For an actor, committing is everything. Committing to the art form. Committing to the character. And, probably most important, committing to the grind. Because unless you’ve got an inside connection (cough, nepo baby) or have a miracle moment getting spotted in the crowd by a talent scout, getting your first major break in the biz is tough as nails. That’s why stories like that of “Beef” breakout star Young Mazino never get old. Because it’s a reminder that if you don’t give up, those hard-fought dreams might come true. Just like a quintessential Hollywood movie.
READ MORE: ‘Beef’: Creator Lee Sung Jin On Your New Must-See Binge Show [Interview]
Despite falling a wee bit under the radar to the final season of “Succession” in the cultural zeitgeist, “Beef” is a critical sensation and a significant hit for Netflix. Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Lee Sung Jin’s black dramedy centers on two strangers, Amy (Ali Wong) and Danny (Steven Yeun), whose road rage incident in a San Fernando Valley parking lot spirals into a life-changing series of events. Mazino plays Paul, Danny’s somewhat aimless younger brother, who is quietly trying to escape his sibling’s increasingly negative energy. Oh, and he might find himself randomly intertwined in Amy’s life as well.
A Maryland native, Mazino dropped out of college to move to New York to pursue his dream of becoming an actor and has spent a decade landing small guest spots on television shows and appearing in short films before “Beef” was released this month. His career choice did not go over well with his highly educated father, who has five master’s degrees, an MBA, and a Ph.D. It didn’t help that his sisters also have their own graduate degrees either.
“I remember that dinner when I was like, ‘I’m going to drop out and move to New York with no money.’ And I remember his disappointment,” Mazino says. “Because for him, he was able to sustain not only himself and his own family, but his parents and his extended family members with that college degree and education. So, the show comes out 10 years later, and he watches it; I talk with him on the phone and my dad tells me, ‘You did a good job.’ And that was everything. And my mom was like, ‘You need to articulate better.’”
Mazino adds, “I remember [I’m] about to leave the house with my one luggage bag, and I’m about to go to New York. And standing in the driveway, asking my parents, ‘So, do you have any last words to say before I leave?’ And my dad was like; he said something very terse. He’s like, ‘Be safe.’ And then my mom, she looks at me with this concern and disappointment, and she’s like, ‘Your fly’s down.’”
Again, these stories never get old, do they?
Fair warning, there are a number of spoilers in the context of our conversation.
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The Playlist: Congratulations on the series. Have you been looking at reactions?
Young Mazino: I’ve checked. I took a gander, I took a glance and yeah, there’s a wide range of things I read, but some of the most perverse lewd comments, I was just absolutely shaken by. But yeah, it’s fun.
About you? About your character, or about the show in general?
I mean, everything of the show in general, but someone sent me some… there’s like a thread of one of my nude scenes and my bare ass is showing and there’s just some of the most heinous …
[Laughs]
It was like this long [thread] and I translated it and I regret translating it. Absolutely ridiculous.
I will not ask what was said. But the show was number one on Netflix and is still in the top two in the United States. What does that mean to you?
It’s a relief, but at the same time, I was aware of how talented everyone was on this project, and even from what I could see in ADR [sessions] I could tell this was something special. Even when we were shooting it, the energy was palpable in that everyone could collectively feel that we were heading to something dope. It’s Murphy’s law, everything can go wrong, but we just had a feeling and it’s good to see that people are seeing it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming you consider this your biggest break so far in your career? How did it come your way?
