Pod Insights Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso The Humanity of Actor Steven Yeun (‘Love Me’) About this episode From The Walking Dead https://www.netflix.com/title/70177057 to Minari https://a24films.com/films/minari to Beef https://www.netflix.com/watch/81497204?source=35, Steven Yeun has become one of the most singular performers in Hollywood today. With his latest role in the sci-fi romance Love Me https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/love-me, we look back at our conversation with the leading man.
At the top, Yeun unpacks his acclaimed Netflix series Beef (5:09), a powerful church scene from the show (11:30), and his personal experience immigrating to the US from Seoul as a child (18:15). Then, we walk through Steven’s coming of age in Michigan (21:24), his memorable audition for The Second City Touring Company (25:29), and his pursuit of on-screen work in Los Angeles (33:40).
On the back-half, Steven reflects on his portrayal of Glenn on The Walking Dead (36:22), the films that followed, including Okja (48:10), Burning (50:02), and Sorry to Bother You (51:16), his transformative experience making and premiering Minari (55:42), and to close, a poem that guided him on set by the great Wendell Berry (1:08:19).
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Transcript 12,454 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Speaker 00 Lemonada.
0:21 Sam Fragoso? This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.
0:39 Sam Fragoso? Today, I'm joined by actor Steven Yeun. Yeun first broke out in the hit AMC series The Walking Dead, where he played fan favorite character Glen Ree from 2010 to 2016. In the years to follow, though, Steven has made increasingly interesting choices, collaborating with a wide variety of auteurs like director Bong in Okja, Boots Riley in Sorry to Bother You, and director Lee in Minari, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role, making him the first Asian American to do so. His latest work comes in a new Netflix original series called Beef.
1:21 Sam Fragoso? Created by Lee Sung Jin, the show tracks the aftermath of a road rage incident between two strangers: a despondent contractor, played by Yeun, and a self-made entrepreneur, played by Ali Wong. Here's a clip from the trailer.
1:44 Speaker 02 What is your problem? What?
1:57 Speaker 00 What are you doing?
1:59 Sam Fragoso? What's up?
2:04 Speaker 00 I have a very old life that I'd love to get back to. I'm gonna find you and take what little you have.
2:15 Speaker 03 You're just a suburban housewife. And now you're stuck in a life you never wanted.
2:21 Speaker 04 You have this serene Zen Buddhist thing going on.
2:27 Speaker 04 Hey?
2:31 Speaker 00 I would love to let this go. Actions have consequences.
2:36 Speaker 02 I just can't understand what those people are so angry about.
2:42 Speaker 03 You started this.
2:43 Speaker 02 Me?
2:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
2:44 Speaker 02 Okay, you're the one who backed into me like a psycho.
2:47 Speaker 03 You're the one that flipped me off. I'll write it out and-
2:50 Speaker 02 Are you guys leaving? Or are you just gonna sit there?
2:52 Speaker 03 What'd you say? What'd you say?
2:53 Speaker 02 Say it again! I dare you to say it again!
2:59 Sam Fragoso? We talk about all things Beef at the top of this episode. We also, of course, discuss Yun's immigration from Seoul to the US, coming of age in Michigan, finding his way on the stages of Second City, Chicago, and how really each film and character has shaped the artist he is today. So, without further ado, this is Steven Yeun.
3:38 Sam Fragoso? Steven Yeun.
3:39 Speaker 03 Hello.
3:39 Sam Fragoso? Pleasure to meet you.
3:40 Speaker 03 Nice to meet you.
3:41 Sam Fragoso? How are you feeling?
3:43 Speaker 03 I feel good. I feel-
3:44 Sam Fragoso? You'll give an honest answer.
3:45 Speaker 03 Yeah. That's the thing is my honest answer is unsure. But not like negatively unsure, just generally unaware of myself for the present moment.
3:58 Sam Fragoso? We're gonna try to make sense of that-
4:00 Speaker 03 All right.
4:01 Sam Fragoso? -in this conversation.
4:02 Speaker 03 Here we go. All right.
4:03 Sam Fragoso? We're gonna give it a go.
4:04 Speaker 03 Okay.
4:04 Sam Fragoso? I can't promise anything.
4:06 Speaker 03 I don't even know what I would do with promises, so it's good.
4:11 Sam Fragoso? I want to start with this new show Beef. It's on Netflix. It's created by Lee Sung Jin. And in it, you play Danny, a despondent contractor who backs out of a hardware store parking lot only to nearly collide with another driver.
