- 6 weeks ago
The Emmy-award winning 'BEEF,' from Netflix, returns this week with a new cast and a new "beef." Our Audacy hosts made their way to Los Angeles to talk with the artists behind 'BEEF,' to see what makes season 2 different, and what’s the thread that runs through the series. Check out our conversation with creator Lee Sung Jin and star Charles Melton.
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00:01thank you so much for joining us first of all anybody that can make such deep trauma
00:05happening in real time funny deserves a million bajillion dollars and emmys of course um but
00:12something that personally took me by surprise uh when you chose to use dr alia body that was
00:19actually my wife and my fertility doctor when we lived in la and she really is amazing
00:25she's the best that's how i have a one-year-old daughter now no she literally saved my life
00:32like my womanhood everything she was incredible she she is like a miracle worker and like a true
00:38saint on this earth she absolutely is oh i love that i didn't even know that yeah i texted her
00:44when
00:44i decided to put her in the show i was like i sent her like the script i was like
00:48is this okay
00:48and like she signed a waiver and she's like oh she was flattered so uh oh yeah she's wonderful
00:53what so i wanted to ask you you know i think that um with all of the things that you're
00:59sort of
00:59touching upon adding a real element like that obviously i dived in even deeper i felt even
01:05closer to the series and the characters is that uh one of the reasons that you chose to use
01:11you know real people instead of characters because you could have chosen anybody for a doctor but
01:17yeah exactly i think um you know you're always trying to create as much like versimilitude as
01:23you possibly can as a writer and uh you know in the country club setting especially uh when you
01:29visit these country clubs like montecito club there's just a random assortment of people there's
01:34retired athletes there's gymnasts uh there's dr ali abadi you know so uh anything we could do to
01:42sort of make the world feel real uh you know actually had more cameos written and then netflix was like
01:49why don't you uh chill chill michael phelps venmo is that well phelps was one of the few people where
01:57we absolutely had to get him because that joke what's your venmo handle it only works with certain
02:02names you know it's only really like at michael jordan and at michael phelps so uh no i was like
02:11thrilled when he said yes and also like like truly over the moon when he was so funny and he
02:17brought his
02:18olympic spirit uh because between takes you could hear him talk to himself and he was just pushing
02:24himself so hard he's like you know this you rehearse this he was like going for the gold and i
02:30was like
02:31i was like michael you know we can do as many takes as you want did you say i did
02:36did you say that he's
02:38like you know other people's lines too yeah he did he could hear everyone else's lines like
02:43he was just so dialed in i was like oh i get it i get why he's a great yeah
02:48well i mean you
02:50you even have sunu lee in the show too the gymnast and so uh i i thought it was so
02:56funny that when you
02:57were talking to her you were like sweating was part of that real life sweating because she's actually
03:01just such a cool gymnast oh yeah that's absolutely real life i mean there's a little bit of help with
03:06the sweat but i mean it's sunu lee you know she's she's an olympian and an icon and you know
03:15just like
03:16austin he justifies the reason why he's sweating and very nervous you know due to my high basal
03:24metabolic rate you said that so much was that written in or were you just throwing that in just to
03:29be
03:30funny at certain points that was random that was that was that's something that my trainer tells me
03:34all the time okay see i've noticed that you have all of these moments where it's like you're writing
03:40these things but from places that are personal to you you you've put in your real fertility doctor
03:45people that you actually know um the inspiration for beef season one came from a personal experience
03:52how was beef season two created it was very similar um you know we were in the awards run for
03:58season
03:59one and we still hadn't gotten a season two pickup and so i was like you know what's the guy
04:03got to
04:03do to get a pickup and i was just pitching ideas like wildly like i was like oh it'll be
04:12about like a
04:13men's uh doubles partnership that like breaks up in the middle of the tennis circuit and then like
04:17challengers came out and uh yeah and jenny at netflix jenny how she wisely pulled me aside and was
04:24like you know i can tell you're just pitching to pitch uh you don't have to do a season two
04:30of
04:30beef we can do another show together uh you can keep beef as a limited that's how you designed it
04:36there's a period at the end of the sentence that is season one so unless something um hits you that
04:43you're truly inspired by we can leave beef alone and when someone calls you out like that you're just
04:49like oh man i gotta like take a hard look in the mirror you know and uh and so i
04:55was ready to walk
04:55away but then of course the universe like struck me in the face and another real life incident where
05:03i overheard um as josh's character says in the show a heated debate coming from a couple's home
05:10i'll speak vaguely since i still live in said neighborhood
05:18but what was fascinating to me wasn't the incident itself it was how people reacted to the incident
