The critically acclaimed hit Apple TV+ series “Severance” has a cast of stars, including Adam Scott, John Torturro, Patricia Arquette and Christopher Walken. But one of the most prominent roles in the show is played by arguably New Jersey’s most iconic building - Bell Works in Holmdel.

Director Ben Stiller and his team knew they needed the ultimate architectural expression of corporate utopia as the backdrop for their dystopian series, and they found it in the Garden State.

"They were blown away by the sheer magnitude of this building," said Moshe Gross, head of Reset Locations, a real estate broker who finds locations for film productions. "They loved the long lines, the walks, the concrete, the steel. Everything about this space."

Formerly home to AT&T's famed Bell Laboratories, the building opened in 1962 as the ultimate "idea factory." The work behind nine Nobel Prizes, the transistor and the big bang theory all were done here. It remains one of the most important addresses in the history of technology.

Now, it's a prominent backdrop in the gripping Apple TV+ series, which depicts a corporation that turns its employees into disembodied drones by installing a chip in their brains, erasing all memories of their work life when they leave the office and vice versa.

On today's installment of "Brian's Positively New Jersey" we take a walk through history and science fiction, with a visit to a building that stands as the ultimate monument to Americans' changing relationship to work - in both fiction and real life.