There are probably few television shows better suited to a sound bath than “Beef.” After two seasons of watching people swallow their anger until it manifests in increasingly destructive ways, Netflix spent a week encouraging Los Angeles to try something healthier. On Friday afternoon, I attended the final daytime event of its “Release Your Rage. Feel Your Calm.” campaign, a sound bath from The Den Meditation at The London West Hollywood. Just after the session ended, I sat down with “Beef” creator, writer and director Lee Sung Jin, better known as Sonny, to talk about a season built around many of the emotions we’d just been encouraged to let go.
The sound bath capped a citywide week of wellness events celebrating “Beef” and its 16 Emmy nominations, the most of any limited or anthology series this year. Netflix partnered with businesses across Los Angeles, offering experiences that ranged from robot massages to smoothies and matcha. The weekend may also have offered a preview of what’s to come as the television awards season moves toward the Emmys. The following night, “Beef” collected five prizes at the 6th Annual Astra TV Awards. The series won Best Limited Series and Best Ensemble, while Oscar Isaac and Charles Melton took home acting prizes. Lee won for his writing. He now heads toward the Emmys with three nominations of his own, including writing and directing.
Season 1 was defined by the combustible relationship between Steven Yeun’s Danny and Ali Wong’s Amy, performances that ultimately earned both actors Emmys. Lee could have easily returned with another pair of strangers and tried to recreate that formula. He didn’t. Season 2 instead revolves around a larger web of relationships, beginning with newly engaged country club employees Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Melton). They become entangled in the deteriorating marriage of their boss Josh (Isaac) and his wife Lindsay (Carey Mulligan). Eventually, billionaire Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung) and her husband, Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho), pull everyone into a world where money and power further complicate already messy relationships. The result earned acting nominations for Isaac, Mulligan, Melton and Youn, while recognition extended throughout the creative team.
Having spoken with much of that team this season, one name inevitably comes up in nearly every conversation: Sonny. Director Jake Schreier talks about establishing the season’s language with him. Cinematographer James Laxton, production designer Grace Yun and costume designer Olga Mill all describe collaborations that seem to begin with the same question: Who are these people? Only then do those conversations become about how the characters should look or the world they inhabit. Lee confirmed as much when we spoke. “The amount of creative character conversations we had greatly surpasses the technical conversations about lighting or what outfit,” he said. “It’s really all about character with this cast and crew.”
That philosophy is apparent in the writing. “Beef” understands how relationships change when two people don’t have the same amount of money or power, and how resentment can grow from something as simple as wanting access to a life someone else already has. Lee also knows how quickly embarrassment can turn into anger. His characters make terrible decisions, but rarely because the story simply needs them to behave badly. More often, they have convinced themselves that what they’re doing makes perfect sense.
Season 2 also gives Lee room to explore a different Asian American experience through Austin, who is half Korean. Lee’s daughter is half Korean, and several writers across both seasons have been half Asian. “Given how few opportunities we get as Asian American creatives to express ourselves, I want to make sure that we’re exploring different slices of the experience every time,” Lee said. Austin eventually finds himself caught between his life with Ashley and a wealthy Korean world that offers another possibility for who he could be. That storyline takes “Beef” to Korea, where Lee was born and attended elementary school. The season ultimately culminates in a wild fight inside a skin clinic, an idea that began with a wonderfully specific line Lee wrote in an early outline: “Oldboy-style fight in a skin clinic with skin flying around.”
Awards Focus spoke with Lee at The London West Hollywood just after the “Release Your Rage. Feel Your Calm.” sound bath about building the second season and how much his actors changed what he initially imagined on the page. We also discussed the personal experiences behind Austin’s Korean American identity, what it meant for Lee to return to Korea for the finale and whether he’s beginning to think about another “beef.”
Awards Focus: Sixteen Emmy nominations, an amazing season and an incredible cast. I know you play a significant role in casting and sometimes even write with particular actors in mind. Were there any performances this season that took a character somewhere you didn’t expect?
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, so many. Charles, for sure. I think his arc for that character really grew out of a collaboration. I’m notoriously late with my scripts, I think largely because I’m trying to leave a little room for discovery. I knew a starting point and an end point with his character, but how we got there was really over hours and hours of conversation and deep examination of ourselves.
Same with Oscar, Cailee, YJ and Song Kang-ho. These are some of my favorite actors of all time. Your favorite actors, they’re always there to surprise you. You write something on the page, and then suddenly they’ve added three dimensions to it on the day that you never could have dreamed up yourself.