4:28 Sam Fragoso? That driver is played by Ali Wong. And she proceeds to aggressively honk at you. Naturally, you're offended by the honk. And you begin to do what we have all dreamt of doing from time to time, which is to aggressively chase after the honker through the streets of Los Angeles.
4:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:51 Sam Fragoso? I don't know whether it's road rage or retribution or both. But what follows from this very minor act of aggression is pretty remarkable. So my first question for you. When was the last time you maniacally chased someone through the streets of Los Angeles? Did it happen coming here today?
5:09 Speaker 03 No, today was relaxed.
5:10 Sam Fragoso? So it has happened.
5:11 Speaker 03 In Los Angeles, I don't think I ever have. I'm certain I have done something like that. I don't know, you know what it is? When I'm in the car, this is a weird thing that I do is like if someone that's close to me is with me and somebody like cuts me off or like is going too slow or is doing something wrong, like in my opinion, I make a whole performance out of it. I just like, because the person with me has seen me being slighted.
5:34 Sam Fragoso? Right.
5:34 Speaker 03 I now have to make a deal about it. But when I'm by myself, I'm generally like genial. I'm like, okay, whatever, I've done that same thing. I don't know what that says about me.
5:44 Sam Fragoso? It says something.
5:45 Speaker 03 It says a lot, probably.
5:46 Sam Fragoso? It's like you don't want to get played in front of your friend or a family member.
5:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or it's just, it's just being witnessed. It's just like, there's another party, right? Yeah, yeah.
5:57 Sam Fragoso? So basically crimes could be committed against you so long as you're by yourself.
6:01 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, because then it's just with me and I can reconcile that.
6:05 Sam Fragoso? And only you have to live with it.
6:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
6:06 Sam Fragoso? I understand.
6:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
6:07 Sam Fragoso? My real question for you is around this quote you have.
6:11 Speaker 03 Hmm.
6:11 Sam Fragoso? Where you said, you never know what a character is doing to you until you're done with it. Now that the show is out in the world, what has the role of Danny done to you?
6:22 Speaker 03 Oh, man. I will say, for me, there's always a process of exiting a character. And when I say exit, it doesn't necessarily mean like I shed it or let go of it. It's actually, it feels like more of an absorption of a character. And so in this case with Danny, that character made me see and confront a lot of my own shame. It was interesting to go back and look at parts of myself and things that I could relate to with Danny, where maybe he was unwilling to really properly look at himself.
6:53 Sam Fragoso? What do you mean?
6:54 Speaker 03 I think Danny has a narrative for his own life, one in which he's oppressed constantly. And he feels completely justified, you know? And that was really fascinating to try to dig into. And I relate to that. I remember coming over here when I was young, at four, from Korea, and like having that like consciousness of being in another place that doesn't understand you or receive you in a way that you had just lived. And the frustration that comes from that and the isolation that comes from that. And so I think that feels like where Danny's stuck. And so revisiting that was like, kind of like an embrace of my past childhood self. To just be like, yeah, you know, there were some rough spots, you know, in your early years.
7:38 Speaker 03 And you can look at that as cringe. But I heard this one real great quote that said, uh, "Don't kill the cringe, but kill the part that cringes." And I was like, that's pretty right, you know? Like, I think that's what Danny has helped me to do is like, yeah, all that stuff I used to cringe about, like, it's all good. That's like part of my human experience. It's all good.
7:59 Sam Fragoso? Well, I want to talk about that younger self in a second. But before we do that, having watched the show, it really feels like, at least to me, the first piece of art to capture what it's like to live in America post pandemic. Because like in the throes of COVID, you may remember, we talked a lot about leaving lockdown kinder, more generous, decent, patient. And I have to say, it does feel, at least on the road, that people are more stubborn, selfish and aggressive than they've ever been.
8:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I think that was the initial interest for me, you know, Sonny pitched me, Yisung Jin, I refer to him as Sonny. Sonny pitched me this show in 2019, before we jumped headlong into the pandemic. And he just brought up, he's like, I'm thinking about this road rage show. I was like, that's it. I was like, I'm into it. I don't know what it was, but I think it was also 2019, we were deep into this feeling of polarization that we've been talking about for the last decade plus.
9:01 Sam Fragoso? What happened? I'm joking.
9:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:06 Speaker 03 But I felt like, you know, the pandemic, there was an oasis nature to the pandemic. I really appreciated like, you know, nature's coming back or like diving into your little pods. If you had kids, finding your networks, finding your small villages to like really connect to. That was beautiful, but it also made us a little bit more isolated, I feel. I remember like anytime something crazy would happen in the world or on the news. I remember this always, this constant feeling. I remember when Trump got elected, I had this feeling that like the tentacles of the internet were coming out of the phone and just like grabbing my whole body and like ripping me into it. And I was just like, I can't stop looking at this thing. I can't stop being connected to this car crash, you know?
