‘Beef’ Season 2 With Creator Lee Sung Jin. Plus, ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 3 and ‘House of the Dragon’ S3 Teaser.

Chris and Andy discuss Helena Bonham Carter's exit from Season 4 of ‘The White Lotus’ (1:14) before reacting to the trailers for ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 (2:53) and the ‘For All Mankind’ spinoff series, ‘Star City’ (6:54). Then they discuss ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 3 (11:57). Later, they are joined by ‘Beef’ series creator Lee Sung Jin to discuss why Season 2 is set in Ojai (and Seoul), the millennial cringe undercurrent, how he convinced Youn Yuh-jung and Song Kang-ho to join the cast, writing the ‘X-Men’ movie, and more (34:15). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Email us! [email protected] Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Lee Sung Jin Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Order and it will come. Like today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

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• 1:05Speaker 02

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk, now!

• 1:11Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor of TheRinger.com. And joining me in the studio, a man who funnily enough moonlights as a Little John impersonator who does James Brown songs.

• 1:24Andy Greenwald?

  It's really true.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  At weddings. It's Andy Greenwald.

• 1:27Andy Greenwald?

  Ooh, you got quiet.

• 1:27Chris Ryan?

  Well, that was a mouthful.

• 1:29Andy Greenwald?

  You handled it well. I thought you were gonna do a Little John voice.

• 1:35Chris Ryan?

  It's great to see you, man. We're talking about Euphoria, episode three, today. We're also talking about Beef, season two, again, because we have Sonny Lee coming in to talk to us about the show that he created and the second season, and a little bit about X-Men, which he's also

• 1:49Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that was exciting.

• 1:50Chris Ryan?

  co-writing, and we're very excited to hear about that. First, let me just say, TheWatch at Spotify.com. Feel free to continue to send us Ask Us Anything emails. Or emails that are more pertinent to this podcast.

• 2:02Andy Greenwald?

  This podcast can be about anything, man.

• 2:03Chris Ryan?

  TheWatchPod underscored Instagram. You can watch us on Ringer-TV on YouTube, and you can watch us on Spotify. Where you can also listen to us as well as many other platforms that carry this podcast. HBC, Helena Bonham Carter. Leaves the White Lotus.

• 2:18Andy Greenwald?

  Disappointing.

• 2:18Chris Ryan?

  By mutual consent, it sounds like. Mutual consent, mutual decision?

• 2:22Andy Greenwald?

  It sounds like it wasn't working.

• 2:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 2:25Andy Greenwald?

  Which has happened before on the show, I believe. And that Mike White has an exacting vision for how he wants these parts to be played and how he wants these parts to be. And that she was no longer the right fit. So we don't know if it was a performance thing or if it was a reconsideration of the whole character.

• 2:40Chris Ryan?

  I doubt it was like, oh, it turns out Helena Bonham Carter can't read. You know what I mean? I'm sure she's like an accomplished actress for, for three, four decades at this point.

• 2:48Andy Greenwald?

  I like the way you said, I'm sure she's an accomplished actress. You're like, I don't know. I never saw a room with a view.

• 2:53Chris Ryan?

  The only thing I was gonna say is this is the downside to the, the fantasy casting league.

• 2:58Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:58Chris Ryan?

  That kind of operates around White Lotus is there's so much attention paid to it that. I can imagine like pretty big shows getting away with like, we tried this, it didn't work out. Like it's kind of swept under the rug.

• 3:12Andy Greenwald?

  Constantly. And that's better for everyone.

• 3:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but this was like HBO released a statement, you know? I think it's like, we've talked before about how sometimes it'll be like so and so has joined the cast of.

• 3:24Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 3:24Chris Ryan?

  Of this justified spinoff. And I'm like, this is, this has been shot.

• 3:28Andy Greenwald?

  That's often the case.

• 3:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but this is more like, you know, where there's speculation, there's rumors, there's who would you like to see at the White Lotus next season? And live by the sword, die by the sword, I guess.

• 3:38Andy Greenwald?

  Eric Stoltz still answers questions about the two weeks he spent filming as Marty McFly.

• 3:42Chris Ryan?

  That's just from you, though. You emailing him, ask him anything, questions.

• 3:45Andy Greenwald?

  The restraining orders language was vague.

• 3:49Andy Greenwald?

  So DMs. Are fine, as far as I can tell.

• 3:53Chris Ryan?

  More HBO news to hit, which is the Hot D, season three teaser dropped. And as Kai Rayly pointed out, we're losing touch with the old ways. A teaser should not be three minutes long.

• 4:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, this is a trailer.

• 4:06Chris Ryan?

  Yes. I believe it's called the teaser on YouTube though, correct?

• 4:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Andy Greenwald?

  But like, what are they gonna say in the trailer? That like, some of these dragons?

• 4:15Chris Ryan?

  No, it's supposed to be 57 seconds and it's supposed to be like, like rhythmic and just like pictures of the dragons and shit. It's not supposed to be like, a big fight would have happened.

• 4:27Andy Greenwald?

  Just picture you just kind of vibing out.

• 4:29Chris Ryan?

  Like McConaughey.

• 4:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Andy Greenwald?

  The image of a dragon, an image of another dragon.

• 4:37Chris Ryan?

  We should do it. We should do our own teaser that's cut to McConaughey's, you know, beating the chest song.

• 4:43Andy Greenwald?

  Don't threaten Kai with a good time. He's already Googling it.

• 4:46Chris Ryan?

  Wanna go viral?

• 4:47Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 4:48Chris Ryan?

  Follow me, brother. Uh, I am, uh, excited because I feel like they have no more room to, uh, delay.

• 4:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 4:56Chris Ryan?

  And must get to the fighting on this show. Um, and you know, James Norton being added to the cast is exciting. I'm a big fan of his.

• 5:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you've been supporting him for a while.

• 5:04Chris Ryan?

  Mafia for life. Uh, what about you? What, you, you're feeling a little bit more upbeat about House of the Dragon?

• 5:09Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, this looks cool and propulsive and like we're finally getting the action scenes that we were promised and the story is going to get on with it and really have some consequences in teeth. On the other hand, I kinda wanna know what that wormwood tree is thinking. You know what I mean? Wormwood, weirwood? What is it? I don't remember anymore.

• 5:28Andy Greenwald?

  It's like, that tree spent a season having Matt Smith talk to it. And I kinda wanna know what the tree's whole thing is. Like one episode, like bottle episode of interiority.

• 5:38Chris Ryan?

  Kind of like Dr. Melfi of House of the Dragon?

• 5:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and then we get to see the tree go home and talk to another tree, played by Peter Bogdanovich, but like, you know, done tastefully with AI.

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Andy Greenwald?

  This is why they can't handle me in that room. I was, I was across the studio lot from the show and again, Eric Stoltz's lawyers arrived and we're like, you're also not allowed in this space.

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Were you outside of the House of the Dragon lot with the boombox?

• 6:01Andy Greenwald?

  Justice for the tree!

• 6:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm excited. Uh, I, this is funnily enough, the show that I chose to spoil for myself. So I extensively read about this era in Targaryen history.

• 6:13Andy Greenwald?

  Extensively read?

• 6:15Chris Ryan?

  On, on Wikipedia. You know, I didn't quite get, because I knew that this one did not have that classic George prose. You know, it was more of a...

• 6:24Andy Greenwald?

  Just picture, it looks the way like my old New York therapist sat in an Eames chair and would have a thousand-page book about the 97th Congress and be like, aha! Well, this is when lawmaking really changed. That's you with this.

• 6:36Chris Ryan?

  With this. Uh, but I am excited to see how they execute it, you know, and I don't think that they'll be deviating for canon. Um...

• 6:43Andy Greenwald?

  That's exciting.

• 6:43Chris Ryan?

  I'm curious to see whether or not there is any relationship creatively. I doubt it because I think that these were being shot relatively parallel to one another.

• 6:53Chris Ryan?

  Between Seven Kingdoms, lessons learned, being like, oh, we can't, we can't have a little bit of a laugh here and there.

• 6:59Andy Greenwald?

  I bet no. I bet a hard no. But I, the best case scenario for this, I think, is that they, we thought that coming out of the original Game of Thrones series, that the, that the, the sort of slower pace and the more thoughtful approach that HBO was taking towards spinoffs was going to equate with entertainment that was like, just knew what it was doing. Act like you'd been here before. And I think that the House of Dragon genesis was a little bit bumpier, and it wasn't a one-to-one translation. Night of the Seven Kingdoms is so specific and came out of the gate pretty much perfect.

• 7:32Chris Ryan?

  Fully formed.

• 7:32Andy Greenwald?

  Fully formed. I think it took House of the Dragon time to get its bearings. And then there were, you know, exterior circumstances that delayed it, and the COVID and all of that stuff, and then the production delays, et cetera, et cetera. All this is to say, the best-case version of it is them saying, we have our cute, funny show, we have our Hellfire War show, and we'll take it from there.

• 7:54Chris Ryan?

  The only other thing, news-wise, that I wanted to mention was a trailer that dropped

• 7:59Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  today, I believe, for the For All Mankind spinoff show, Star City.

• 8:05Andy Greenwald?

  I want to preface this by saying, I spoiled this one. In that, I have very, I've read very deeply on alternate histories of the space program in which Russia won.

• 8:17Chris Ryan?

  I think that if you had asked me 48 hours ago what my interest level in another take, but also an alternative read on history would be from the For All Mankind world, I would be like, I'm good. I watched two seasons, maybe two and change of For All Mankind. I think if I had, like, to summarize, like, my, my exit strategy from that show, it was just, I just felt like it became very literal for me. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't, I wasn't being really, like, energized by either the writing or the direction. And so... It's almost a show that I feel like if you I wouldn't go so far as to say you could just read the recaps and get it, but I would say just like the experiment kind of wore off

• 9:02Chris Ryan?

  for me. I am so excited for this after watching this trailer and that has not happened in a long time with a trailer for a television show where they essentially were like, you know what's good? Chernobyl.

• 9:14Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the television show Chernobyl.

• 9:16Chris Ryan?

  The television show Chernobyl.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  We are at the 40th anniversary of the event.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  So this is starting in 1969, the space race, but this alternative space race of the for all mankind timeline told from the Russian, the Soviet perspective in the style of Chernobyl, which means all the Russians are English people or, you know, the greater English area.

