Britt Lower was photographed July 26 at Pier59 Studios in New York. Artistic & Fashion Director Alison Edmond, Dries van Noten jacket; Maison H ear cuff. Photographed by AB + DM. Hair: Kenna. Makeup: Maki Ryoke. Nails: Jazz Style. Fashion Assistants: Bella Kulukundis, Marley Pearson. The sustained eye contact is unnerving. It was Britt Lower's idea. I met the actress five minutes ago, and as soon as we took a seat on a riverfront bench in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, she put her iced matcha down and pulled art supplies from her tote bag. As a rapport- building exercise, she proposed that we draw each other's portrait without looking at the paper. She set a timer for three minutes, a mortifyingly long time to be looking directly at someone, which gets progressively less awkward as I realize that she seems completely at ease. My perspective, staring directly into Lower's hazel-green irises, framed by her angular cheekbones and copper bangs, is one viewers of Apple TV+'s Severance know well. It's the face of Helly R, so often seen in close-up on the elevator to the Severed Floor of Lumon industries, her eyes flickering ever so slightly as the person she was on the outside (her "outie") cedes her consciousness to a version of her that knows only the drudgeries of office life (her "innie"). Lower's electric performance in the role earned her an Emmy nomination, one of 27 garnered by the show, the second-highest number of nominations for any kind of TV show in a single year. Related Stories Lifestyle Knives Out: Celebrities Reveal Plastic Surgery Secrets -- But One Procedure Still Taboo TV Back in Black: Jenna Ortega and Tim Burton Break Their Silence on 'Wednesday' Season 2 Photographed by AB + DM The sophomore season of the brain-bending show, created by Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson, was Apple TV+'s most watched series worldwide ever, according to the streamer. How does she explain its success? "I have so many answers, but the best one I can think of is that it's a show about what makes us human," she says, continuing to sketch. The premise of the series - that our work life and home life can literally be two separate lives - speaks to a duality she says is within all of us, at least within her. "I have this part of me that just wants to make a nest all the time and hunker down," she says. "And then there's this other part of me that just always wants to be driving across the country with my trailer hitched to the back of my car and, like, exploring things. So I have these two sides: the rule follower versus the rebel. I think most people do." Finding stardom at 40 - after a largely under-the-radar career of scene-stealing small roles - hasn't tamed her wanderlust. There's a reason she calls Helly R her "soulmate." Like her trapped counterpart, she's ever alert to the possibility of escape from conformity, alive to surreal moments that pierce the mundane and fill her with wonderment. Between seasons, Lower has literally run off to join a circus, a community of itinerant artists to whom she feels deeply connected (and who are also big on eye contact): "I love to watch people do incredible things and test the limits of what a human body can do." She dreams of returning to the circus before season three starts shooting - if only she weren't so busy these days. In two hours, she's heading back to the Toronto set of I Will Find You, a Netflix series based on a Harlan Coben thriller in which she plays a journalist. Maybe this is why she appears to be studying me. In my peripheral vision, I clock the confidence of her pen strokes. No surprise: Her mother is an artist, and the two started a face-painting business together. "I really enjoy art as a way to connect," she says. This is the skill she chose to demonstrate on Conan O'Brien in her first talk show appearance, in 2017, when promoting the FXX comedy Man Seeking Woman. She ended up showing off not just her artistry but her improv-honed comedy instincts. "At one point, I told him to close his mouth because I was painting on his mouth," she recalls. "The producers, I'm sure, were freaking out because I've just told the talk show host to stop talking." We reveal our artwork. My drawing is laughably bad (again, I wasn't allowed to look). Hers nails me. "The exercise that you had together, that is totally on brand for Britt," says Tramell Tillman, Lower's Severance castmate and fellow Emmy nominee who plays office supervisor Seth Milchick on the show. "She finds the humanity." The two bonded from the get-go while filming the first season, at the height of COVID-19. "We had a text thread called The Freshman Class," Tillman says, "and it was pretty much a group of us who were, for lack of a better word, the newbies to this whole television industry," amid an intimidating cast of such seasoned film and television stars like Adam Scott, John Turturro and Christopher Walken. "It was so hectic during the pandemic. She doesn't know this, but there were times where I felt like I was