In the way that Lumon Industries is disconnected to its workers on Apple TV+’s Severance, so too is Hollywood perhaps disoriented about its creatives, Ben Stiller posits.

Previewing the highly anticipated and delayed second season of the mystery-box thriller to the New York Times in a recent interview, the executive producer and director likened the lack of control the series’ characters have to a similar floundering facing those in the entertainment industry.

“At a certain point there’s always somebody making a decision who is not making it to your face or you don’t even know who that person is,” Stiller said, referencing the show’s unraveling of a group of workers who have chosen to surgically bifurcate their brains into work (aka innies) and home (outies) selves.

In Severance Season 1, the eerie contentment of a fictional conglomerate — occupied by characters played by Adam Scott, John Turturro and...