• 9:38Andy Greenwald?

  Speaking English or fluent Russian?

• 9:39Chris Ryan?

  No, speaking English and it's a refi fans, re sci fans plays seemingly the main scientist. And it very, very, very much feels like it is a show that was like Chernobyl really worked again, the show.

• 9:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 9:55Chris Ryan?

  And we want to.

• 9:57Andy Greenwald?

  In retrospect, you're right.

• 9:58Chris Ryan?

  Right. And we want to continue that vibe a little bit. Now I'm sure there are other influences because like it also feels a little of Thomas Alfredson's adaptation of Tinker Tailor and has some kind of tactile espionage to it. I'm very, very, very excited for this.

• 10:18Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, the affection for Chernobyl extended to them saying that guy who plays the firefighter, Adam Nagy, let's get him and as a cosmonaut. So it's visually, I mean, you're recognizing people from Chernobyl when you watch this. I was also very struck by the complete aesthetic commitment to the bit by the trailer. It is right up our alley. If it is Cold War espionage and then maybe also space, that's pretty cool. I was impressed by the specificity of vision because.

• 10:47Andy Greenwald?

  Telling any streamer that we're gonna do a spinoff of your not flagship show and not even like attention grabbing number one hit show, but a respected performer for you, but this spinoff is going to be by definition and by aesthetics-

• 11:01Chris Ryan?

  All those guys were on the wrong side.

• 11:02Andy Greenwald?

  And less flashy-

• 11:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Andy Greenwald?

  Is remarkable. So I respect that and I appreciate it. I will check it out.

• 11:09Chris Ryan?

  I'm a big Anna Maxwell Martin fan. She was in Line of Duty and the Sharon Horgan Show Motherland. She's fantastic in Motherland. So she plays sort of like the head of security at this Star City base. So I'm looking forward to that.

• 11:24Andy Greenwald?

  I would say, the thing with For All Mankind, I'm trying to think if there's something I would put in its place, but I don't think I would. That's probably the number one show for me that I wish I could have found my way into because I think the creativity behind it and the way that it develops season to season from like one sliding doors moment of history and then just playing out that history-

• 11:45Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 11:46Andy Greenwald?

  Is so imaginative and cool sounding. And I, I think I finished the first season and made it a little bit into the second. And the execution of it, and maybe it's changed or, you know, as it's continued to grow, I found it, I found it a hard show to watch. The episodes were 59, 61 minutes, 63 minutes. And it, maybe that's what you were talking about with the literalism. Like it just-

• 12:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's, I think that's, that's basically it.

• 12:11Andy Greenwald?

  It felt, it felt like a slog, honestly, especially knowing that I was so behind. And this is before, you know, the euphoria rule went into effect where we actually don't have to watch all of the shows we've covered.

• 12:21Chris Ryan?

  You could jump right into the, the last few episodes. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike, or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for? That's when Prime's same day delivery has your back. Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably, so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery. It's on Prime. Visit amazon.com/prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply.

• 12:57Chris Ryan?

  Let's talk about Euphoria.

• 12:58Andy Greenwald?

  All right.

• 13:00Chris Ryan?

  Because we have a lovely chat with Sonny coming up. Obviously spoilers for last night's episode of Euphoria.

• 13:06Chris Ryan?

  I didn't think that we were gonna get the wedding so soon. I thought that we would maybe get more intercast interactions. So.

• 13:17Andy Greenwald?

  Uh huh.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  I don't believe we actually got Rue Zendaya Sydney Sweeney two-shot ever.

• 13:25Andy Greenwald?

  With with Jules and Maddie, who she whom she was sitting with. But she attended the wedding of Nate and Cassie and did not share the screen with either of them.

• 13:37Chris Ryan?

  Didn't seem like it. And I thought that this one was yet another shift stylistically subtly. A lot of the Nate and Cassie stuff bordered on Ari Aster to me in a very cool way. But a little birdie on my shoulder tells me that maybe the joke's not so funny.

• 13:57Andy Greenwald?

  Is the birdie still on your shoulder or you should check?

• 14:01Chris Ryan?

  Go ahead and sing.

• 14:02Andy Greenwald?

  You want me to sing?

• 14:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:03Andy Greenwald?

  I.

• 14:04Chris Ryan?

  Because I like the episode, but I have a feeling maybe perhaps did not.

• 14:07Andy Greenwald?

  I did not like this episode. I found it unpleasant to sit through. And I wonder, in the spirit of generosity and in the spirit of celebrating a beautiful union between deserving, loving souls, I should probably ask you some questions and cede the floor to a degree. And also maybe because.

• 14:24Chris Ryan?

  This is where like my my lock my lockbox of Euphoria memories may be a little out of reach for me because there's some characters like in the interactions between them where I was like, and that I feel like I remember this, but go ahead.

• 14:39Andy Greenwald?

  I also think at some point we should bring in Kaia just because it's been a long time since I've planned a wedding. And I wonder if there were any like, you know, tips, tips and tricks that you picked up while watching this.

• 14:49Andy Greenwald?

  I, okay, I thought like the most to my mind, the most successful scene of the episode was the scene between Eric Dane's Cal character and Jules at the bar at the wedding. My enjoyment of that scene was foreshortened by the fact that I know nothing of their shared history.

• 15:07Chris Ryan?

  He's done some very bad things to Jules.

• 15:08Andy Greenwald?

  That was clear. I enjoyed the scene because it carried a sense of history and gravity between characters that is the hallmark of continuing television dramatic series. And I thought, again, we talked about this last week, that Eric Dane's performance, most likely his final performance, I thought they treated it all with a great deal of respect by making him just be drunk and not addressing the fact that his, his, his voice was affected by ALS, et cetera, et cetera. So I thought that was a strong and interesting scene. So I'm bringing that up first because my engagement with that scene was severely limited by not knowing anything about the history. And I wonder how much of that you could just extrapolate to the episode as a whole. Because so much of the wedding, to my mind, either it stands on its

• 15:53Andy Greenwald?

  own, which I don't think that it did, then does it stand on its own as a culmination of two plus years of these characters interacting? And I don't know if it did, primarily because the main character of the show didn't even talk to the people whose wedding she was attending.

• 16:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it was a weird one. I, so I could go through the various, like, when the woman, Bibi, shows up, she was, you know, an earlier iteration of the show. You know, obviously Maddie used to date Nate. Cassie essentially steals Nate from her.

• 16:23Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 16:24Chris Ryan?

  There's a whole thing over the first two seasons of these videos of Jules and Cal together, that Cal had taken for obviously his own pleasure, but for, like, become like an element of blackmail out there. And Nate's involvement with that whole scenario is, I don't know if it's, if it's ambiguous, but it is, like, that scene between Nate and Jules and, and between Alordi and Hunter Schaefer, I thought was quite good. I don't even know entirely what Nate was trying to communicate there, where it was like, you love who you love, kind of thing. And what his feelings really are for Jules at, at the end of the day. Regardless of that, I, it, it seemed like-

• 17:07Chris Ryan?

  If you were doing the parasocial, like, I'm speculating about, like, who was on set for what days kind of thing. This is the kind of thing that, like, is why I can't watch the morning show anymore sometimes. Because it's like, I can't watch people do one, like, like, clearly not be in the same room together when they're shooting a scene, or filmmaking that is chosen to create that illusion for whatever reason. So, yeah, it did really feel like Zendaya did a day of shooting there. But then, like, they were like, now let's put her back in the Alamo, Lori.

• 17:40Andy Greenwald?

  Which remains the much more compelling, much more electric storyline of the show. I think that the, the argument the show's been making for style over substance, which, again, that's how I'm choosing to engage with it. There may be more substance awaiting me if I had watched the previous season, which I did not. So I think that that gambit works more successfully when the characters had been siloed into their particular aesthetic genre pieces. So Cassie and Nate making each other crazy inside of this Scarface-yellow suburban nightmare world. That kind of, that kind of worked for me.

• 18:22Andy Greenwald?

  The wedding felt like a set piece in search of a reason to exist. All of the, and maybe, so, again, maybe aesthetically, this is, you tell me. Is this what Euphoria has always been? Because it seemed like a chance for all of the cast members to dress in wild ways that maybe communicated some interior, interiority through their clothing and how they chose to approach things. So I picked up on the Maddie relationship with Nate because of the way it kept cutting to her eyes as this was going on. But I did not, in the course of the celebration, feel much, any, feel really any kind of character grounding to have empathy for them while it was taking place. It was like, here's an opportunity to maybe let Cassie experience a swing of emotions,

• 19:07Andy Greenwald?

  or to, I think the negative vision of it is, just sort of punish the actor more, because I don't really see what, I didn't really see how the character was being served, or the actor was being served, what she had to do during this wedding set pieces, while everyone around her is threatening or yelling about what's going on.

• 19:23Chris Ryan?

  It's interesting, because we were talking last week, I think, a little bit about how the Cassie and Nate thing seems to be happening on a different television show. And then when you make that the sort of main arena, it almost muted. What the Alexis Demi character and what the Zendaya character and what the Hunter Schafer characters were even doing, you know, and I'll say this, I've said this, I think, a couple of times over the course of this season, I am never bored for one second while watching this. Like, maybe it's just like the visual panache, maybe it's the cutting, maybe it is the wild swings between genre that happen from scene to scene so that you're like, well, like, we're back in a fucking western gangster Tarantino show, or I'm now, I'm

• 20:06Chris Ryan?

  in the most harrowing parts of Midsommar, you know, like, you swing back and forth, and in every scene, I find an image or a moment, like, Sydney Sweeney's bloodshot eyes as Maude Afton is like, is her sister Lexi is like-

• 20:23Andy Greenwald?

  That's her sister?

• 20:23Chris Ryan?

  That's her sister, yeah. And her sister is like-

• 20:27Andy Greenwald?

  Steph's gonna need a second. I just need a second.

• 20:36Andy Greenwald?

  It's almost like we have to step down for a minute. I gotta go for a walk, and I gotta get out some stuff that I don't think we should put onto the internet. Okay.

• 20:43Chris Ryan?