Yeah, the timing of it was peculiar. I was in the New York grind for seven years trying to just establish myself as an actor, going through a bunch of films and training and working on projects. And then the pandemic hit when I was ready to leave my full-time job and commit to acting and really develop my craft in the theater. I had a whole plan to downsize my apartment and just bartend on weekends while just cramming theater as much as I could for at least the next couple years. And then the pandemic just destroyed all of my plans and left me wandering and I kind of embarked on some soul-searching adventures and shot a documentary with a friend. And then I was back in Maryland with my parents, reevaluating if acting is my way. I was going to go back to college because I dropped out and just figure things out from there. And then ‘Beef’ just came about. I didn’t even know my New York rep still had me on the roster and they sent me the tape and a self-tape request and immediately I was like, “There’s no chance in hell I’m going to get this,” something like this, with A24, Netflix, Steve, and Ali. I just was like, “Whatever.” So I did the tape, sent it out, and forgot about it. And that’s a means of protection. You learn this as an actor. As soon as you leave the audition room, you crumple up the sides and throw it in the trash because the rejection after a couple of years starts to weigh. And then I heard back and then I got the freaking thing and I just remember staring out in my parents’ backyard just looking at the tall trees when I got the call. And I just breathed a sigh of relief and a lot of years of self-doubt and imposter syndrome kind of dissipated then and there.
Even before you got the part, had they made it clear that this just wasn’t like, “Oh, you’re in one episode as Steven’s brother” role? That you were integral to the series?
No,I was like, “There’s no way I’m going to get this.” So I tried not to get too invested. And I just really worked on finding the truth in the scenes that they asked me to find. And yeah, I had no expectations until I read through the scripts and I was like, ‘Whoa, this role is more substantial.’ But I could tell that the character was very well-developed and well-written.
Were you provided with every script before you started shooting?
I think we got drafts but there were a lot of revisions and changes throughout the table reads if I recall correctly. It was a very organic process. I brought my camera to the first couple of table reads until they told me to stop bringing it. But there’s footage I have and I look back and everyone just met for the first time and he’s like, “If any of you have suggestions,” and it was a very free-flow dynamic there. It didn’t feel like a procedural where you have to just go by the books. It was a very artistic artful direction that was very smooth and great to be a part of.
Did Paul’s character change at all from those table reads?
Well, I could tell that they were looking for…well, maybe they were still searching for it during the [auditions] because I was expecting just better-looking, taller versions of myself to be in the room. The two other actors [who made it to the end were] quite different. One was could play much younger, and one was Steven’s actual brother. I think that just speaks to the casting process and how wonderful they are. And we each brought our own energies and I think what clinched it for me was working with Ali. Because Steven can play off of either of our character types. But with Ali, I think that just decided it, just having that chemistry with her.
So after you read the script, how did you view Paul before filming began?
It was a reflection of a lot of myself and I think a lot of Korean American guys growing up. And it hasn’t been explored because there hasn’t been too much storytelling about this. And we’re first generation. And I’ve spoken at length about this in other interviews, but it’s a very complex situation where our parents immigrated from Korea and that is its own event, that it has its own problems where you lose out on this cultural exchange. And then coming from a country that has been ravaged by war and oppression and invaded for generations. And there’s something called Han, which is a Korean term for unresolved generational trauma that exists in the kids and their kids because it lasts through several generations. But dealing with that and not having a cultural foundation, I mean, it’s so difficult for me to articulate this because it’s trying to disseminate brilliant writing that [Lee Sung Jin] has. But basically, I resonated with the character and it’s a very internalized thing where even physically, while I could look and I could have machismo and have the body of physique, internally there’s a lot of things that haven’t been settled and there aren’t a lot of ways to find the introspection. And being disillusioned and facing the abyss, the existential theme that plays, it’s very resonant in Paul [and] in my life. There’s a lot. But to put it simply, I saw myself in Paul and this was a wonderful character to explore because I never had that chance in other projects.
One of the moments that always pops for me when I think about the show is when Paul has driven to spend the night with Amy in Vegas and she’s unsure of where they’re going next. And he sort of asks her to help his career and give him some money. She rejects him and we see a side of Paul we haven’t seen before. And a bit like his brother, he gets angry and saps at her. How did you see Paul at that moment?
