Onscreen, she’s searching for herself. Offscreen, she met UF students with authenticity and vulnerability.
UF students lined up outside the University Auditorium Thursday evening to hear Emmy Award-winning actress Britt Lower talk about her film career, portrayal of beloved Helly R. in the Apple TV series “Severance” and valuable life advice.
Lower is the second speaker hosted by the Student Government-run Accent Speakers Bureau this semester after “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston visited Aug. 21. The agency has hosted celebrities like Ke Huy Quan, Sal Vulcano and Tim Tebow since 1967.
Lower won the 2025 Emmy Award for Best Leading Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in “Severance,” a psychological thriller about the employees of a company, Lumon Industries, who undergo a procedure to divide their personal and professional lives.
She’s also known for her roles as Liz in the comedy show “Man Seeking Woman” and Tanya in the drama series “Unforgettable.”
At 7 p.m., a crowd of UF fans filled the University Auditorium and sat in keen anticipation. One of those fans was Sarah Garfield, a 22-year-old UF neuroscience and English senior. She came with her friends to see the star from one of their favorite shows.
“We’re all really big ‘Severance’ fans. We even had a big ‘Severance’ watch party last semester,” Garfield said. “It was really awesome to be able to put our niche, ‘Severance’ interests here at UF.”
When the light grew dim, Ted Spiker, associate dean of undergraduate affairs at the College of Journalism and Communications and moderator for the night, came on the stage. Students jumped up, cheering. Lower joined him, earning massive applause from the crowd.
Lower discussed her love for the arts and said she grew up learning it was universal.
“Art is for everybody, and it’s available with whatever you’ve got to use,” Lower said.
Lower recounted her acting journey from her earliest memories — playing a snowman in her school’s Christmas play — to the present.
She grew up in an artistic environment with her mother, she said, a face-painting business owner and former high school home economics teacher who always had arts and crafts around the house. Every Christmas, her family hosted a Victorian-themed variety show, turning the house into “a theater of sorts,” Lower said.
Lower first realized she wanted to act for a living when, in high school, she got cast in a production of the musical “Gypsy.” She had to pick between acting and staying on the basketball team. Choosing was devastating, she said, but she could remember every role with its intricacies and feelings she ever played, and she did not feel the same passion with basketball.
“That felt significant to me that, for me personally, I had more of a connection to when I was embodying a character and taking myself through a story,” Lower said.
During her time at Northwestern University, Lower immersed herself in theater, becoming a technical director and taking acting classes. She especially loved improv acting, which she initially joined to get closer to a boy she liked.
“Mostly, it scared me, which I think is a healthy thing to do creatively,” Lower said. “I just decided, ‘Okay. I’m going to spend the next four years trying to make everyone else look good and make them funny.’”
That aspect of improv helped her in later roles, Lower said. She became skilled in highlighting a character’s faults and stupidities with comedic timing and reactions, she said.
She spoke about her role as Helly R. in “Severance,” a stubborn, defiant employee at Lumon Industries.
Lower said she thinks everyone has aspects of Helly’s complex character, like an inner child and critic that makes us ask ourselves if there is another version that is more pure and innocent.
“I think it just raises a lot of questions like, who are we really with the different environments in our lives?” Lower said.
Lower also dished out advice. To prepare for her role as Helly R., she said, she often sketched her character’s scenes to put herself in a certain headspace. Visual art, Lower said, helps her obtain the feelings she needs to accurately portray Helly R.
Creativity can be used in many fields of work in different ways, she said, and there is value in doing creative things just for the private self.
Lower also said to “make mistakes fast, and don’t be afraid to fail.” There is something liberating about making bad work, she said, and getting over the humility of being bad at something.
While answering students’ questions, Lower was asked if she would ever sever a part of her life — to which she said no. While there are uncomfortable aspects of life, they lead to beautiful moments, she said.
“In the moment, you want to say, ‘I want to skip this; I want to numb out, I want to take that pill or put that chip in my brain and just switch off,’” Lower said. “But, if I zoom out and look at my experiences in life, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the things that really hurt.”
Gabriella Garibaldi, a 21-year-old UF psychology senior, said it was exciting to hear Lower speak and be engaged with the students.
“I’m a big theater kid myself too, so hearing her speak on just her creative process was really insightful,” Garibaldi said. “She was just so excited to be there that it showed through all her responses.”
Samhitha Katuru, a 20-year-old UF psychology and anthropology junior, said as a “Severance” fan, it was surreal to see Lower, and she felt surprised by how insightful she was.
Lower’s advice about not being afraid to make mistakes stuck with her, she said.
“Make them loud, make them quick,” Katuru said. “You know you don’t really get a chance later in life to make those mistakes.”
Contact Angelique Rodriguez at arodriguez@alligator.org. Follow her on X @angeliquesrod.
Angelique is a first-year journalism major and the Fall 2025 graduate school reporter. In her free time, she'll probably be reading, writing, hanging out with her friends or looking through the newest fashion runway shows on Vogue.