  That's her sister. And the conversation where she's just like, are you okay? And she's like, why are you asking me that? Is the best day of my life. It's fucking good stuff, man. But I was thinking about this, because like, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just keep going with this. I was thinking about this with the Saran Wrap scene. So Jules is becoming a sugar-

• 21:10Andy Greenwald?

  What's the-

• 21:10Chris Ryan?

  Baby? Sugar baby. And is dating guys with the understanding that they're like, she'll provide a certain experience for them and that they're gonna pay her for that. But there's different, like, there's variants, like, this guy wants a different thing, and she happens upon a plastic surgeon named Ellis, who becomes her main-

• 21:30Andy Greenwald?

  This is Sam Trammell, who is on True Blood.

• 21:32Chris Ryan?

  Is it Trammell or Tramell?

• 21:33Andy Greenwald?

  I was gonna, you know what I decided to do in that moment?

• 21:36Chris Ryan?

  Well, because like, I think of Alan Tramell, the Tigers-

• 21:40Andy Greenwald?

  The Tigers.

• 21:41Chris Ryan?

  Shortstop with Lou Whitaker.

• 21:42Andy Greenwald?

  And Tramell Tillman from Severance.

• 21:44Chris Ryan?

  Right. So whatever his, however he chooses to pronounce it, I'm with him. But that is, that scene, like, this sort of sequence culminates with Jules going to his apartment- And this incredible piece of Hans Zimmer and the Zimets music playing. And I truly do want to know if Hans Zimmer was like, so describe what I'm making music for.

• 22:09Andy Greenwald?

  Hans Zimmer just Googling mummification fetish.

• 22:13Chris Ryan?

  And the Ellis character wraps jewels in Saran Wrap around her entire body, except for her mouth and noses, she can breathe, and then starts making out with her and is like, I'm gonna keep, I just might keep you forever. It is just such a stunning image.

• 22:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Chris Ryan?

  I suppose it's problematic. I've not yet started to unpack how it's mummifying her, seems, you know, laden with meaning. But I don't know, you're just like, when do you see something like that?

• 22:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, look, I mean, I'm with you. Imagine.

• 22:49Chris Ryan?

  I said, that's the kind of thing where it's like, as an image, I don't even know what it's supposed to mean in relationship to the rest of Euphoria.

• 22:55Andy Greenwald?

  The same screen I watched Daniel Tiger on with my kids, and now look at us.

• 22:59Chris Ryan?

  Yes, you've dirtied it.

• 23:01Andy Greenwald?

  Now I had to get a new TV. Just threw it straight in the garbage. Thanks, Sam Levinson.

• 23:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Andy Greenwald?

  If you were to engage with this show, and I've tried to, and maybe, look, maybe this is just the problem that was always waiting for me with my watching of Euphoria, which is now it's becoming an ongoing television show for me, not just a series of striking directorial images. And the problems are starting with my reaction to it. The series of images that we're seeing on the screen are not boring, and they are striking, and there's a lot of thought given into each one and the composition of them. And I continue to just be blown away by the color story of the show, and how much work went into, not just on the day by the cinematographers and the camera teams, but like later in color correction, to be like, that's what it has to look like.

• 23:47Chris Ryan?

  What they're filming is like, the Rue selling guns sequence is like, this is awesome stuff.

• 23:55Andy Greenwald?

  That said, this is, and maybe this is where we differ, and this is a healthy source of debate. I fundamentally don't find sex, work, guns, and drugs interesting in a vacuum or in a photograph. I want, I know, this is our last episode. Go take it up with your sister, Maude Abeta.

• 24:12Chris Ryan?

  You don't find sex, work, guns, and drugs?

• 24:16Andy Greenwald?

  Just on their own, disconnected from humanity or human beings.

• 24:20Chris Ryan?

  What if you shoot them in Vistavision, though?

• 24:21Andy Greenwald?

  Well, okay, say more.

• 24:24Andy Greenwald?

  That, like, Zendaya playing with an AR-15 is a hell of an image. It's also ultimately, to me, kind of impotent and lame because it's just Zendaya with guns. It's not about anything. It's about performing. It's about play acting. And I felt the same way about the gangster eating pie while his associate beats the shit out of a lordy and cuts his toe off.

• 24:47Chris Ryan?

  That's why I call him an associate.

• 24:48Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, what do you think their relationship is? Do you think he gets healthcare?

• 24:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You think he's an EVP in construction?

• 24:55Andy Greenwald?

  You know, he might be a TaskRabbit. Like, we're all Uber drivers to a degree now.

• 25:00Andy Greenwald?

  You know what? So like, as a series of images, it is well constructed, but what does it signify? Like, I just found it to be, um, what's the word I'm looking for when I talk about the show? Morally bankrupt.

• 25:14Chris Ryan?

  I don't think you think that.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  Let's throw that out there. No, that image, though I'm not going on that high horse, I can't get there anymore with my knees, but I'm just saying, the sequence of pictures are starting to dissociate from any kind of engagement that I potentially would have had with the people who are in the pictures.

• 25:32Chris Ryan?

  I would imagine.

• 25:33Andy Greenwald?

  And it just feels like what the priority is may be differing. Now, when we go back to the Rue, Alamo, Lori stuff, I think it's, at its best, it's slightly above Tarantino light thus far, but it's engaging and it's well shot and its central figure is one of the great actors we have at the moment, doing something unique that she's clearly interested in exploring. And so I'm in. I am into that show. And so maybe you could, we can write, maybe we could just scrub it, move on to next week, under the idea that, well, this episode was about other things that I'm less interested in, possibly.

• 26:04Chris Ryan?

  My two cotton rejoinders to that would be, one, and your mileage may vary, on the social commentary being offered by Euphoria, but there is that very, like, sort of darkly comic line that Rue says, where she's like, "You may be, you know, thinking to yourself, like, she's selling guns, but I assure you, they were all going to Mexico." You know, like, that kind of, like, does that make you feel any better about things?

• 26:31Andy Greenwald?

  I think the Rue, no, I think the Rue voice, and again, I'm not assuming intent here, but I think that the Rue, the rye Rue voice, which is undercutting, which is pointing out some of the, you know, hanging a lantern on it, as we may say in the TV industry, about like, how ludicrous or hyped up some of it may be, helps. And I think on a very basic level, like it just strikes me as someone who is making a new season of something that has to connect dots and advance story in areas that he and the people involved may be less interested in.

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  I also wonder.

• 27:06Andy Greenwald?

  But that story has the juice.

• 27:09Chris Ryan?

  It does have the juice and it is a good story so far. And this woman's sort of quest for even like, she says things like, I want to go legit. And it's like, like, does she have any interest in going legit? Does she even care in that Alamo interrogation of the idea while very Tarantino? And it's like, let's do a history lesson. You know, might be a little rote for people, but like, yes, if it was just the Rue story, that would be one thing. The switching between these couple of other storylines and the way in which it happens kind of makes me wonder whether this is the most expensive and beautiful experience of swiping through reels that I've ever seen. Because my brain actually does respond to, and now something else.

• 27:54Chris Ryan?

  A home run, a cat, you know, like an instruction on how to putt. Like, like that's how.

• 28:00Andy Greenwald?

  We're getting some insight into what you get.

• 28:01Chris Ryan?

  But that's like a woman wrapped in Saran Wrap, like a gun sale, like a wedding. It's like these, these things don't sit next.

• 28:09Andy Greenwald?

  Creamy pint of Guinness, plate of pasta, steamed white fish, creamy pint of Guinness. We can all play this game.

• 28:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but that is kind of how Euphoria feels. It feels like short form video made with tons of money on a widescreen.

• 28:21Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I, I think that whenever historically, when I have played the amoral card, it is a conversation ender. I'm not trying to walk away from this project because I think that what, first of all, the headline remains what you've said each week. It's not boring. I did find some of the connective story tissue of this episode boring, but that's on me. I didn't watch the show.

• 28:43Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 28:43Andy Greenwald?

  I think that there is, there is something to be said about something that is so extreme in its stylistic choices and in its points of view and what interests it collectively. Although when we say that, we pretty much mean Sam Levinson, that it is not like other things on TV. We may never get something like this again with this level of celebrity engaged in something that, you know, that they were contractually obligated to be a part of years ago.

• 29:09Chris Ryan?

  I'm still on like, I don't think people did this against their.

• 29:11Andy Greenwald?

  No, no, no, I don't mean to say that, but I, but you don't get. We've never had anything like this before.

• 29:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Andy Greenwald?

  And it is a fascinating, if nothing else, and I think it is more than this. It will be a fascinating artifact of this era in which TV takes so long to make and the logistics are so challenging. That you end up with a third season that is essentially both a new first season and also just a very bizarre sliding doors digression season. Based on what people are passionate about at the time they finally got the schedules aligned and the budget locked.

• 29:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll just, I mean, like even on an episode like this where it didn't quite hang together as much for me. Or maybe it was like a little bit of a letdown because I wanted more fireworks between the main cast in one place. Maddie walking back to her sad apartment after a day in like the opulent Calabas' dream world. For better or for worse, the Saran rap scene, Rue selling guns and the whole Laurie. Like Paladin situation at the end was just like, those are like four standout moments that honestly, like on a bad episode, Euphoria for me still has like. A couple of moments that are better than anything else I'm watching, so I give it a lot of leeway.

• 30:22Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, did you have a particular reaction to, now I'm just trying to do the, I'm trying to do the work of someone who had watched the show. But there was a scene when Rue's driving, when she's on the phone with the character who's actor passed away, right? That's correct?

• 30:34Chris Ryan?

  I'm curious to see how much, I know that honoring Angus' memory was a very significant motivational. Thing for Sam Levinson in making the season entirely, at least in the interviews I've read with him. And I am curious to see how much he makes Fez. A character, not that I think he's going to show up in any kind of way, but that. The idea that he is going to try and escape prison now is much different than, oh, we just hear about him in the background a bit.

• 31:07Andy Greenwald?

  Well, also the genesis of the show, right, is both in terms of the background of what attracted Sam to the storyline. And then also the storyline that's the, like the beating heart of the first two seasons is an addiction story, right? And a cast member passed away from an accidental drug overdose. So you wonder if there's a. If it's inspired, if they were motivated to make it in his honor, I wonder what the thematic onscreen response to that event might be.

• 31:34Chris Ryan?