05:25so when i told my like gen z peers about it they reacted like austin and ashley where they were
05:31like
05:31did you call the cops like are they okay should you follow up and then i tell like my millennial
05:38and
05:38gen x peers and they just be like i mean i'd be like yeah were they italian it's fine exactly
05:46so i
05:47found that you know dichotomy so fascinating and i thought there might be a season here where we could
05:53really examine love and marriage across time and see how it changes as a life's hurdles change and um
06:02you know once we had that that's when all the doors started opening and all the dots started connecting
06:06yeah i love how complex this season is first of all congrats on season two we were all just talking
06:11about how we all collectively sobbed especially in the finale oh wow thank you oh big time yeah
06:16i have videos of me crying on the plane no way i was like people are going to think i'm
06:20unwell
06:20wow that's uh i'll have to see that later
06:26prove it
06:30but it's so complex so many layers to this season so many different takeaways but one for me was how
06:36funny the show is your comedic timing especially like in the finale just like your dialogue with dr
06:42kim i was laughing out loud but i was crying like before and after like you know roller coaster of
06:50emotions how do you balance the dark humor with some of the intense extreme topics well thank you
06:57first of all i mean i'll i'll gas charles up for a second here you know uh you know charles
07:04is the
07:04first piece uh that we brought on to season two uh because you know like everybody else i had watched
07:12may december and just been blown away and that tone that you're talking about is exhibited in that movie
07:18specifically on the roof scene after he smokes weed it's so emotional it's so heartbreaking but i
07:24also found myself laughing right and so the ability to capture both tones and ground it is something
07:31that very very few actors can do and we knew early on that you know season one explored so much
07:37of the
07:37korean-american diaspora we wanted season two to explore something new which was the experience of
07:43someone half korean so we actually um met at a gold house dinner uh which is an organization in the
07:50aapi community that was celebrating his performance in may december wow and i emailed the organizer and
07:55i was like hey you gotta seat me next to charles at this dinner because i'm gonna pitch him all
08:00of season
08:00two and i had like my like powerpoint slides with his face in them yeah and then i showed up
08:08and then
08:08there was a seat open next to him chloe xiao three seats down so i was like i guess they
08:13moved somebody
08:16and uh yeah i pitched him the whole season and by like you know the second appetizer you know you
08:23were in i think it was before they set the water down and what's funny is i actually if i
08:29recall i believe
08:31uh being who uh runs the gold house and started the gold house he uh mentioned that i think
08:38now my memory started to come to me he mentioned that sonny requested to sit next to me and i
08:43was
08:43like that's the only person i want to sit next to oh my god wow so so it was meant
08:47to be uh-huh it was
08:48meant to be and then just from there that just kind of led onto this expansive journey of just the
08:55the the the mind of sunny and his creative genius and just what he does so well going to what
09:01you were
09:01saying about just something that's so filled with it's there's not really a specific tone but it is
09:07like reminiscent of my favorite korean films when you think of memories of murder parasite no other
09:12choice mother handmaid and you're experience experiencing these roller coasters of emotions
09:18but you're also finding this gray area of levity of humor and you know
09:26you know life doesn't need slapstick comedy to be funny film doesn't need that there are mediums to
09:36that but in the storytelling of life like sunny you know says it you know life is funny as is
09:41sometimes the circumstances in the context of a situation is insane where that can bring and watching
09:50the these complex humans navigate that in their own humanity is very delicious and juicy to explore as
10:00an artist but also as the viewer you know for me i'm sure if you guys remember this in episode
10:05one
10:06austin is trying to save that bee right right he and the way that it's structured and the way it's
10:14placed with throughout the episode is we laugh because he said texas is a beast died i cried
10:20i ain't laughing when i'm filming that right you know i'm but that scene is of service to the mind
10:30and the storytelling of sunny where it brings this levity like for me i'm not playing the humor in that
10:35there's no humor in trying to save a bee and trying to figure out what of if you're useless or
10:41worthy or
10:42not and how am i going to be of use if you know no one's you know there's nothing funny
10:47in that but
10:48then sunny finds these ways which without taking away from the truth of what's happening can at
10:54time be funny it's real it's real relatable it's life so relatable so relatable so funny you know i
11:02you know i i you know that's another big thing about sunny when i think about about my favorite
11:07filmmaker is park chon wook and bong joon ho like their prodigy is sunny lee sungjin you know he is
11:14the agramation of both and you know he only does what he knows and it just you know you see
11:19it in his
11:19work in season one i'm just like wow what i'm seeing on beef i was like whoa this is like
