Sarah Bock, Unsevered

On her first day at Northwestern, Sarah Bock exchanged the usual introductions with her fellow theater majors: name, hometown, intended major, favorite television shows. She deliberately kept one secret to herself: in less than two months, she would make her national on-screen debut as Miss Huang in Apple TV’s Emmy-winning series Severance.

Sharing a café couch with Bock, I found it hard to reconcile the acclaimed actress I’d watched on screen with the ordinary college kid before me, dressed simply in a T‑shirt and jeans. Her stoic, no-nonsense portrayal of Miss Huang on Severance couldn’t have been further from the kindness and, well, life I saw in her eyes. 

Bock told me she spent her high school years at home due to the pandemic, and later, on set with cast members closer to her parents’ age than her own. She wanted a normal college life, with friendships rooted in genuine connection and free from the complications of her growing fame.

“It’s also just, like, an awkward thing to bring up without sounding like… an asshole?” Bock said, laughing.

During those early weeks, Bock befriended Ryan Samii, a fellow theater major who lived in the same dorm. While walking back home together from drama rehearsals, they bonded over their shared North Carolina roots and “pretty quickly could just talk about, like, anything,” Samii said.

Samii learned about Bock’s casting when she casually mentioned needing a lighter course load winter quarter because she would need to attend press conferences for “something” she had filmed. Hesitantly, she revealed it was the second season of Severance. Samii — who said he was thrilled for her — spent Christmas break binge-watching the first season to be ready for her on-screen debut.

Most of Bock’s closest friends, including Communication second-year Shahmeer Mirza, found out when she reposted a Vanity Fair article on her Instagram story. 

“When we saw the Vanity photo with her in that little bob, I was like, ‘What’s Sarah doing?’” Mirza said. 

The news didn’t change her friendships, except for a few extra jokes from Mirza about turning her in to TMZ, an entertainment news outlet known for celebrity scoops, Bock said. Bock feels extremely lucky that her friends aren’t afraid to tease or critique her.

Bock’s academic pursuits and college friendships mean far more to her than the glitz and glamour of her rising career, said her father, Justin Bock. 

“It’s almost like she’s a full-time student with kind of an acting hobby on the side,” Justin Bock said.

Throughout the show’s filming and promotional events, school remained his daughter’s top priority. Just two days before the 2025 Emmys in Los Angeles, she was moving into her dorm for her second year of college. The morning after the ceremony, she flew back to campus in time for the School of Communication’s welcome picnic.

Bock said the whiplash of switching between two starkly different lives mirrors the characters in Severance, who inhabit separate consciousnesses, each sealed off from the memories of the other. Looking back at her elegant red carpet look — an aqua Alexander McQueen dress and Louboutin heels — Bock said that version of herself feels like a dream. 

As we gossiped about the celebrities at the Emmys, Bock seemed more like a fellow teenage girl than a renowned actress who was on the same red carpet a few weeks ago. She gushed about seeing all the celebrities and described getting ready with fellow Severance stars Dichen Lachman and Jen Tullock before sharing a limousine with them.

“We’d look at the other cars and be like, ‘Oh, that’s the HBO car. Let’s see if we know anyone!” Bock said. 

One of Bock’s most vivid memories of walking the carpet was, ironically, struggling to walk in Louboutin heels. Her co-stars Lachman and Tullock had to hold her up because she was bobbling on the carpet, Bock said, laughing.

Bock said that she FaceTimed her parents throughout her time at the Emmys, sending them pictures of potential outfits for their opinions. She was grateful to have them on the phone to ground her during the surreal experience of being on the red carpet.

Justin Bock remembers when his daughter called him after the Emmys to talk about her Louboutin heels — not to fawn over their luxury, but to laugh over how difficult it was to walk in them.

“One time she got like Gucci slippers on set or something like that,” Justin Bock said. “But she’s the kind of person who goes, you know, thrifting for clothes. I don’t know if she feels like she fits in with the Hollywood culture.” 

For Bock, the most meaningful red carpet moment didn’t unfold at the Emmys — it happened on a $15 Amazon rug laid outside the steps of a Northwestern classroom. When AppleTV’s Severance premiere was cancelled due to the Los Angeles fires in January 2025, Samii collaborated with friends to rent out a lecture hall to celebrate Bock. 

“It was very, very sweet,” Bock said, smiling. “I feel very lucky. I’ve found a lot of great people here… it’s really a family.”

One reason her friends rally around Bock, Mirza said, is because she is always there for them. He recalls a moment when he was feeling overwhelmed and needed someone to talk to. Bock took time out of her day to sit with him, listen and help him work through the problem.

“At the end of the day, she’s just another girl,” Mirza said. “She’s experiencing college alongside all of us for the first time. She’s one of us.”