  And I think if, if, if, as seen in the, in the trailers, if Coleman Domingo's character comes back into the fold, I'm sure that will be a factor. Uh, we should wrap up Euphoria there. I look forward to talking about it with you next week. Um.

• 31:47Andy Greenwald?

  Kai, what's your flyer, what's your flower budget?

• 31:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Andy Greenwald?

  Has it fluctuated all in the last few weeks?

• 31:54Speaker 05

  I will say that, um, I know I'm like pretty badly wedding pilled at this point because I saw all those flowers and I was like, I think that makes sense for 50K.

• 32:03Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, it was very lovely.

• 32:05Chris Ryan?

  Do you think you'll get that kind of pep talk on your walk down the aisle? Like Cassie guys?

• 32:10Speaker 05

  I can only hope. Yeah.

• 32:12Andy Greenwald?

  I, I have to say that, um, this is a sidebar that I did want to bring up on this show one way or another, that I, I think it's incredible that it took the release of the Michael Jackson biopic for one of the most brilliant pieces of comedy of the last few years to finally be discovered by the mainstream, which is

• 32:26Chris Ryan?

  The Bubbles thing?

• 32:27Andy Greenwald?

  Which is John Mulaney interviewing Langston Kerman as Bubbles from last year's Everybody's Live with John Mulaney.

• 32:33Chris Ryan?

  Talk to me, talk to me.

• 32:36Andy Greenwald?

  Those of us who were, we were, we were with Bubbles shooting in the gym, first of all, we've known how funny that is, but I only want to bring it up because it's a masterpiece and the first shot of the ice sculpture, I did think was Michael and Bubbles.

• 32:47Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 32:48Andy Greenwald?

  Which I think was intentional, but I, I did think that it was John Landis also was drinking the toilet water.

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  Sidney Sweeney being like, I, I look fat in this ice sculpture and him being like, it'll, you'll look better as it melts. And she's like, but I don't want my boobs to melt. It's like, where else are you going to get that? You know?

• 33:05Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's, it's, it's like the, it's like the old

• 33:07Chris Ryan?

  For all mankind? Like, show me the way.

• 33:09Andy Greenwald?

  It just, it's from Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks to that. You know what I mean? It's just the way comedy's gone.

• 33:14Chris Ryan?

  By the way, just in terms of canon, that there was a moment when, when Sidney Sweeney, when Cassie's yelling at Nate and pops him in the eye with the champagne bottle, that, that Nate Jacobs was going to be like, Lord forgive me. It's time to go back to the old me.

• 33:27Andy Greenwald?

  I thought that too, because you planted that seed.

• 33:29Chris Ryan?

  Then he was just a really, really sweeter and then he got his toe cut off.

• 33:32Andy Greenwald?

  When we talk about it next week, we should probably, I assume there'll be more about them in their happily married life that began.

• 33:36Chris Ryan?

  Maybe I'll do a lore download for you next week. That might be my, my, my job for next week.

• 33:41Andy Greenwald?

  Because I don't want to have another week.

• 33:42Chris Ryan?

  I don't have enough going on.

• 33:44Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the draft's over. My schedule's clear. I don't get those characters. I don't understand and I don't understand the dynamic. So. Maybe now that he has to get Nas' money, it'll, you know.

• 33:56Chris Ryan?

  You get the characters on Beef, though. Beef Season 2, which is a show we-

• 33:59Andy Greenwald?

  Is this your segue?

• 34:00Chris Ryan?

  We loved, yes. And I don't want to belabor it. We can maybe touch, if we want to talk a little bit more broadly about the season, we can hit it on Thursday. So we want to get into our interview with Sonny Lee, which went on for about 45, 50 minutes and was wonderful. He talked a little bit about his writing process, his pitching process, which I thought was very interesting. And everything about casting Beef Season 2 with Kaylee Spahn and Charles Melton and Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan. The themes he was looking to discover, some stories from set. Really, really exciting to talk to him. He's an awesome interview subject.

• 34:35Andy Greenwald?

  And then some X-Men.

• 34:36Chris Ryan?

  And some X-Men. So let's get into our interview with Sonny, and we will be back on Thursday for, I would imagine-

• 34:44Andy Greenwald?

  Okay.

• 34:44Chris Ryan?

  Top Chef Restaurant Wars.

• 34:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Chris Ryan?

  We hear you, everybody, asking us to watch America's Culinary Cup. Perhaps one day, but I have only so much time in the day for cooking shows, frankly. What about you?

• 34:59Andy Greenwald?

  I too only have so much time in the day for cooking shows. I'm with you, but I have not watched it yet.

• 35:03Chris Ryan?

  And I'm sure there's some other stuff I'm just forgetting right now, so that's a hell of a tease. Thank you to Kai Kaya and Sarah for shooting with us today, and we'll be back on Thursday.

• 35:13Andy Greenwald?

  Enjoy this interview.

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• 36:15Chris Ryan?

  So thanks so much for joining The Watch again, man. It's great to see you and congratulations on a fantastic season of Beef.

• 36:23Andy Greenwald?

  This is the fastest ever turnaround from loving a show to having the creator.

• 36:26Chris Ryan?

  It's true.

• 36:27Andy Greenwald?

  So thank you for that.

• 36:28Speaker 07

  No, I was waiting right outside.

• 36:29Andy Greenwald?

  We really appreciate it.

• 36:30Speaker 07

  I was like, "They like it?"

• 36:32Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to ask you a little bit. I don't know if you think about things in these terms, but I was trying to articulate a bunch of my feelings about the show. And one of the ways I usually do that is try to describe genre. And I came up with dark screwball for the season of Beef. And I was curious if you would ever identified a genre or a micro-genre for the season for yourself that maybe helped you find the tone.

• 36:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, the tone's hard on this one.

• 36:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 07

  It's like, I came up with a formula, season one, that I just kind of did as a joke, but it's weirdly stuck for everybody. Where I call it like 35% Sopranos/early PTA comedy, where you're laughing at the broken psychology of people, plus 35% like Netflix bingeability/White Lotus watercooler moments, plus 30% Hirokazu Koreyada, Ingmar Bergman, warm melancholic pathos.

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  Which percentage of those percentages do you share with Netflix?

• 37:36Andy Greenwald?

  Because I felt them lean in in the middle.

• 37:40Andy Greenwald?

  Did you say bingeability?

• 37:42Speaker 07

  They weirdly like, I think part of the reason I came up with the formula is to help them like understand the show.

• 37:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 07

  Because it's like so hard, season one especially, to take what's in here and like get people to get on board. And oddly, that formula like worked for them. They were like, okay, like as long as it's like balanced like that.

• 38:04Andy Greenwald?

  And Bella's like, "More Koreyada." I'm like, "That's... I'm so sorry, don't say it."

• 38:08Chris Ryan?

  I would be sick if there was a Norwegian filmmaker named Bingeability. And you could just reference, you know, it's just like, oh, of course, you know, it'll be very bingeability. It's like, "Yeah, okay, well, blank check."

• 38:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, weirdly, they have been, I think it's like, I try to treat the conversation with networks like just always explaining the why, you know, instead of like digging my heels or anything. Like, I remember one time, and I hope it's okay that I share this, and if not, I'm sorry Netflix. But they, I think it was season one, like, episode three, we were at an impasse. Like, they just were like not, like, wanting to do the show anymore. And I, like, sent them a, I think it was like a TED Talk on this concept called the beholder share. It's like an art history term about like, why paintings, like, great paintings offer a lot of share to the eye of the beholder.

• 39:03Speaker 07

  And I, like, explained to them, like, if a Bed Bath & Beyond painting, like, people don't like, because it's like, this is a beach. And there's no participation from the audience. Right. And whereas Mona Lisa, like, you have to interpret it and wonder why she's smiling. Is she smiling even? And, like, we had a whole, like, one hour Zoom talking about this concept. And by the end of it, they're like, okay, no, like, we get it now. And so, uh, they're like, yeah, we see what you're trying to do in episode three, like, in terms of, like, the beholder share thing. Maybe, like, here's a little bit too confusing for us, but if you're saying that the audience wants to participate, great. So, like, I find that, like, talking, like, overly talking through everything gets me through some of these.

• 39:45Andy Greenwald?

  You're my hero.

• 39:45Speaker 07

  Take some notes.

• 39:46Andy Greenwald?

  That's incredible. Now, genuinely, do you think, like, what percentage, because you're good at fractions, do you think they were like, this really moved me and changed my perspective about television? Versus, he sent me a 55-minute video to watch, I'm just gonna let him make the show?

• 40:01Andy Greenwald?

  We don't have to name names, but I'm just wondering if it's...

• 40:03Speaker 07

  I think it's probably both. It's like a combination of all the things. I mean, that's why, like, my pitches to networks are so involved with, you know, I went to UPenn. I was supposed to be an investment banker, so PowerPoint is like, actually like my true medium. You know, I'd say even more than television. And, uh, like, I have these very involved, like, 50-minute pitches where I'm like photoshopping, like, the...

• 40:29Speaker 07

  Actors into existing frames from other movies. And some of it almost is animated and there's like music. And I like literally go through the beats of the pilot with score. And then I even like have title cards in PowerPoint that like I cut to as like to punctuate a pitch. And I do all that to just not leave anything to anyone's imagination.

• 40:52Chris Ryan?

  Do you feel like you that is actually a creative act for you? Like, do you feel like that's where the sort of creative ball starts rolling downhill?

• 40:58Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 40:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 07

  Yeah. And like weirdly, I like thrive in that PowerPoint meeting.

• 41:05Speaker 07

  It's all downhill from there. Yeah.

• 41:08Andy Greenwald?

  So season two, which again, I just think is really, really amazing. I loved watching it and I especially loved the way you built on what was season one and changed some things, slowed some things down, worked dials a little bit to communicate, I think, better what the series of beef, now that it's potentially ongoing, is to you.

• 41:26Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 41:27Andy Greenwald?

  One of the biggest things was clearly that season one is, you know, incredibly escalating conflict between the two leads. And everything spins from that. This season not only has two couples, but I thought very brilliantly made plain over time that it's not just about a beef or a conflict between two people, but about groups of people and ultimately about people and class and like a larger system.

• 41:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 41:51Andy Greenwald?

  How many different versions of a story did you have to run through to figure out the best canvas for that idea?

