For Lee Sung Jin, Beef is the first show that bears his name as the creator and showrunner — it’s also the most of himself he’s ever poured into a project. When the 10 episodes dropped on Netflix in early April, critics fawned over the dark comedy and its culturally specific study of anger, which begins with a road rage incident that leads to a contentious feud between Danny (Steven Yeun) and Amy (Ali Wong). For Lee, that sort of critical acceptance was very meaningful, but not nearly as “life-affirming” as the responses from “people I’d see on Reddit or who DMed me who are struggling with some sort of deep depression or a mental health thing who watch the show and say, ‘Hey, I felt like the show was me and I feel less alone about it,’ ” he says. “That’s been really nice and it, in turn, has made me feel less alone.” Taking a break from the WGA strike picket line, Lee fielded THR‘s questions about the series’ origins, impact and future.
Related Stories
Until recently, you wrote under the name Sonny Lee. What prompted the change?
My given name is Lee Sung Jin. I was born in Korea, and we moved around a lot, and one of those times was from Seoul to Minnesota in the sixth grade, which is not an easy time to move. Every day during attendance was a true nightmare. One day I was angrily staring at the name section of my homework, and I just wrote down “Sonny” and it stuck. It made me more friends, and I just ran with it forever.
You’re laughing about it now, but I suspect you weren’t then.
No, and the first half of my writing career, even though I had a lot of success, I found I was sort of copying and mimicking and just trying to fit in. I was writing what I thought other people would like, but also, as a human being, I found myself copying and mimicking a lot, too, even things that I liked or pretended to like. People would ask what my favorite movie was, and I’d say Caddyshack — and I don’t particularly care for that movie. (Laughs.) But as I became more comfortable in my own skin, I wanted to own my given name. And the more I owned myself, I found my writing changed. Beef is certainly the most “me” thing I’ve ever done. And then there was a particular incident.
What was that?
I was at a coffee shop right before I was starting Tuca & Bertie, and you pay for your coffee with a credit card and then they read your order with that name. It was like I was back in sixth grade. They butchered the name and people behind me started laughing. I got so red and I hunched over, grabbed my food and rushed out of there. This was around the time Parasite came out, and when I got home, I thought to myself, “When you hear [director] Bong Joon Ho’s name, you don’t laugh. You’re like, ‘Wow.'” Same with Park Chan-wook and Lee Chang-dong. When I hear those names, I’m in awe. I thought, “If I change my name and start writing better things, maybe I can help change the stigma that Americans have toward three-syllable Korean names even just a little bit.” I went to work and said to Tuca & Bertie creator Lisa Hanawalt, “I know I already filled out my paperwork, but I want to go by Lee Sung Jin.”
Once you were writing with that name, did you feel like it impacted what stories you wanted to tell and how personal those stories would be?
Subconsciously, definitely. It was mostly just, from a public-facing point of view, to have a very traditional Korean name out there, but then I think subconsciously that move makes you feel a little bit freer inside to be like, “Hey, it’s okay to be yourself,” and Beef definitely reflects that. There’s so much stuff in Beef that is super specific and it’s because I felt comfortable leaning into the things that I have experienced and certainly the name change was the beginning of that.
Beef was inspired by a road rage incident between you and a white man, a dynamic that you were going to explore with Steven Yeun’s character opposite a Stanley Tucci type. I’m curious how much of the story you’d fleshed out with two men at the center, and why you abandoned that idea in favor of casting Ali Wong?
We’d spent not even a day considering the Stanley Tucci path, because immediately it becomes about race and the white patriarchy versus marginalized communities. It also felt very on-the-nose, like, I imagined watching that show and being like, “Oh, this isn’t nuanced enough.” I really wanted to remove that Asians versus white people lens – other writers do that very well but, at least for Beef, I wanted to let the audience be okay not thinking about that for this story. And then it was just coincidental timing that Ali Wong called. I’d worked with her on Tuca & Bertie, and it very quickly became clear that having Ali opposite Steven would make the character so much more layered and so much more interesting.
You’ve publicly referenced Stanley Tucci enough times that I have to ask: Have you heard from him? I’m imagining him reaching out, like, “Hey, man, I would’ve loved that role” or “Think of me for season 2.”
Oh gosh, I’d love that call, but, no, I have not heard from Stanley Tucci. I mean, maybe this article will finally be the thing. I’d love to work with him someday.
You’ve lived all over. I’m curious why you ultimately chose to set the show in L.A.?
They say, “Write what you know,” and when I was starting to develop this, my partner and I were fortunate enough to become first-time homeowners. And part of being a first-time homeowner is you go to Home Depot a lot. There’s one by us that’s just a powder keg for class differences. People from Hidden Hills, where Drake and the Kardashians live, go there, but so do people from Chatsworth and Reseda. Even in Calabasas alone, there’s such a disparity between much more middle-class homes and then very, very upper-class ones. So, looking around that parking lot, I was like, “Oh, man, it’s wild that we’re all shopping here.” Also, I’m a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan and obviously he’s put his stamp on the Valley, but I’d never really seen Asian characters in the Valley in a cinematic way. I wanted to pay homage to my heroes and show a different side of it.
We see Danny returning some hibachi grills and a carbon monoxide detector for a third time in the pilot episode, which is a scene you borrowed from your own life. Did you grapple at all with how much of you and your struggles you wanted in this show?
