories and posts that she thinks are funny.

I want to ask you about this line in the first episode when Mark W. asks you, “Why are you a child?” And you say, “Because of when I was born.” It’s a very funny line, but it feels like it might be important. Is there subtext in it? 
It just shows who she is as a character. It’s very matter-of-fact and blunt and giving away what needs to be said and nothing more. She is a child because of when she was born. She’s just stating a fact.