Tramell Tillman Breaks Down Milchick's Verbose Vocabulary in 'Severance'

Variety

'Severance' actor Tramell Tillman sits down to discuss his character Seth Milchik and his use of verbose words. He talks about shooting memorable scenes in the series, like his character's confrontation with Lumon executive Mr. Drummond, and how the show's writing leaves little room for improvisation.

Transcript

00:00When I'm on set, I look up all the words. So I knew them when I was filming them,

00:05but I guess I just, I don't remember them now.

00:08My name is Tramiel Tillman, and I'm going to read some very verbose words for variety.

00:17Word number one, monosyllabically.

00:24Monosyllabically. That's a good word. If I had to guess monosyllabically,

00:29monosyllabically means one word with one syllable. Did I get that right? Let's see.

00:36Monosyllabically means of a person using brief words to signify reluctance to engage in conversation.

00:46That's not what I thought. It's also not what I said. So there it is. Monosyllabically.

00:51To put that monosyllabically. I mean, it's pretty iconic, right?

00:58The way Milchick said it, monosyllabically. It was really fun. I really was leaning into how

01:06Milchick felt about his vocabulary being monitored. And Drummond was really driving hard on this man.

01:16And so it was an opportunity to give it right back to him. Since you don't understand the big words,

01:23let me put it to you in smaller words. That's what it felt like to me. When I first was introduced to

01:30Milchick, I didn't know who he was. Years later, I still don't know who this man is. But what was

01:35always fun was the ability for us to play and explore. As we developed the story and the characters

01:43got to fan out more, I got to learn so much more about this guy. So it was an ongoing process. Okay.

01:55Colloquy. Colloquy. Did I say that right? Colloquy. Colloquy. There's colloquially, right?

02:05A colloquialism, right? That's a word that stands for another word or a phrase that stands for

02:14something, a colloquialism. But what does colloquy mean? Let's see. A conversation.

02:23That's not what I said. Okay. Colloquy. Okay. I think he's a beast at Wordle. He is a beast.

02:31He's probably one of those top earners and he gets the words in like seconds. Man doesn't play

02:38around. For me, it was just playing honestly, really leaning into the role that this man had

02:44at this particular point in his career. You know, he was the boss and it's his job to run the severed

02:51floor. And how he got that position still remains a mystery. You know, some people believe that he may

02:59have sabotaged Cobel. But what's so fun is watching this man rise to leadership and using his kindness

03:09reforms to get the best results. And we see that every step of the way he fails. And it's so much

03:17fun to watch that play out. I cannot ad-lib while playing Milchik because it's written so beautifully.

03:25So I wouldn't want to ad-lib anyway, but there's a specific language that this man has and that

03:30cadence as well, which is very different from my own cadence. So to tap into that is really challenging.

03:37And I have to make sure that I have the language down to a science because there's no wiggle room

03:45at all. Remonstration. Remonstration. I remember this word was right before Milchik used

04:00monosyllabically because he was getting grilled by Drummond and did not meet the standards of what he was

04:09asked to do. And he thanked Drummond for his remonstration. If I remember it, it's like guidance or

04:19instruction. Let's see if I can get this. Hold on. A forcefully reproachful protest.

04:30Could be kind of close, maybe.

04:32When I'm on set, I look up all the words. So I knew them when I was filming them, but I guess I

04:46just, I don't remember them now. We do several takes because it's important for us to find the

04:56story in that. And Dari, who plays Drummond, is such a generous and wonderful actor. He's so scary,

05:03but such a sweetheart. Just a big old teddy bear. And I really enjoyed working with him.

05:09Okay. Next one. All right. Folly. You must eradicate from your essence childish folly. Folly.

05:19Folly. Folly is like, is play, right? It's kind of like foolishness. It's, it's silliness.

05:29Let's see. Lack of good sense. Foolishness. I got that one right. I got that one right. Yes. Folly.

05:36Lack of good sense. Foolishness. That was, that was a good scene. You must eradicate from your essence

05:44childish folly. There are a couple lines that people enjoy. Devour feculence is a big one. One

05:53of my favorite lines that I don't really get much feedback from is from the Ortbo. And I don't know

06:00if it just got lost in the sauce, but I think it's such a great line. The line is directed towards

06:05Dylan and Milchick says, marshmallows are for team players, Dylan. They don't just hand them out.

06:11I was like, I think that's such a great line. It's so good. You must grow up, grow up, grow up.

06:23That moment was really heartbreaking because it was the removal of Milchick's essence from himself.

06:34It was the chipping away to mold himself into the corporate structure that they wanted him to be.

06:41And it was particularly painful or sad to, to tell that story in that moment because anyone who has

06:49had to shape or shift themselves in order to fit in would totally understand that moment. We filmed

06:56that sequence in one take. It was really incredible. Uta, our director, really led the charge to make sure

07:03that we got the magic of that scene. It was really quite beautiful. I tell people that he started in chaos.

07:11Day one, they were missing a refiner. Day one, they had Heli come on board. So everything had to go according to plan.

07:21So they were high stakes from the very beginning. And if you really do a timeline, this all happened

07:27within weeks of each other. That's a lot. It can break anybody.

07:32I'm going to spell this one. G-R-A-K-A-P-P-A-N. This is, this is a fun word because this particular

07:46word was mispronounced by Milchick. He pronounced it, which is wrong. The correct pronunciation is

07:58G-R-A-K-A-P-A-P-A-N. And that means gray coat. And it speaks to the Swedish king who had that nickname,

08:07gray coat. Have you ever heard the story of the G-R-A-K-A-P-A-P-A-N?

08:11How do you come up from G-R-A-K-A-P-A-P-A-N to G-R-A-K-A-P-A-P-A-N? This is a man who is very verbose,

08:18but he's not perfect by any means. And his back is up against the wall because the refiners are coming back

08:23from this calamitous Ortbo and they want to know what happened and we lost a refiner. So he's having to

08:31really kind of improv a little bit. And I, I really appreciate the fact that the creative team was willing

08:41to take the risk and play with this pronunciation a little bit. I know we got a little backlash for that,

08:48but you know, I hope that I have not offended the people of Sweden or anybody else who loves

08:53the Swedish language by, uh, mispronouncing this word on purpose, um, throughout the, the show.

09:03Feculence. That's a good word. Feculence is waste. Can I say it that way? Waste. Dirt, sediment,

09:14or waste matter. Use it in a sentence. Devour feculence.

09:23It's a good scene. Devour feculence. I've had a friend of mine who had reached out to me

09:32when that episode aired and said that this is a new phrase that he will be saying daily. And I

09:39appreciate that. I have seen signage at rallies with devour feculence on it. Um, so it has, uh,

09:49made an impact, uh, across the world. So that's really, really cool.

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