Apple TV+'s hit show “Severance” follows employees whose consciousnesses are surgically split by their employer, enigmatic company Lumon, between their mysterious work lives, their “innies,” and their personal lives, their “outies.” For Raleigh-born young actress Sarah Bock, who plays Miss Huang in season two, that peculiar work-life balance felt familiar.
“It was this very dual, ‘Severance'-y life that was sometimes a little bit hard to balance because I would go from filming a super serious scene on set, and then I would have to go do chemistry homework,” Bock told RALtoday over Zoom. “If I had an innie, that would be my school persona, and my outie was the filming part, because that was the most fun for me. That felt like a break and not like work.”
Bock got her start in local theater in NC, including in “Annie” from NC Theatre in 2019 and the titular role of “Matilda” in a Burlington production.
"[Local theater] taught me a lot about adaptability, because when you’re in theater, things are changing constantly,” Bock said. “On a TV set, the scripts are constantly changing, and the sets are constantly changing, so learning how to move with everything was really important.”
Bock was cast in 2022, the same year as the show’s highly acclaimed first season, and while fans had to wait three years for more, Bock was getting settled with her role while also being a 15-year-old student at Green Level High School in Cary.
“It was a privilege to get to live in the character for so long, especially because she is so enigmatic and mysterious, and there were a lot of questions surrounding her,” Bock said. “The more time I got to live in her skin, the more specificity I was able to put into her character.”
Miss Huang is the new deputy manager of Lumon’s severed floor — and also a child — and Bock had to learn to balance both sides of the character.
“I thought it was really interesting to explore her very stoic nature when she’s talking to the innies and telling them what to do but also going back to her desk and playing with her little water toy,” Bock said. “It was fun, especially in the ninth episode, to get to explore a little bit more of like her childish innocence and maybe make the audience feel a little empathetic towards her since up until then, she had really been portraying an adult’s role in the company.”
Bock hopes she isn’t like her often-severe role, and to get into character, she meditated, listened to a curated playlist — full of MARINA, ‘60s music, and thereminist Clara Rockmore — and “once [hair, makeup, and costuming] put the barrette and the side part in, I was like, I am Miss Huang,” Bock told RALtoday.
To further embody Miss Huang, Bock learned how to measure blood pressure, took a day of Italian lessons — for a scene that was ultimately cut — and learned how to play the theremin.
“I had three months of theremin lessons with an amazing theremin teacher, Jennifer, and I actually learned it,” Bock told RALtoday. “I got to keep the theremin, so I brought it back with me to Raleigh. I got to play a bit over the summer, but since I’ve been in college, I haven’t played since.”
Although Miss Huang’s time on “Severance” seems to be over, Bock said she wishes she could have had a scene with Patricia Arquette, who plays Ms. Cobel.
“I’m a huge fan, and I have gotten to meet her, and she’s the sweetest human being on the face of the planet,” Bock said. “I think it would be super interesting to see Miss Huang and Cobel interact because their lives like mirror each other in such specific ways.”
The scenes Bock filmed during her last day on set aired in episode nine and saw Miss Huang’s sensitive side as she left the severed floor.
“They were very bittersweet because they were super fun scenes to film. I felt like I had a lot of challenging stuff to work with, because [Miss Huang] got to get a little bit more emotional, which was something that we hadn’t really explored with her in previous episodes,” Bock said. “It was a little bit sad because I love working with everyone on the show, and I was gonna miss them a lot, but it was also just so much fun.”
As for the season two finale, Bock had to stay tight-lipped, but she offered three words: “heart-racing, insane, and exciting.”
The final episode of “Severance” season two premieres Friday, March 21 on Apple TV+.