• 41:59Speaker 07

  Oh, a lot. I think episode one had 16 drafts, 16 network drafts. And so that's not even like including.

• 42:07Chris Ryan?

  Your stuff, yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 07

  Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it was just, uh, finding the right shape is so hard, you know? I think what I was running up against to, uh, up against was, um, just I kept feeling like, cause there are versions of the show where the beef started more overtly. Like got to probably the blackmail way sooner. And, um, I just found that when it was more overt that the. Story math after that started to become really similar to season one.

• 42:42Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 42:43Speaker 07

  And there's ways to like offset it once you get deeper in, but like just that initial domino. I was like, I just energetically have done this. And, um, you know, I just wanted, I don't like repeating myself and I just think about my favorite musicians and bands. And you think about sophomore album compared to debut album. And when they're like too similar, you just start to like lose interest a little bit, you know? Like, I mean, I love Kings of Leon, but you know, that's kind of why I like fell off a little bit.

• 43:13Andy Greenwald?

  We have a long-term beef with them on this. That's fine. This is the inciting incident for our season.

• 43:19Speaker 07

  Great. Let's get after it. Kings of Leon, what's going on? No, but like you look at a band like Radiohead, that's the Holy Grail.

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Speaker 07

  To go from Pablo Honey, Ben's, OK Computer to Kid A is like insane.

• 43:32Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 43:33Speaker 07

  And so we, we kept talking about like, uh, in prep and within the writers room, like, are we doing like, are, do we want to go from like Ben's to, to OK Computer? Or are we talking to OK Computer to Kid A? And so we're trying to like, figure out the right level of swing that we want to take. And that's why we went through so many drafts is, okay, what started to energetically feel refreshing to us, you know? So that it feels like we're on, we're doing new territory.

• 43:59Andy Greenwald?

  What was the thing, if you can pinpoint one or two, that felt exciting and fresh to, as a, as a new starting point for the season?

• 44:07Speaker 07

  I think it was sort of the, the slower burn felt really nice to me. And, uh, I say something that really clicked in in the edit was also the cold open. We had so many versions of how to start that first episode. One was starting like completely in the, um, older couples perspective and staying with them for a longer time. There was one version where we did younger couples perspective. So we just see the fight from their eyes.

• 44:35Andy Greenwald?

  Oh.

• 44:35Speaker 07

  And then it wasn't until Josh was deleting security cam footage that we saw the fight through the older couple's eyes. And it was like this kind of like surreal thing where he was like looking. Through the footage and you saw the fight happening behind him.

• 44:50Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 44:51Speaker 07

  And, you know, that was cool, like, from a filmmaking standpoint, like Jake and I were getting excited about doing that. But then, just, it was, it just felt strange to keep these perspectives separate. What felt more propulsive was that intercutting of like, here's, here's this naive young couple, here this them fighting. And it just felt these two trains that clearly were gonna collide. And I was like, oh, that's, that's the show is just constantly like playing with how much these, these two couples are colliding or not colliding.

• 45:22Andy Greenwald?

  That other version sounds a little moon shaped. It's like a little cerebral issue.

• 45:25Speaker 07

  Yes, yeah, no.

• 45:26Andy Greenwald?

  You're not there yet.

• 45:27Speaker 07

  No, no, no.

• 45:28Chris Ryan?

  Did you feel like there was anything energizing or inspiring about changing the topography of California that you were covering? Because obviously, it's more of a Southern Califor-- it's, you know, broadly a Southern California show. But you start pushing up the Central Valley here and pushing up. And like, you know, I just was in Ojai, Ojai this weekend, and every time I'm like, I could live here. I'm also like, they talk a lot about spiritual cosmic vortexes here, you know? And there is an element of like, you go there and you start to immediately think about like how to improve yourself all the time.

• 46:03Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 46:04Chris Ryan?

  And I was curious what attracted you to the, both the Moda Vista part, but also like that, that whole area.

• 46:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think, you know, for me, for whatever reason, I have a hard time just writing from nothing, you know? And I, I need life and the universe to show me things. And that's just what I was experiencing.

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 07

  You know, I just find so many of my millennial friends have either moved to Ojai or bought a place there or vacationed there often. And there is this, especially for millennials, for some reason, this like idea that that is this escape.

• 46:40Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 46:40Speaker 07

  Where like we can clean slate and everything's gonna be okay. And, uh, and then Montecito, I, a good friend of mine, Chris, he, uh, we, you know, we've been friends since our twenties, like temp together. Uh, like been so poor in LA together, and then recently he came to-- Into a lot of money, like he was number three at a company that sold to, I think PayPal for like $4 billion. And so he's a member at Montecito Club now. And I was house sitting for him. And he was like, oh, you can use my membership for a month. And I was like, how much do you pay? This is crazy. There's nothing in the world that'd be worth this amount of money. And I used it for like three days and I'm like, can I see that application?

• 47:23Andy Greenwald?

  What was it that appealed to you? Cause I think one of the other things that's so brilliant about the way you've crafted this season. Every character is human, every character is fallible and every character wants things, even if they shouldn't want them. And I think that you don't shy away from that. So maybe that also came from experience.

• 47:37Speaker 07

  Totally. I mean, we talked a lot in the writers room about hedonic adaptation and just like how quickly we as humans. Like just new stimulus, new environment, like bam, we adapt. We're such adaptable creatures and suddenly we forget, we can't go backwards.

• 47:52Andy Greenwald?

  That's Ashley. Yeah. Once you fly in the front of the plane.

• 47:54Chris Ryan?

  You know what? But that was actually what I was, Ashley is the most fascinating, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

• 47:59Speaker 07

  Oh, no, please.

• 47:59Chris Ryan?

  Ashley is such a fascinating character to me because one of my questions was, do you think that even if Ashley and Austin had never come across Josh and Lindsay fighting, Ashley was always gonna find something? That was like a lever to like move her life along? Or was she, was she ever gonna be content just being like, I guess this is just what things are, you know, like?

• 48:20Speaker 07

  I don't think so.

• 48:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, I think, I mean, that's what's fun about the way Kaylee played that character too. And we talked about it a lot with me and her and Jake of like how much we want to start her innocent. And that this is like a brand new, almost like disease that she inherits from everybody else. Or what's innately inside of her. And where we landed, I'm so glad you asked that is like, she plays it where even when, even in the pilot, like you feel a little bit like that, that is in her.

• 48:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 07

  You know, there's this like slight like edge to it. And even like, even in her like love for Austin, there's an anxiousness. Cause she, you can just tell this is someone that like is seeking and like holding on or wanting more. And so I absolutely think, even if they hadn't witnessed that, she would have found something else that she needed to idonically adapt to.

• 49:15Chris Ryan?

  It's such a great portrait of like, people in love at that age, where you're like, this is so cool, right? Like, we both work at record stores. Not that I'm speaking of your soul experience.

• 49:26Andy Greenwald?

  That came from a deep place.

• 49:28Chris Ryan?

  No, but you know, like that moment where the one person wakes up and is like, so what are we gonna do? Like, what are we gonna do with our lives? Like, this is fun, but like, are you ever gonna wear a shirt with buttons?

• 49:36Andy Greenwald?

  Well, also, once they've seen, as they see in the beginning, once they see how Josh and Lindsay live, when you go back to their home, we're seeing it the way they're seeing it. It's a perfectly fine apartment for 20-year-olds, but then they've seen what maybe they feel they're supposed to have.

• 49:49Chris Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 49:50Andy Greenwald?

  And we're watching that as well.

• 49:51Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, that was what was so fun about kind of writing these younger characters as a room. And we have, you know, younger writers in the room too, but just thinking about what we used to be like. And what's funny is like, it feels not that long ago, but then also so long ago, to think about like, relationships from 20s. And then, a funny thing that came up in the room is just this like, the question, what are you thinking? You know, like, you used to ask that, like, so in love, like, because you genuinely wanted to know what the other person was thinking.

• 50:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 07

  And now it's like, never said in like, uh, like, it's like, okay, what are you thinking?

• 50:32Speaker 07

  And so like, just.

• 50:33Chris Ryan?

  So you're thinking now, huh? Congratulations.

• 50:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's like the last thing you wanna ask, you know?

• 50:40Andy Greenwald?

  But staying on the young couple for a minute, because I thought Charles Melton is just like, revelatory in this show. He's so good, and he's so funny, and it's such a rare thing to have someone who can be self-aware and smart at being slightly dumb. I thought, I thought they were incredible. And particularly when you give him early on the line about, actually, this is all late-stage capitalism's fault. And you realize that he's read this on a Reddit board or something.

• 51:04Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 51:05Andy Greenwald?

  And you've captured this tone that is both giving us a roadmap for what the series is gonna be about. Because that is what they come up against, and it does undo them all. But also, he's a little bit clownish when he says it. It's convenient to blame.

• 51:17Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 51:18Andy Greenwald?

  Um, that felt like a really important hinge point for the character and for the season.

• 51:21Speaker 07

  So much of, uh, writing Austin was looking at our own lives and what how I feel like we all do that these days. Like, like lately I've been saying like, oh yeah, I just read. And when I say that, I'm like, no, I saw on Instagram, you know, two sentences over a stock photo, you know?

• 51:42Andy Greenwald?

  Well, where's my mind?

• 51:45Speaker 07

  And so, you know, I think Austin felt like someone who truly, uh, you know, there's, he also probably has an insecurity being like a, you know, failed athlete. And so he wants to feel useful and smart. And so he is trying to grasp at these larger concepts, but can't. And, um, and I, but I think, I think for a lot of us, like, all the things we're grasping at are true.

• 52:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 07

  You know, uh, we just don't have the means to fully understand it and to even understand why it's happening. But I, I love the way that Charles played Austin too, cause in the wrong hands, it could have been very like too much of a buffoon. You know, like a classic like himbo. And I think Charles, he injected so much more humanity into, uh, this character. Uh, he was so protective of Austin. There are often times where he was so locked in that, uh, he would, he would make the entire crew laugh, just like destroyed on set. And then he would, he would have to like go to his trailer upset.

• 52:52Chris Ryan?

  Cause it's like, are you laughing at me with me?

