When Sarah Bock first auditioned for Apple TV+’s Severance at just 15, she had no idea what to expect. “I went on Zoom when I met Ben [Stiller], and he was so chill that I thought he didn’t like me, which wasn’t the case, but I was so paranoid about it,” Bock, 18, tells Her Campus in an exclusive interview.
Two weeks later, Bock got the call to say she landed the role of Miss Huang, a character many have come to know as being unlike anyone on Lumon Industries’s severed floor. “It was really interesting to explore her being a woman and also being the youngest, because that puts her at a disadvantage power-wise for how the employees of the company view her,” Bock says. “She’s in this position of power and that’s also part of why she develops this super stoic, very serious demeanor because if she were to be childish and giggly and playful, that would put her at even more of a power imbalance with the rest of the innies, as they’re adults. She’s trying to hang on to any sort of authority that she can.”
There are brief moments in Severance when one sympathizes with Miss Huang, especially when she gets cut from her fellowship in Season 2, Episode 9. “She put a lot of faith into this company, and her ultimate goal was to move up and hopefully be in a Milchick position or even higher,” Bock says. “Now the plan has unexpectedly shifted. In some ways it’s positive because she’s been handed a higher position. But, it’s shifting the way she views Lumon because it’s less of something that can protect her and now is something she’s viewing as putting her in a place of uncertainty and fear.”
Bock says that her personality is quite different from Miss Huang’s, but admits that there might be some overlap. “My parents might argue that sometimes when I’m mad at them or being a ‘real teenager’, I can be a bit similar,” she says. “But to really get into that headstrong, opinionated, never-backing-down mindset, it took a lot of focusing and deep breathing.”
Considering her differences from her character, some Severance superfans might call Miss Huang the innie to Bock’s Outie. If that were the case, Bock reveals that she already knows which facts she’d get during a wellness check. “I would say your outie loves raspberry chocolate,” she says. “Your outie went to Chicago for the first time on Saturday and saw the Green River, and your outie has gotten sick five times this school quarter because she needs to sleep.”
All in all, Bock enjoyed her time filming Season 2. “One of the first scenes I filmed [was] with Adam Scott. He could sense that I was very nervous and so he was like, ‘Do you want to see a magic trick?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course!’ And because he’s Adam Scott, I think he can do anything. So I’m like, ‘He’s going to be an insane magician!’ and then he takes some office supplies off the desk, and repeatedly drops them on the floor,” Bock says. “After a few times, I realized he was doing a bit and he was making me laugh. So that sticks out to me, how even when he had work to do and he had no obligation to make me feel more comfortable, he did that.”
Not only was Scott supportive on set, but also, actors Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, and Sydney Cole Alexander offered Bock guidance when it came time for her to look at colleges. Lower’s advice in particular really stuck with her. “Britt really emphasized how important it was to just go out and live life and try different things,” she says. “She’s such an amazing free spirit and open-minded person. During the hiatus from Severance, she joined the circus, which is so cool. That openness is something I really aspire to have, which is why I wanted to go to college and not wait around for whatever happens next. To gain an education and kind of go with the flow.”
Now a freshman at Northwestern University, Bock is studying theater but hopes to double major in psychology, a subject she’s grown to love thanks to Severance. “The show, in general, deals a lot with the brain, the mind, and the separation of the different parts of your mind. It got me thinking a lot about that stuff, which made me think about psychology,” she says. “Coming into college, I was interested in how I could use more of a STEM topic or humanities topic to inform my artistic passions. I just love psychology in general, too.”
As her spring semester wraps up, Bock’s schedule continues to change as Severance grows in popularity. “This is finals week for me, so I’m in the library right now. I’m studying, and I took a break to do some interviews and then I’m going to go back to studying,” she says. “Last week I flew to LA and I had to miss a couple of classes to go and do some more things for the show. So it feels kind of like Severance!”
Balancing the show’s success with a busy class schedule is no easy feat, but fortunately for Bock, she has a big support system at Northwestern. “Some of my friends send me notes from class, which I really appreciate,” she says. “Just having a team surrounding me that understands both sides of what I do and know that my schoolwork is really important, but also my career is really important and they can help me find ways to balance that.”
From managing her studies to an entire severed floor, Bock has her work cut out for her — and just like Miss Huang, she’s definitely up for the challenge.