As Natalie, a devoted spokeswoman for the shadowy Lumon Industries on “Severance,” Sydney Cole Alexander has an exacting morning routine. It starts with that tightly coiled updo.
Ben Stiller, one of the Apple TV+ drama’s executive producers, “has a reputation for being very particular about hair,” Alexander said. After she was cast in the series, which follows workers who sign up for a procedure that bifurcates their personal and professional lives, she sat for a camera test. Stiller had asked her to repurpose the freeze-dried smile she flashed in a Crest commercial she’d booked the same day as “Severance,” and she encouraged him to let Natalie, the headset-wearing “conduit to the gods,” as she puts it, go blonder.
“Every curl on my head was curled,” Alexander recalled. “And I just thought it was so Lumon, because that would take forever. I think it helped me to think about: What is this woman’s morning like? How committed is she to perfection and this company, and representing them perfectly?”
In Season 2, which had its finale on Friday, the facade slips momentarily in a charged, nearly wordless exchange when Natalie presents Seth Milchick, a Black department chief and fellow Lumon true believer, with “inclusive” paintings from a tone-deaf board. “I did feel a little bit of sympathy with Milchick, which I think is terrifying for her,” said Alexander, who is biracial. “Because this is her prize, that she’s not sympathetic; it’s why she’s so good at her job.”
In a video interview this month from her Brooklyn apartment, Alexander opened up about another dream role, the Jim Carrey movie that gets her choked up, her incurable sweet tooth and more. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.
Vintage Shopping
As a teenager in New York City, a social activity was going to Beacon’s Closet or No Relation. I started furnishing my apartment with vintage things. There’s something so fun about the story of an item and that something can last, not even decades, but centuries.
Fitness
My first ever job was at the front desk of Equinox. I worked in fitness for a long time — I still teach cycling at a private gym. It’s so grounding, doing something that’s not about burning calories but is about just being in your body.
Rembrandt’s ‘Man in a Turban’
You know the museum scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”? Cameron is staring at the painting and it gets closer and closer until it’s just pixels. And he has this look on his face. I had one of those moments. I like to go to the Met and walk around, and I see this painting — it touched me so much, this expression of melancholy in this man’s face.
‘The Drama of the Gifted Child’ by Alice Miller
My therapist told me it was originally titled “Prisoners of Childhood,” but that it was too much. It’s a wonderful book about the psychology of moving forward and growing up.
Therapy
Aside from being an actor, my life goal is to be as aware and as responsible as I can. I started going to therapy when I was 19 or 20. I would wake up at 6 a.m., get on the Metro-North, see my therapist at 8, and just make it to my 10 a.m. class.
‘The Truman Show’
It’s this incredible story of a man who’s been fed a reality, lies, but against all odds has a desire to awaken and see reality for what it is. I’m getting teared up thinking about it. Struggling with your own reality, especially if you grew up in a way where it was distorted, is the most terrifying thing.
Tolstoy on Tape
I was a little bit of a bad student growing up — I wanted to go to acting class, I didn’t want to go to my academics. So I started listening to some classic books, and now I’m educating myself later in life by listening to “Anna Karenina.” A little late, but it’s better late than never!
‘Danny and the Deep Blue Sea’
It’s this beautiful, emotionally violent play about these two characters who meet at a bar, and they’re both really messed up, filled with trauma, and they’re going to go home together and try to love each other. It is a dream for me to play Roberta. Even if I have to do it myself, in a park.
My Cats
Over the pandemic, I took three abandoned cats in. One we gave away. The other two, Cleo and Pipsqueak, were so attached that it was clear they were not going to be separated. They drool when I pet them, they run to the door. I am now a cat and a dog person.
Milk Dinner
Petee’s Pies. Doughnut Plant. Levain. If I could live off baked goods, I would. I sometimes have what I call Milk Dinner, where I just have a big glass of milk — because that’s the great thing about being an adult, you can have milk and cookies for dinner — but I’ve stopped eating a whole pie because I get a stomachache.
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