• 52:54Speaker 07

  Yeah. And he was like, he was like, I feel like everyone's laughing at me. I don't know why people are laughing at Austin and Austin means well. He's like trying, and then so like now, like given some distance from the character, he'll like watch the show and laugh at himself like more than anybody else. But in the moment, he was so in Austin that he couldn't even like take the fact that he was crushing on set.

• 53:15Andy Greenwald?

  Did you, I've read, I've read varying reports on this, like, do you write for these actors specifically if possible? Like, did you write this for him with him in mind? And was that also the case? Or maybe we know it's not the case for the older couple and we could talk about that.

• 53:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, I try to attach actors really early on because I can't write to people in a vacuum and, or write characters in a vacuum. And Charles is the first piece because I knew the half Korean arc was really important to me. And I watched May, December and was blown away like everybody else. Like that scene on the roof where he smokes pot. It's like heartbreaking, but so funny.

• 53:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. He's like, he's so amazing in Warfare too. It's like, if you see him in Warfare, like it's mind blowing what he's doing in Beef. Because you're like, oh, you could be, like, I mean, he kind of does remind me of Brad Pitt in that way. Where it's like, he's capable of being the like, the punchline in a scene, but he's also capable of being like a full leading man.

• 54:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's a complete chameleon. And, and so I attached him really early and like, you know, we became fast friends. He likes to tell this story about on the basketball court. Because I had a, I was renting this house and there was a basketball court and playing basketball like every week. And he was getting these early drafts and there wasn't a lot, you know, his, his arc was like paced out to be what it is. And again, locked into Austin, he was kind of like upset. He's like, I'm just the side character. And he tells the story of him, him blocking me really badly. And that that was him taking out all this frustration.

• 54:47Chris Ryan?

  What's your story?

• 54:48Speaker 07

  My story is that I think I won 11-4.

• 54:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. That was a foul.

• 54:53Speaker 07

  Yeah. But, uh, no, I think what's, what's great about Charles is that we, he, he just gave so much of himself to the project. Like, you know, all that time on the basketball court, I was like mentally noting all the little ways he spoke. Like Charles loves to put handles on his, like whatever he says. He'll be like, if I may say this, Sonny, my perspective is, my perspective is Sonny that I think. And so he'll like say all these handles before he gets to his point. And so I'm like, oh, that's so Austin.

• 55:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 07

  And so I was just jotting down all these Charlesisms to kind of make this character very bespoke to him. But I did that for everybody, you know, I think just hours and hours of conversations with Kaylee, with Oscar, with Carrie. You know, Oscar and Carrie, like, you know, they discover a lot in rehearsals. And like, we'll have like, hours of like, really in-depth Zoom conversations about super personal things. And so then I'll spiritually put that into the characters. But then dialogue, that's all, a lot of it is discovered in rehearsals. And then that'll kind of get them feeling good. And then usually after that, we'll like, start to put back some of the like,

• 56:09Speaker 07

  little ornamental like jokes and stuff that we liked. And then, once they feel like they're in a good foundational place, then they're like more apt to try some of like, the sillier jokes and stuff.

• 56:19Andy Greenwald?

  When did, when did Carrie and Oscar come on? And did you have to tweak, like, for example, Carrie being English is essential to the character now in a way that I can't imagine it otherwise. But I don't know what draft that turn occurred.

• 56:33Speaker 07

  That, uh, they came on pretty early. It was Charles and Kaylee first. And then, and then I was sort of looking at different configurations of actors that had a history behind them.

• 56:45Andy Greenwald?

  Right. You wanted people who had worked together before.

• 56:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, because the first impression of Josh and Lindsay is so bad that I was really worried that no matter how we write it, we might lose the audience if they don't feel this inherent

• 56:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Speaker 07

  like, subtext between the two. And, um, so Oscar and Carrie, it's like, you know, they're two of the greatest movies of this century, you know, between Drive and Inside Lemon Davis. And so I went after Oscar first, just because we're both at WME. And that was easier.

• 57:15Andy Greenwald?

  So romantic.

• 57:16Speaker 07

  Yeah. I wish I had a better story. But, uh, and

• 57:20Chris Ryan?

  Because I blocked his shot. I was just like, you know what?

• 57:24Andy Greenwald?

  There's jokes about his height in the, in the show.

• 57:27Speaker 07

  There is, yeah. Uh, and, um, and he, he, you know, I mentioned Carrie, and he like lit up. Because I guess they've been pitching each other for every project they've done since Inside Lemon Davis. And, um, and so I went to Carrie pretty soon after.

• 57:42Chris Ryan?

  Didn't you say he's, she's like his favorite person to act with, basically?

• 57:46Speaker 07

  Yes. They have a safety between them that That is like insane. Like you watch them together and it just feels like it's like, I don't even want to say Jordan Pippin. It's like two Jordans, you know?

• 57:59Andy Greenwald?

  Spider-Man meme.

• 58:00Speaker 07

  Spider-Man meme.

• 58:00Chris Ryan?

  Like to go to a casino with those guys.

• 58:04Speaker 07

  There's a shorthand between them that is like unreal. And they just, they don't even have to say anything. They just like know like where the other person's going. Like one person starts to push the scene a certain way and there's like not a missed beat. It's really crazy to watch, but yeah, I think they both attached pretty early on. I think I had maybe like one draft of the pilot that I had sent to them. And you know, once Carrie was on, I'm just like, oh, we have to switch to British.

• 58:34Andy Greenwald?

  She's amazing on the show and the specificity, and this is a theme I keep coming back to when talking about how much I love the season. But the specificity of her being sort of this slightly failed British aristocracy posh lady who everyone on, who sees her on Instagram thinks she's thriving. But of course she's, she's run out of funds and she searches the Daily Mail for people she knew or once slept with. That twinned with the absolute like millennial headshot of, of Josh loving Hot Chip, which is so specific and not a diss at Hot Chip.

• 59:04Speaker 07

  Not at all.

• 59:05Andy Greenwald?

  But I've never met anyone who said Hot Chip is my number one favorite fan.

• 59:09Chris Ryan?

  They haven't heard the whole frequency spectrum of.

• 59:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 59:11Andy Greenwald?

  But he's so razor sharp. Like that's what makes the show. And are those the things that you have, do those things happen first? Like you think of that and the character comes from that? Or as you're building the character, do those details just populate?

• 59:24Speaker 07

  It's as we're building it and that was really early on with Oscar. Cause truthfully, early drafts had him, the synth stuff and the moog stuff didn't exist. It was sort of like first thought laziness I had. We had written more that he was like really into like the Lumineers. And so we had like.

• 59:45Andy Greenwald?

  I'm here for that season.

• 59:46Speaker 07

  Three scenes where he like, there was like.

• 59:48Chris Ryan?

  He's doing hay.

• 59:48Speaker 07

  A lot of ho hay, like covering ho hay. And, and I think also I was like, I was so hell bent on, remember that Outkast cover of Hey Ya that was acoustic?

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:01Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:00:01Speaker 07

  And I just, that's so millennial cringe to me that I was like hell bent on getting that in the show in any which way or form. And so I think that's why I leaned so hard into the acoustic guitar for Josh. But once we started talking about it, Oscar and I, I was like, okay, you did that on Inside Luan Davis. Like, we don't need to see Oscar Isaac with an acoustic guitar again. Like, how am I ever gonna beat the Coen Brothers?

• 1:00:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:26Speaker 07

  That just won't happen. So we started talking about like other things that are millennial cringe. And then the idea of like a forty seven year old just like having this mini mug. And like, like, just like, because mugs are also really hard, you know, like, you like buy it and then you like, think you're gonna get really good at like oscillators and stuff.

• 1:00:44Chris Ryan?

  You're not in Stereolab yet.

• 1:00:45Speaker 07

  But like, it's never cool.

• 1:00:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Speaker 07

  You know, and so that's when we were like, started really laughing together of, we talked about the, like, that seminal concert at the Bowl where we literally name checked in the show with LCD and Hot Chip opening. Like, I feel like every person my age who's who lived in LA at that time was at that show and cried. Probably was on Molly.

• 1:01:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 07

  Probably posted about it on Twitter when it was good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that's where we started having fun. We're like, oh, should it be LCD or something? But like, Hot Chip felt like that perfect bullseye of, I mean, they're an incredible band. I've seen them so much live. But like you said, they don't quite get the shine that they deserve. And they're also a band that would, that Troy could call and in a moment show up at a Denver chalet or a Utah chalet and play at this like weird event. And so it was just like a lot of conversations talking about things that we find cringy about ourselves, you know?

• 1:01:47Chris Ryan?

  Is that also where, because I was curious about the pop culture references and and the thinking around like, you know, rooting these characters in having fights about Bullet Train or Top Gun Maverick and Meskell Meskell Knights and yeah, like the idea of like, you populate it with. It's funny, too, because I guess Josh and Lindsay do a little more of it than Austin and Ashley, because it's probably like they have more time to kill and they're more, you know, they're like still indulging in all of their cultural obsessions or whatever.

• 1:02:18Andy Greenwald?

  They still go to the beach once a week.

• 1:02:19Chris Ryan?

  Sure, but like, you know, like Austin and Ashley are kind of like grinding to make ends meet. But when you're putting in references to contemporary pop culture, are you like, how do I make this so that it's not immediately like, you know, in a year, this is gonna be like, oh, okay, we've dated ourselves.

• 1:02:37Speaker 07

  I think it's just, it has to feel like it's coming from character, you know, like even season one, when Danny, like, I think he name checks like Linkin Park hybrid theory, you know, and it's like, it's just, we just did that because like, that is what that person Danny would be talking about, even in 2023 at the time. And I think for someone like Josh and Lindsay, I just felt like I had heard different couples post-COVID fighting about that. Like, I've heard that like structure of a fight amongst friends of like, well, I didn't get to go to that because you had COVID, you know? And so like, like just having heard that so many times in my own life,

• 1:03:21Speaker 07

  I'm like, okay, like that structure is very relatable. Like, what movie could be that? And Top Gun Maverick and Bullet Train, those are just like, I don't know, there's things that I feel like feel more of Josh, you know? Like, I don't think Josh is going to the theater to see like, you know, director parks the handmaiden at the Lemley when it opens.

• 1:03:44Chris Ryan?

  But you have to be careful because it's gotta be something that Oscar Isaac could not possibly have been in.

