Severance is a show where everything feels at once familiar and unfamiliar. Long, stark-white office hallways create a feeling of dread, while beloved actors known best for their roles in comedies must suffer through unspeakable horrors. But one cheery cameo in the second episode of Severance Season 2 sparked recognition in many viewers of the Apple TV+ show, and prompted them all to say, “Wait, was that Keanu Reeves?” Yes, that is indeed Reeves’ voice as the animated Lumon building in the short video that the Macrodata Refinement team (or MDR) are forced to watch in Episode 2. Reeves reveals how he got the surprising cameo.
“I got a call from Ben Stiller out of the blue and he said, ‘You want to do a voiceover?’” Reeves tells Inverse in an interview for his upcoming Roku docuseries Visionaries. He says that after he got the call from the Severance executive producer, he read the script and immediately said yes. And that’s how he ended up as the voice of the Lumon building in the animated video that greets MDR when they’ve all been reunited and put back to work.