On the surface, it’s a self-defense mechanism. And I’ve been thinking about that moment because it’s such an abrasive [reaction]. It’s like, “Whoa, where did that come from?” I could be wrong and I would’ve to ask Sonny, but I think Amy to Paul is not just an attractive woman. I think he sees her as this human-incarnated version of Deus Ex Machina, like someone to take him out of this dopamine cycle he’s trapped in. I look at Paul as perhaps a modern-day Korean American Sisyphus, only instead of a boulder, it’s him being a jungle man trying to climb out of the bronze Elo in “League of Legends.” And that’s a gaming terminology that only the “League of Legends” players would understand. People cast a lot of judgment on him because, on the surface, he seems very naive and silly and very foolish and which he is, but beyond that, I think he’s incredibly bold and idealistic. He means it when he says, “I can make a million dollars, I want to be a crypto.” He just never got the chance to go to college. And at that point of his life, that’s when he started to regress. I think people will take note in episode eight when there’s a flashback showing Paul back in the day when he is 17 trying to make something of his life. That’s a very defining moment, especially in America where you’re about to be 18, you decide your destiny and you are off to the races. But he never had the chance.
In Korean-American communities, the core foundation of the community is church and college. And he never went to college. And when you go to church where everyone else is going to college and getting married and having kids with 401ks and getting mortgages, when you lose out on both of that, he withdraws and then ends up kind of trapped under his brother’s shadow. And thus begins the dopamine cycle because he’s just trying to find some kind of glimmer of escape in this, with the feeling of like, “I will never get to where I’m trying to get.” And then he meets Amy who comes out of nowhere and suddenly the trajectory of his life rapidly shifts. He not only loves her and he never really explicitly says that. And Danny’s like, “You didn’t really like her, did you? And he’s like, “Nah, I don’t give a f**k.” But internally, it’s like she was the God hand, she was the impetus of change. And to him, that’s the naive thought. Because someone with low EQ, that love, which is so irrational and not sustainable, thinks love conquers all. He’s like this stupid romantic and he’s like, “She’s going to save me and we’ll have happily ever after because I’ll be rewarded for all the suffering.”
When in reality, life is irrational, and we live in a world where perhaps the guy or the woman who created all of this, the divine creator may have left a while back and is often more opaque and abstract than we’d like it to be. And I think that’s where Paul ends at the end of the season where he’s like, “Wow, this is real life.”
Paul escapes at the end, but we really don’t know what happens to him.
Yeah, he gets away. And also, spoiler alert, it’s revealed that Danny kind of f**ked his whole life up by throwing away his college acceptance letters. When he leaves, it’s like a grand departure. Maybe he got shot, maybe he didn’t. But Paul has left the premises. I wrote this down last night when I was thinking about it. Danny tends to morph between castle and prison for Paul, which is a very human thing. And the veil has been lifted and who knows how that changes a man.
I saw in an interview you talked about how your parents were wondering what you were doing, giving up a career you had built to be an actor. Do they get it now? Are they proud?
Yeah. I dropped out of college to move to New York to pursue acting. And that was a point of contention with my family, my parents, especially my dad, who is very educated. He has five masters, MBA, Ph.D. His office is just plaques on plaques. And I have no plaque there. My sisters have their plaques, their grad school degrees, their undergraduate, and all of this. And I have no plaque. And when I remember that dinner when I was like, “I’m going to drop out and move to New York and with no money.” And I remember his disappointment. Because for him, he was able to sustain not only himself, and his own family, but his parents and his extended family members with that college degree and education. So, the show comes out 10 years later and he watches it, I talk with him on the phone and my dad tells me, “You did a good job.” And that was everything. And my mom was like, “You need to articulate better.” Just so funny because she’s the most wonderful woman, but she’s also so competitive. And she gave me the edge I needed growing up. But I remember [I’m] about to leave the house with my one luggage bag, and I’m about to go to New York. And when I remember standing in the driveway asking my parents, “So, do you have any last words to say before I leave?” And my dad was like, he said something very terse. He’s like, “Be safe.” And then my mom, she looks at me with this concern and disappointment and she’s like, “Your fly’s down.”
“Beef” is available now on Netflix.