• 1:03:48Speaker 07

  Yes, yeah, yeah, no, we do, and he's been in a lot.

• 1:03:52Chris Ryan?

  You are in Drive, dog.

• 1:03:55Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. What you're speaking to is so interesting because I think that the, one of the skills that you and your crew and creatives have is like to draw the universality out of something very specific. And I'm thinking in this case about the way you use phones and social media, which I think is the best I've ever seen on a TV show because it's not just the... The text on screen, which we've seen, it's the swapping between apps. Which, you know, mirrors the way, and this is something we were talking about last week, like, the way our interiority is so impatient and so restless.

• 1:04:26Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:04:27Andy Greenwald?

  And we can just feed ourselves constantly, even within a thumb movement.

• 1:04:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Andy Greenwald?

  And, you know, the way that like, it informs the scene. So that Austin is just speaking ChatGPT sweating, trying to keep his head above water. You know, or, and you may have heard me say this last week too. I love that your show ran at the reality of Recently Deleted. Because I think generally, when, when, when movies and TV use phones, they, they allied the bits that don't work for the drama.

• 1:04:55Speaker 07

  Yes, sure.

• 1:04:55Andy Greenwald?

  It would still exist in the cloud.

• 1:04:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Andy Greenwald?

  But you ran right towards it. And, and can you talk a little bit about that conversation that you have with your writers? About how we, we have to use what is actually out there?

• 1:05:06Speaker 07

  Thank you for noticing that, because we, we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about exactly that. Like, you know, I think that backup video thing is, is a good call out. Because there was, there was some debate in the room of like, should we abandon this backup video thing? Because like, yeah, like, they would back it up to the cloud. And, and it's just, you know, the things I've learned from watching stuff that I love, like Sopranos and Breaking Bad, they're always like not shying away from the thing that like backs you into a corner.

• 1:05:41Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:41Speaker 07

  Because that's what life does. Life backs you into a corner. And so then, yeah, like, you know, if, if Ashley like deletes the text, then like, recently deleted, oh, it sucks that it's there. But then like, we should lean into that. Like, we can make that a story point.

• 1:05:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 07

  And, and I think so, we're always just trying to like, look at our own lives the way we feel and try to figure out the most efficient way to dramatize that. You know, the app switching thing, that's, I had to shout out someone on our VFX team, Melissa Khan, she came up with that this season. And I thought it was just brilliant, you know? Because it's such a quick way to do exactly what you're talking about. But we pour over everything from like, like we- Spent hours like trying to find like the right like font and like, you know, how much is true to the actual OS versus like taking liberty and bending it? Like, how do we just make this feel like how it feels for us when we use our phones?

• 1:06:39Speaker 07

  And even in the mix, when Ashley's texting Austin about, you know, can you go to H and M? Can you do this? Like, we boosted the, his fast angry typing because that's how it feels when you're like angrily replying to somebody. Like, you hear it a little louder. And so just all these like very subjective ways we can create that experience because it's that, that phone is just a part of who we are now and there's no going back.

• 1:07:04Chris Ryan?

  There's even like the stuff that happens when Ashley is texting Unice about, and it's like Ashley's been in an accident, but like her texting as Austin is not Austin's voice kind of stuff, which is like, that makes or breaks things. It can take you out of, out of the reality of what's happening if it's not, if it's not accurate. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Montevista and the golf club stuff and then the connection to Seoul. And, and I know you wanted to talk about this as well, but I was curious whether or not to start with, that came fully formed to you as like a whole package of this is where I want the show to go? And this is this other element of the show? Or whether that was something that was developed over, you know,

• 1:07:46Chris Ryan?

  after thinking about these four characters for a while, there was like, I want to bring another element in it?

• 1:07:52Speaker 07

  It was the former because, you know, Charles was the first piece because I knew that this half Korean identity tug of war was something that's going to be very important to this season. And, and as part of that tug of war, I knew that, you know, Native Korea was going to be on one end of that. And, and again, it was just writing from what I know, what I was experiencing. Like after season one, I was, I shot a music video for RM, one of the guys in BTS in Korea, and I hadn't been back in a really long time. And getting the red carpet like rolled out for me and like getting wined and dined in like the private halls of a Korean conglomerate. And it was, you know, there was, I joked to this one actual chairwoman.

• 1:08:33Speaker 07

  I was like, hey, like, I'm getting like a skin, like self-conscious about my skin because you're like, making me meet all these K-pop idols.

• 1:08:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 07

  And she just like, without missing a beat, she was just like, oh, I'll send you to my skin guy. I was like, what? And she's like, oh, tomorrow in the morning, a black SUV will pick you up and we'll send you to our skin guy. Don't worry. And so I'm like, okay, when in Rome?

• 1:08:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you look great.

• 1:08:58Speaker 07

  Well, you know, that's why I look like I go back. But I did this like light laser and I was just writing in my notes app the whole time. I was like, this is fascinating. And I remember writing in my notes app before I even had like a page of anything for the show. I just wrote old boy style fight in skin clinic with skin flying around. I'm just like, I haven't seen that before. And, and you look around and this is like a world that's like thriving. Like, it's like one of the biggest, like, you know, like, like agents of tourism for the country. Like, people are like going over there in the masses and no one's really like dramatized this. And I'm always looking for new slices of the Asian and Asian American experience to showcase.

• 1:09:42Speaker 07

  And we had covered so much California, Korean American diaspora. And I'm like, well, this is new and exciting to me. And so that was baked into the Charles arc. How we went about it definitely changed as you, you know, attach to the greatest Korean actress of all time.

• 1:10:02Andy Greenwald?

  That's, that's the segue to what I was gonna ask. You not only have Yoon Yoo Jung, who won an Oscar and is, you know, an incredible actress as the supervillain of the show. You've got Song Kang Ho is one of the greatest actors alive to play a mostly comedic supporting part.

• 1:10:18Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:10:18Andy Greenwald?

  On the show. How, how did, how did those conversations happen?

• 1:10:23Speaker 07

  Miracle after miracle, you know, Y J I had met through Stephen, obviously on Minari, they, they worked together. And I think I had, I think I emailed her and then she was interested. So then I met her in Irvine, actually at like a chairwoman, Miki Lee, who's like the head of CJ at her house. So it's like already very meta. And, and I was pitching Y J the arc and, you know, she's so, she's much like her character, so intimidating. Cause you just hold so much gravity, you know, she is like truly royalty. And um, once I got to the part where she had a husband 20 years younger, she just started cackling.

• 1:11:04Speaker 07

  And she was like, no one in Korea would ever have the courage to write me a husband 20 years younger. And I think, you know, she's had such a storied career to be offered something where she can feel like she's doing something new. It's, I think, something she's chasing. So she was in, and then I told her, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna go after Son Gago, cuz like, why not? Like, let's go for the moonshot. And um, you know, he, he I had met through the success of season one. We had dinner in Korea a couple of times, and I knew he was a fan of the show. But I also know, like, pitching him something that's like, you know, the sixth lead is like, probably not gonna go over that well. And also, he had a very busy shoot schedule that he was already doing other stuff.

• 1:11:48Speaker 07

  So his initial reaction was no. Like, I sent him a scene, and he was just like, ah, like, I don't know if it's gonna work with my schedule, and I'm probably not right for this. And I went back to YJ, and I told her, and, and she just wasn't gonna have it. She was like, I'm gonna call him. So she called him direct, and she was just like, hey, you're Son Gago. You're the greatest actor alive. What are you talking about? You like, don't know how to figure this out. Like, you're gonna figure out how to play this, it's gonna be great, and you're gonna be in the show. And so then, like, 48 hours later, I got like a sheepish text from Son Gago, being like, hey, a change of heart.

• 1:12:25Andy Greenwald?

  At what point did you tell him what may be the masterpiece of the season, which is his long, beautiful soliloquy about the mask of, of, of wealth and celebrity and what lies behind it and the dark truth of life? And then, and then Austin says, I think I heard soup.

• 1:12:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, he, uh, he got that pretty late, cuz I'm like notoriously late with my scripts. And the finale was written like, deep into the shoot. And um, I think he was getting a little anxious, to be honest. Like, uh, cuz he was texting me a lot through shoot about- Like golfing, like in classic, like, I think, like, Korean misunderstanding, like, kind of like Charles and, and, like, Charles's character and Dr. Kim. He had texted me early on being like, is there gonna be golf in the show? And I thought he like-

• 1:13:15Chris Ryan?

  Like, hopefully, or?

• 1:13:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, I thought hopeful. And I was like, sure, whatever you want. You're the greatest actor of all time. He's like, well, please let me know if there's golf in the show. And I was like, do you want golf? And he's like, if there's golf in the show, I would just love to know. And I was like, I can write you a golf scene.

• 1:13:32Chris Ryan?

  Does he need to, like, get his swing dialed or what happened?

• 1:13:35Speaker 07

  And he was like, fantastic. If there's a golf scene, great, please send. And I was like, I went to the writers' room, I was like, guys, we have to write a golf scene for Sungguk.

• 1:13:45Speaker 07

  And like, this whole time, we're going back and forth about this golf scene. And I was like, this guy's like weirdly obsessed with like wanting to play golf in a show. Like, that's cool. And it wasn't until like we were on the day, shooting in Korea, that he told me that he was like so nervous to, because he doesn't know how to golf.

• 1:14:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my god, dude.

• 1:14:03Speaker 07

  And so he was stressed. And I was like, oh, man, I wish I would have known.

• 1:14:07Andy Greenwald?

  You call this guy. That's his dream job. This is just, he's a swing guy.

• 1:14:11Chris Ryan?

  I've got some YouTube videos I can send him.

• 1:14:13Andy Greenwald?

  Ultimately, I wondered, you know, you finished the show a while ago. It's out now for a couple of weeks. I don't know if you've had much time to reflect, but do you feel like this season of Beef is ultimately cynical about love and marriage? Or clear-eyed about it?

• 1:14:27Chris Ryan?

  That's a great question.

• 1:14:28Speaker 07

  It's a good question.

• 1:14:29Andy Greenwald?

  Follow-up, are you married?

• 1:14:32Speaker 07

  I am married, and I think, I think it's been interesting seeing everyone's different reactions, because I, I, I've been trying to get better about that. Season one, like, I literally read every single word written on the internet about the show. There doesn't exist a word about Beef I hadn't read in season one.