It was like that from top to bottom. I get quoted all the time with people quoting Ava’s lines. Michaela Hoover, we cast her just to be in kind of one or two episodes, and because she was so good, we ended up writing her into so many more. Same with Bill Fichtner, who also has some of the most quotable lines and deliveries. All around our post-production office, people were imitating his, “See you mañana,” and he does this weird climb up the steps. You can’t come up with that on your own. Our cast was extremely, extremely talented. As a writer-director, I know that this doesn’t always happen, so I’m very fortunate.
AF: In many ways, you have four couples at the center of this season. Where do you find the richness and complexity of these relationships, whether it’s marriage, class or social dynamics? How much comes from your own experiences?
Lee: I’m in my mid-40s, and so with Josh and Lindsay, I think for myself and my elder millennial writer peers, it was very fun to dig into some midlife crisis stuff. The other three couples, that’s largely observing people we know and, truly, so many hours of conversations with our cast.
YJ, Song Kang-ho, they brought so much of themselves and people they know to their roles. Cailee and Charles, them being younger and depicting Gen Z, I think it was a lot of conversations about what they’re feeling in their lives and also just trying to remember what I was like in my 20s. I think that feeling is evergreen.
Being in your 20s and having these ideals and principles that you think are easy to follow, but then when you have to walk the walk as you get older and life throws you curveballs, you quickly realize why your previous generation acted the way they acted.
There’s nothing more ingenious than the universe, so it’s just trying to collect stories from everybody. And not just the cast, but our HODs as well, like Grace Yun, production designer; James Laxton, cinematographer; Olga Mill, costume designer. The amount of creative character conversations we had greatly surpasses the technical conversations about lighting or what outfit. It’s really all about character with this cast and crew. It’s just taking all those textures and then putting it on the right storytelling chord progression.
AF: You mentioned that collaboration with Charles. As a Korean American, and with Austin being half Korean, what aspects of Korean American or mixed Asian identity were important for you to explore this season?
Lee: In Season 1, we got to explore so much of a very specific Asian American experience. Very L.A.-based, with Danny, a lower-class Korean American, and with Amy, half Chinese, half Vietnamese, kind of upper-class millennial. Given how few opportunities we get as Asian American creatives to express ourselves, I want to make sure that we’re exploring different slices of the experience every time.
I knew that the experience of someone half Korean was going to be very important for Season 2. My daughter’s half Korean, and a lot of the writers over both seasons were half Asian. It definitely felt like a very ripe, fertile area that we hadn’t gotten to express yet.
I happened to be, between seasons, experiencing the very unique world of Korean conglomerates because I was shooting a music video in Korea. These private companies were sort of rolling out the red carpet, and I’d never been exposed to that before. That felt like an interesting depiction of that side of capitalism that I hadn’t really gotten to see in Western TV yet.
Those two pieces were sort of the first pieces that came together on Season 2. I knew that there’d be a tug-of-war, identity-wise, for a half-Korean character between his white partner and rich Korean society kind of pulling the other way.
AF: Speaking of Korea, how many times did you write and rewrite that scene where YJ gets punched in the face? [Laughs] It’s such an amazing sequence.
Lee: Thanks. With that one, we always knew, even when we were writing the first two episodes, that it would end in Korea. I had written down in an outline just the phrase, “Oldboy-style fight in a skin clinic with skin flying around.” So we knew that was going to be our North Star.
I never knew that it would involve punching the great Youn Yuh-jung. [Laughs] But she’s just such a professional and just down for anything. You pitch that to her and she cackles and loves it because she gets to try something new. She gets to do stunts.
I think shooting in Korea ended up being probably my favorite part of the entire experience. I just felt like I was going back home. It’s where I was born, where I went to elementary school. Getting to shoot there with a Korean crew, with some of the greatest Korean actors of all time, was kind of a pinch-me moment throughout that one-month shoot. I really am trying to make it a priority to go back to Korea and shoot something again soon.
AF: Congratulations again. I know you’re working on a few other small projects. [Laughs] Has an idea sparked yet for Season 3?
Lee: No, not yet. I think I’m trying to just focus on “X-Men” right now. If inspiration strikes, I’m open to a Season 3, and if it doesn’t, I’m happy to end it here. I leave it up to the writing gods.
AF: Thank you, Sonny.
Lee: Yeah. Thank you so much.