11:25the my favorite
11:26films from the east from korea like are now being made in the west and this is lee sungjin who's
11:34korean
11:35american like me and come to find out over the thousands of hours and late calls till two o'clock
11:42in the morning talking about you know the our shadow cells or the existential questions that we have we
11:49found ourselves naturally just collaborating and sunny mining things from just the conversations
11:55we're having like we'll be talking about something and he's like i can hear tapping on his
11:59phone like he's just like writing like i'm like what are you writing and like you know that like
12:05there's just this constant just overflow of art without limitations right because like the show
12:11touches on different themes you know and what would you want people to walk away with you know because
12:18the resentment is really it's universal right like we all feel resentment and when and something that
12:26phineas was talking about is like when you're in that moment like you have the option of if you're
12:31going to react or if you're going to sort of be honest and talk about how you're feeling so what
12:35i would love to hear from each of you what do you hope that people walk away with after they
12:40watch
12:40season two of beef you know we intentionally left the ending really open to interpretation um that top
12:47shot was actually something we re-shot uh kind of deep into the edit originally the show was supposed to
12:52end with yj's face on the grave with ants crawling all over her face uh and it was shot beautifully
12:59it was acted beautifully but just wasn't hitting and uh i think what i loved about working on season
13:07one's finale was that there was a kind of a deeper spirituality to the finale and so i wanted um
13:14the
13:15ending of season two to have a little bit of that spiritual depth and so um you know we huddled
13:20together
13:20with the cast and hods and i have these paintings saved on my phone that are depictions of the
13:26buddhist and hindu concept of samsara which is the idea that we're all kind of eternally trapped in these
13:32cycles of life and death and love and suffering and i'm like how can we visually show that given our
13:39limited time and resources for this reshoot and so we came up with this concept this top shot and my
13:46favorite works of art and television are the ones that kind of leave space for you to participate as
13:51the viewer um sopranos does that so well mad men does that so well uh so uh you know as
13:58we were
13:58shooting it i did find myself stop thinking about the characters and start thinking about my own life
14:03and just projecting my own feelings and regrets and everything so you know in answer to your question
14:10my hope is that uh you know wherever you're at in your life uh that we've supplied a wide enough
14:17canvas for you to be able to project what you're going through and hopefully that changes over time
14:21you know we talked about uh the conversation with dr kim and i don't know why this scene hit me
14:27as hard
14:27as it did but you're watching this man trying to have a conversation in korean with people that only
14:33speak english and he's clearly as we can see through the subtitles talking about something very vulnerable very
14:39important and they're nodding and trying to understand but they don't and it's hilarious
14:44surface level was it intentional sort of to highlight emotional intelligence and sort of
14:50show the audience you know as humans with or without language it's difficult to sometimes have
14:58vulnerable conversations and if you're saying it to somebody who doesn't speak that language it's not
15:03going to be understood even if they're trying yeah no 100 i mean i think uh you know that that
15:10that was
15:11the you know hard tug of war with that scene is to find that balance you know because he like
15:15you're
15:16saying he is saying something so uh especially through the the the performance of song gang oh uh something
15:23so profound feeling um but yeah he's he's someone that clearly hasn't even been able to say any things to
15:31any of these things to his own wife and and here he is in a stranger full of hallways just
15:36kind of
15:36vomiting it out his insides in hopes that he can convince these people to do something very drastic
15:42and urgent and he's looking to this guy nodding acting like he speaks korean which again this was
15:49this was born from real life too the first time i met charles was at an award show uh this
15:54is before
15:55that dinner brief interaction he said something in me to korean fluent you know i was like wow that
16:01guy's fluent in korean you know i might have to like think of something like super korean for him
16:05come to find out he only can say four things
16:13so that i thought i just put that into the show and so i thought that was something very funny
16:19but also
16:19like you're saying pointing at something deeper uh about how people connect um but you know that day
16:27was really fun because charles actually made song gang oh break in that scene
16:32he was his his reactions were so funny uh it was you know you again the greatest of all time
16:42yeah
16:42song gang oh yeah right and and that again too quickly just with just that just is you know that's
16:48it's such an emotional scene you're hearing him vomit his truth and his reality and then
16:54the humor is not so much in the joke but in just the context of how sunny right wrote it
16:59to where
17:01oh this guy gives this beautiful monologue and it's for us the audience to hear and read it but