• 1:14:50Andy Greenwald?

  You need to go to Korea and get a laser treatment for that part of your brain that's holding on to all of it.

• 1:14:55Speaker 07

  And season two, I'm trying to be better and like stay off the internet a little bit more. But I have seen, like, some people are taking it very cynically, and other people are like, oh, that's actually like really beautiful. And I think it is doing what we intended, where we wanted the ending to be open to interpretation. We want that beholder's share. And we also want people's interpretation to change over time, depending on where you're at in life. And so, like, that's my favorite stuff is- You know, Sopranos, Mad Men, like, you know, I'll go and re-watch a Coen Brothers movie.

• 1:15:28Chris Ryan?

  I was thinking about Burn After Reading a lot with this.

• 1:15:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, where I'm like, oh, the way I received it in my youth is different than the way I'm receiving it now. And that's our intention with this ending is, yeah, if you're in a certain spot, you might take this super cynical. I, where I'm currently at, I actually see it as like acceptance. And, and, and, you know, the reason we depicted the Buddhist concept of samsara as our last note was like, you know, the point of samsara isn't to be like, ah, like, we're in this like eternal trap, like, how cynical and give up. Like, the path to enlightenment is like the acceptance of samsara.

• 1:16:12Speaker 07

  And it's only in like the letting go of it and in the, like, almost like letting the wave of this wash over you that there is hope of breaking the cycle and, and, and hopefully pushing through this trap into enlightenment. And so I, I personally, I mean, this may change in 10, 20 years, I don't know. But I certainly was trying to express a, a level of acceptance at the end.

• 1:16:38Chris Ryan?

  So I guess as a way to sort of, kind of start to wrap up, how durable do you think this concept of Beef is for you? Like, I, I love the idea of a, of a bucket, you could put anything you're interested in, like as a show. But, you know, I know you're obviously a busy guy, like, how, how, how much do you find yourself putting down ideas on like a Notes app and be like, that's a Beef idea? Like, this fight I heard, this conversation I had, this, this idea, like, it may not be like Beef Season 3 is rolling, but like Beef Season 3 is like in your mind somewhere?

• 1:17:14Speaker 07

  Definitely not.

• 1:17:18Speaker 07

  All my Beef ideas that I had in my Notes app, I like had pitched to Netflix in trying to get a season two, which like didn't happen for the longest time, too. I was like, what is happening?

• 1:17:30Chris Ryan?

  I'm the Beef guy.

• 1:17:32Speaker 07

  But.

• 1:17:33Chris Ryan?

  Have you guys seen the TED Talk?

• 1:17:36Speaker 07

  I like, so I've like run out, you know, I, I definitely have tried to express everything I can through the show. And if, if this is the last season, which at this point I think is like. You know, a collective decision between myself and Netflix. I'm, I'm, I would be perfectly happy if this was the last season. Cause I'm really proud of the work we did and, and I feel like I've said everything I needed to say through the show. But, you know, I also didn't expect season two to even happen.

• 1:18:06Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:18:06Speaker 07

  You know, like, I, I didn't know I was gonna write about two couples until real life hit me. And, and so if something hits a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, I'm, I'm definitely open. But currently, like, it is a very, like, emotionally exhausting show to do.

• 1:18:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Speaker 07

  It's like, you really are sitting in the shadows of yourself for an extremely long time. And I-

• 1:18:32Chris Ryan?

  Gotta write all these golf scenes.

• 1:18:34Speaker 07

  Gotta write all these golf scenes. So, uh, I, I, I'm ready to like, I have so many other things I wanna pursue. We're, we're pretty knee deep in X-Men right now and, which has been like such a joy, uh, relative to-

• 1:18:48Andy Greenwald?

  This is when I would use, I would send Netflix the, the, um, Tim Robinson thing of like, oh my God, I can't believe he admitted. Because I'm asking you about that next. So I'm happy you said the word first.

• 1:18:58Speaker 07

  Sure, yeah, of course. No, it's, uh, it's, I think I definitely need a break from, from, from, uh, from this, uh, vessel of- Like, literally, this show is called Beef. It's just antagonism, you know?

• 1:19:13Chris Ryan?

  I mean, season three could be the brothers from Kings of Leon's beef with each other. Just, just throwing it out there.

• 1:19:20Speaker 07

  That would be easier to write.

• 1:19:22Andy Greenwald?

  So, you said it, so we didn't have to awkwardly dance around it. You are one of the writers announced working on the X-Men movie for Marvel. And I don't wanna get you into any trouble with NDAs and things. But I was curious, um, process aside, uh, your X-Men fandom. Like, coming into it, who's, who's your era?

• 1:19:39Chris Ryan?

  Who are your guys?

• 1:19:40Andy Greenwald?

  Who are your creators? What brought you into that franchise before you got the call? And what interests you about them?

• 1:19:46Speaker 07

  Oh, I mean, growing up, like, that was like the one thing my dad and I would watch together every Saturday morning.

• 1:19:52Andy Greenwald?

  So it's the cartoon?

• 1:19:53Speaker 07

  Well, that was the initial way in, you know?

• 1:19:57Speaker 07

  And like cartoon for me, like, I was obsessed with Gambit. You know, obviously, like Jubilee, like, you're like, oh, like, Asian face, you know? Like, how cool, like, in this, like, group of superheroes. And, and so Gambit and Jubilee were like, like, my jam. And I, like, I was really obsessed with Gambit. And, uh, and then, like, you kind of, you know, like everybody else, you go in through Claremont. And, yeah, I think that, that, the, the feeling of sort of the original team, I think, is, uh, the movies. Uh, I love the movies as well, but like, uh, it's a feeling that I, that I miss, you know? And, um, and when you go back and watch, uh, not watch, but like, read some of the earlier stuff,

• 1:20:43Speaker 07

  there, there's so much, uh, like, inner team, like, almost like soapy things.

• 1:20:49Andy Greenwald?

  Super melodramatic.

• 1:20:50Speaker 07

  You know? And, and-

• 1:20:52Andy Greenwald?

  They're either fighting the danger room or playing softball, and it's all about their own neuroses.

• 1:20:56Speaker 07

  Yeah. And, and, and I think, like, the, the movies in a great way, like, leaned into more of, like, the political, uh, backdrop, uh, which is just always baked into X-Men. But I think what's exciting about Jake's vision for this movie is he wants to get back to character first. He wants to really lean into sort of that, like, inner character dynamics and relationships and, and, um, you know, play around with the soapy stuff that was, like, baked into the comics. And, um, we've been, you know, me, Joanna, Jake, Kevin, Lou, we've been in rooms every single day.

• 1:21:31Andy Greenwald?

  Wow.

• 1:21:31Speaker 07

  And it's so exciting, like, to have, like, literally in the Marvel room, they have every character in the X-Men comics just, like, put on the wall. And you're just staring at, like, the best IP on the planet. You're like, can I get Bishop ass? It's the craziest thing. It truly is. Like, I, like, can't believe this is- Like, it's so exciting. And that's also the hard part of it. It's like, you know, you feel a great responsibility with this. Because, yeah, we, like, amongst us, like, we are like, we, we, we're trying to, we can really do anything. We're not like beholden to, to anything from the past.

• 1:22:09Andy Greenwald?

  It's interesting because I think that one of the reasons why the MCU was so successful is because Kevin and his lieutenants were just elite at identifying the single logline at the heart of every one of these characters and communicating that, like, with a purity. You know, whether, and then that continued on through Spider-Man. And I think that you guys, and I know you worked on Thunderbolts, you, you were able to do that with characters that people weren't even necessarily aware of. Or at least their connection going into it. X-Men, it almost felt like for years, I always thought that they, maybe they were lucky not to have it in their arsenal because the logline is, you know, hunted and feared kids who hang out together, but who also are avatars for every marginalized class in history. But then having a large, you know, global villains gallery, but then also maybe shouldn't be fighting because they are an evolution of humanity.

• 1:22:54Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:22:55Andy Greenwald?

  So I guess the question in there is, how?

• 1:23:00Speaker 07

  Well, I, I think, I mean, we're really early on and I think, um, uh, what I, what I've loved about working with Kevin especially is that that guy just has like an uncanny innate sense of like what to chase. It's crazy. And I think Marvel has done a really great job of sort of clearing the deck. They had a lot of stuff going on.

• 1:23:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Speaker 07

  You know, Kevin was being pulled in a million directions. Like, they've cleared the deck, they're focusing on like just a couple of things.

• 1:23:29Andy Greenwald?

  You took Moon Knight season two off the table.

• 1:23:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, I took it right off the table. I'm so sorry. There are so many ardent Moon Knight fans, uh, but never say never. Um, and, and Kevin's really locked in and his, like, there's times like in the room where he'll, where he'll say something where like, I think this. And then like, I'll be like, you know, on the carpet, like, and of course, every interview question is about X-Men. And then like seven fans will come up. And then the thing that the seven fans say is like literally the thing that Kevin said in the room yesterday. So I'm just like, oh, he is just tapped in.

• 1:24:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:04Speaker 07

  And, you know, I think he's put a lot of trust into Jake because. I think they're very happy with how Thunderbolts turned out and that it is a character-first movie. So, you know, it's really exciting. You know, I love, I have a pep in my step going to work because it's like, you know, it's one, it's a nice break from this. And then two, you know, like, childhood me is just like.

• 1:24:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, are you like driving to Burbank like, I can't believe I'm doing this?

• 1:24:35Andy Greenwald?

  Are you getting notes from your dad?

• 1:24:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. Well, like, my dad, it's like, you know, when I told him that I got this, he was just like, that's the good one.

• 1:24:43Chris Ryan?

  That's incredible. Yeah, that's all I would ever need. Man, thank you so much for coming by. Congratulations on this season. Good luck with X-Men.

• 1:24:53Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:24:54Chris Ryan?

  We will be monitoring the situation closely.

• 1:24:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 1:24:58Chris Ryan?

  And please come back and join us again sometime soon, man.

• 1:25:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I've got a list of follow-ups, like, could Magneto and Wolverine ever fight because of the...

• 1:25:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, let's talk about it in a few weeks. All right, sounds good.

• 1:25:09Chris Ryan?

  Take care, man.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

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