Severance star explains her creepy new character, Miss Huang

There are lots of weird things happening on the severed floor at Lumon Industries. There's a roomful of goats. There are violent paintings everywhere. There's a long dark hallway people walk down and never come back. And there's a child named Miss Huang serving as deputy manager.

Miss Huang, played by Northwestern University student Sarah Bock, is a new addition to the Severance cast this season. Several characters have expressed open puzzlement over why a child is now working in a position of authority over severed adults twice her age. So far, she's never answered those questions. "She’s probably prepared for it, but that’s part of the reason she’s so guarded and doesn’t show much emotion," Bock told Vulture. "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."

One possibility is that Miss Huang isn't really a child. The show revolves around people who have had their personalities severed, such they can't remember anything of their home lives when they're at the office and vice versa. If Lumon has the technology to do something like that, who's to say they couldn't...I dunno...put an adult's mind into a child's body or something? But Bock seems to think that Miss Huang really is a kid, just one who grew up steeped in the cult of Lumon founder Kier Eagen, whom the employees treat with messiah-like reverence.

For instance, take the way she objects to holding a funeral for Irving B. (John Turturro) in the latest episode of the show, since that will make the other severed employees " feel like real people." That suggests that Miss Huang doesn't see them as people. "The way she says it, it’s very innocent and almost throwaway," Bock said. "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."

"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."

And yet, because Miss Huang is so young, she may not change her mind about severed workers. "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," Bock revealed. "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."

Severance producers wanted Miss Huang to be "almost scary"

Bock also talked about how the got the role in the first place. She hadn't seen Severance before her audition, but soon became as obsessed as the rest of us. “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," she said.

So she sent in a self-tape, and a month later she had a Zoom call with producer Ben Stiller where he gave her notes on the role. "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 (who plays Mr. Milchick). Getting to interact with and play off him gave me a lot of information about the strength of the character."

"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.'"

From Children of the Corn to now, there's always been something creepy about kids who act way too confident and powerful for their age. And we may not have seen how creepy Miss Huang can be; Bock suggests she may jump at the chance to take the job of director away from Mr. Milchick. "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."

I also have to mention this fun fact: you know how Miss Huang wheels out a bust of Irving's head carved from watermelon at his funeral? According to Bock, it's made out of styrofoam. Just FYI.

New episodes of Severance drop Thursday nights on Apple TV+. We've exactly halfway through the season, so if there are answers regarding who Miss Huang is and why's allowed to violate child labor laws like she does, surely they're coming soon.

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