Barack Obama turned down Keanu Reeves’ role in ‘Severance’.
The former United States President, 63, was offered a role in the hit AppleTV+ psychological sci-fi thriller series by Ben Stiller – who serves as executive producer and director on the show – as the voice of an animated Lumon building in a film shown to staff in season two.
Appearing on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ this week, Ben said: “There was one person that I asked before [Keanu], and he said no.”
Ben confirmed Obama was the other person, and explained: “I didn’t ask him in person. I knew someone who knew his lawyer, and his lawyer said: ‘I can relay the request if you write an email, so I wrote this email to him saying: ‘Hey, we have this show… whatever.’
“Two days later, I get an email back from President Barack Obama saying: ‘Hey Ben, big fan of the show, love season one, can’t wait for season two.
“‘Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen.’ ”
The 59-year-old comedian joked that he couldn’t thing of anything “more important than doing the voice-over for the animated building in Severance”.
The show – which stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower and John Turturro – focuses on office workers at Lumon industries who have undergone the so-called ‘severance’ procedure, which is the clinical separation of their work and personal lives.
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Ben admitted it was “pretty cool” that Obama responded at all, before opening up on how Keanu, 60, took to the role.