17:08austin and carrie or austin and ashley and lizzie really don't know what's going on he goes okay i think
17:14it's soup yeah there's no there's no like self-awareness he's like genuinely proud yeah
17:21yeah like you know one thing and then one of the responses from song song kong's character uh
17:29dr kim is like i don't understand like even your native mannerisms or your your mannerisms are that of
17:35a you know native korean person which is something that i like really leaned into in my korean is because
17:41i can have a conversation with you or anyone in korea and just saying
17:51yeah yeah he he he can really do that for a very long time
18:01people will be convinced i'm like yeah how important is it for both of you to have the
18:08opportunity to represent korean culture in more of like a western world and how much responsibility
18:15did you feel because for a lot of people it's like this is an introduction to uh culture and to
18:19language
18:19and i think that the world needs a lot more learning of each other's cultures now i mean it's immensely
18:25important to us uh you know we're trying to express ourselves and uh you know we have many dimensions
18:31and one of them is uh that we are uh people who grew up in korea that also spent some
18:38time here as
18:39well so i think season one we explored a lot of like the true western korean american experience and
18:46um i think what's important is that we show a lot of different sides and uh we never want to
18:53repeat
18:53ourselves like our favorite musicians and bands when you look at their debut album compared to their
18:58sophomore album if they just repeat the debut album you're like i'm going to move on to a different
19:02band and so you know we were challenging ourselves this season to be like okay what haven't we seen
19:07well we haven't seen the experience of a half korean we haven't seen uh the korean ceo chebol society
19:15and the allures and temptations of that uh you know i was starting to interact you know there's this one
19:22uh uh prominent director in korea i won't say his name who acts like he doesn't speak english and
19:29uses his translator as a buffer on set you know and so these little subtle specificities uh that we
19:39don't get to see in season one we wanted to put all that into season two and that's just the
19:44beginning
19:44you know there's there's endless um themes textures backstories that uh make up uh the asian american
19:54and the asian experience and so you know there we always want to just like keep pursuing new things
20:00yeah you can't that's what i love and just piggybacking off of everything sunny's saying like in regards
20:06specifically to sunny you know lee sungjin there is you know he is the bridge from the east to the
20:14west
20:14here based off of his experience and his artistry there is no limitations or confinements to his art
20:22he's not limiting his art just to identity he is by default because of his own experiences and how he
20:30expresses his art all those things are influenced by that and cultures and different regions you
20:36know and it was very uh it was very exciting for me to not only one have someone like lee
20:46sungjin come
20:47to me and talk about beef and wanting to write a half korean half american story but also to just
20:54understand maybe an experience of awesome which my heart broke for because this is someone who
21:01in his genetic makeup his epigenetics like at the end of episode three when he's talking
21:06about being around this many koreans he is korean but he's so far away and his experiences people
21:12think he's mexican that was you know spawned from a conversation that sunny and i had where
21:17depending on where i am geographically people are like oh are you brazilian mexican
21:21you know and so you know or even the idea of ashley she's like oh
21:29we're i never saw us as a mixed race couple he's arizona oh my god like that's like relatable you
21:36know what i mean like you know and in in our own experiences like you know if someone from you
21:42know
21:42uh you could be full korean and this is just an assumption you'd be full korean living in america and
21:47people are like oh but like you're american you're not korean yeah yeah you know so there's just like this
21:51interesting dichotomy that is just a part of the whole picture of what we want to do as artists
21:58and the voice that we have and not confining that just to the responsibility of oh i have to just
22:05tell
22:05this part or express this part you know i uh that's not what art is and why confine that you
22:12know why not
22:13just present a beautiful table of delicious foods for the audience to digest and take what they want and
22:20connect with what they want and then dispose of the rest yeah well i think you did the korean culture
22:25proud i think you did your children proud because i think we all got a really great insight on gen
22:30z and
22:30how we've sort of messed up and left them with nothing so they may have tiktok but you know yeah
22:36you can make fun of them for it but they've really have had no opportunity to yes grow the way
22:42that we
22:43have and the insight that you brought i think i speak for all of us it just made us emotional
22:48hopefully we're building a better place for your babies our babies yeah yes yeah the show really
22:53leaves you with a lot to digest and to think about and to feel and you you just knocked it
22:59out of the
23:00park so thank you very much we loved it we really did thank you for your time today thank you
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