Initially, in our pitch to buyers, the hibachi grill stuff was in there, but I didn’t pitch that the main theme of the show was going to be the void in a lot of us. That was something that we discovered in the room as we were breaking episode three and Amy [Wong] was doing the intimacy exercise with George [her husband, played by Joseph Lee]. We were talking about this feeling, and a lot of the writers have had similar feelings, and we were trying to explain what that feeling’s like. I started talking about my goddaughter, Lily, and how I hope she never has this feeling, and I just began to cry and the words that poured out ended up being almost the exact words Amy says to George.
Wow.
It was such a bonding moment for the writers because we discovered that so many of us have either felt that way or still feel this way, and we were like, “Oh, this should be the thing that both characters are grappling with.” To Netflix’s and A24’s credit, they were so excited because I think they, too, were searching for what ultimately the show was going to be about, past rage and conflict. After we outlined episode three, we mapped out how that emotional arc would go for both characters. And it was nice because I already had the hospital bed ending, and that ending really clicked in nicely with this theme of the void.
You’ve said it was Ali Wong’s idea to have her character crawl into Danny’s hospital bed at the end. What had you initially envisioned?
Oh, it was much darker. (Laughs.)
That seems to be a theme. You’ve also said your first draft of the penultimate episode was much darker, which is hard to imagine…
Yeah, in the penultimate, there were so many more deaths! And then the ending was much more bleak, and part of the reason is because so much of the stuff I’d consumed growing up that I love is so bleak. It was Steven and Ali who pushed me to come up with something a little more hopeful, because so much of our narratives that we’ve consumed act as a mirror and solely that. So you’re like, “Oh, we suck and life sucks and there’s no real solutions.” Whereas if you can give a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, then maybe that offers us some hope to change.
I’ve heard you say you gave your writers a copy of The Soprano Sessions, a book about the making of The Sopranos, before you started. First, why that book? And second, was it the only piece of reading or viewing material you sent along?
I purchased a hard copy of Soprano Sessions and sent it to every writer and editor on the show. I also made a very long Letterboxd playlist of movies and episodes of shows that I thought would be relevant.
Give me some of the highlights.
Our North Star was a math formula that I jokingly came up with, where I said that the perfect Beef episode would be 35 percent Sopranos / Paul Thomas Anderson comedy, where you’re laughing at the broken psychology of people plus 35 percent White Lotus / Fincher propulsion and water-cooler moments plus 30 percent Ingmar Bergman / Hirokazu Kore-eda warm melancholic pathos. So, that was our formula, and I think it was pretty close to what Beef ended up becoming. A lot of the movies we were watching were similar, like Punch Drunk Love, Fargo and Force Majeure. But The Sopranos was the thing we went back to a lot just because it’s the best show of all time, and they do such a good job of making character come first in that show.
I don’t know how much feedback to the series you allowed yourself to consume, but of what you did see what surprised or pleased you most?
The best reactions, whether I look on Reddit or the random DMs I get, are from people who are struggling with some sort of deep depression or a mental health thing that watch the show and say, “Hey, I felt like the show was me and I feel less alone.” That’s been really nice and it, in turn, has made me feel less alone because when you make something so transparent and vulnerable, you worry, “Am I alone in this?” So, yeah, it’s been very life affirming in a lot of ways.
For a period, it felt as though the narrative of the show had been usurped by that of David Choe and a graphic story of sexual assault that he’d told in the past. I’m curious how much of the renewed controversy surprised you, and whether his history was something you’d considered going into the casting process?
That’s a good question. With the David Choe controversy, there were so many aspects to that and it’s hard for me to say one or two sentences about it that would properly convey the complexity of it all. And you know, we issued the statement and we hoped to convey, as succinctly as we could, [with] so many different people and so many different entities involved, how we felt about it. And I think with anything I’d say now, I just really don’t want to detract from what the cast and crew have accomplished through the show.
Ali and Steven have both said that they broke out in hives once the show wrapped. What kind of toll did the series take on you?
I didn’t break out into hives, but I did get, I don’t know if it was depression, but there was an adjustment period for me after the show came out because I was really burning the candle at both ends for about two and a half years straight. And once it came out, I didn’t really know what to do with myself or my mind and I was so exhausted, but I felt like I was supposed to keep working and throwing myself into something. I will say that having some distance from it has been really nice – just to get my physical and mental wellbeing back on track. But then, very quickly, that got usurped by the much bigger things going on in our industry with the strike. There’s so much on the horizon that feels much more important than the show or awards and I’ve been busy talking with writers and a lot of people in the AI community trying to understand the massive change that’s coming. So, it’s an odd feeling to be trying to celebrate the hard work of our cast and crew, which I really want to do, because they worked so hard on this and really deserve so much, but, at the same time, we almost feel like the orchestra on the Titanic. There’s just this fear of what’s going to happen to our industry if we cannot come to some agreement on basic fundamental wages and rules and guidelines that will protect working writers.
Before I lose you, where’s your head at in terms of making more Beef?
I’d love to make more. We initially pitched the show as an anthology series where every season is a new beef with new characters. At the same time, I really love Danny and Amy and George and Paul [Young Mazino] and the world we created. So, I’m really open to it all. Most importantly, I really want to keep working with this crew that I’ve really fallen in love with. But it’s hard for me to say which direction we’ll go without a writers room and any sort of momentum, so I’m really hoping the AMPTP comes to its senses.
I’m conflicted because while I’d love to see more of Danny and Amy, I also want Stanley Tucci to have his moment…
Yeah, I’m in the same boat. (Laughs.)
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This interview was coordinated through Lee Sung Jin’s personal PR in accordance with a WGA ruling after the writers strike that began May 2.
A version of this story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