9:51 Speaker 03 I always felt that. And I remember the pandemic felt that way too. It just felt like a long prolonged spectacular car crash that we're all just staring at for a while. And coming out to, you know, the whole thing just turning back on at hyperspeed. Now it's like, it feels like nuts. People got places to go, things to do, people to see. I get it, like me, me, me. And I'm just as much in that as well. So that felt like the natural progression when we first spoke about it. Like it just kept going and now we're here.
10:26 Sam Fragoso? I wonder like, when he was pitching the show to you, we're addressing the anger of beef, but there's also a real tenderness at play. In particular, I'm thinking about a scene where Danny drives out to visit a Korean church in Orange County, where the band is beginning to play this song. And he becomes overwhelmed with emotion. And I wondered if, if we could watch that for a second.
10:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:55 Sam Fragoso? This is from episode three of a new show called Beef, now on Netflix.
11:01 Speaker 03 We ask for your spirit to come and fill this place that we might worship be joyful with all of our hearts.
11:11 Speaker 02 Are you hurting and broken within? Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin? Jesus is calling.
11:25 Speaker 02 Have you come to the end and shouting? Do you thirst for a drink from the well? Jesus is calling. Come on, church.
11:41 Speaker 02 Welcome to the altar. The Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was born with the precious blood of Jesus.
12:03 Sam Fragoso? Oof. What were you thinking while watching that?
12:06 Speaker 03 I mean, that whole scene was a really interesting scene to talk about, for Sonny to have written in, for us to have explored, and then to finally shoot. You know, that's a moment in which he, maybe not knowingly, but he's lost himself for a second. To hear all these people singing, he's desperately looking around, and he's like, who's looking at me? Who's looking at me? And no one's looking at him. No one's thinking about him. No, everyone's just connected to this larger thing. And I think maybe in that moment, Danny is finally able to let go of his story. You know, the one that keeps oppressing him, the one that validates his oppression.
12:51 Speaker 03 Every day, he's like, this place continues to fuck with me. It's after me. It's trying to get me. And in that one moment in the church, he's like, oh, I don't exist like that. Like, that's an idea that I have and I can let go for a second. I don't know if he's conscious of that. I think it's just a feeling, you know? And I think when we were shooting it, it was really interesting because I remember hearing that song. And I was talking to Sonny and Jake and I was like, ooh, I think I feel it already. It's gonna be great. We were shooting a lot of the background actors and we were shooting the praise band. I was like, I feel it. This room is like great, like everybody's here. And all the people that were there also had attended Korean church as well. And so like, there was a familiarity and a vibe in there. And I was like, this is great. The praise band was from the church.
13:35 Speaker 03 And so I remember walking into that moment while they're shooting the other things and being like, yeah, I'm ready. I can, I can go there. And then they turned the cameras on me and nothing. Couldn't do it, like no tears, nothing, couldn't even feel emotional. I was like, what is happening? And everybody had stopped singing for, for sound. They were trying to ISO just me. And I was like, I don't know what is happening, but luckily, you know, I've had a little bit of experience. So maybe a younger me would have just been like trying to eke something out or push it or like force it. But this time I was like, there's something off and can I take a minute? And Jake and Sonny let me take a minute. They shot out some other things that they had to shoot. And then I came back and I was like, I think I figured out what it is.
14:20 Speaker 03 They need to keep singing. Everybody needs to keep singing. It's that you're watching me that is making me unable to connect to this moment. And as soon as everybody started singing, it came right back. And I was just like, oh, here's where it's not about me. It's I get to lose myself. And that's kind of how I view this moment.
14:41 Sam Fragoso? But it was also like that for you as a kid, because you come here from Seoul at the age of four. First to Canada, then to Taylor, Michigan in the mid eighties, where you have this pretty bifurcated life at school with mostly white classmates. And then away from that, in the Korean church, where you did feel some sense of fullness.
15:07 Sam Fragoso? So when you're performing that scene thirty years later, was some part of you dropped back into those early memories you had at church?
15:15 Speaker 03 For sure. You know, I actually had attended church late into my twenties as well. Not going to church has been more of a recent thing in the last maybe decade. And so for me, like, it was a recall. But in my twenties, when I was going to church, I felt the same way. I remember approaching those times when I would go to church and I'd just be like, why am I on the verge of tears right now? Like, what is happening? And I never could make sense of it until we got to this show. And I was like, oh, oh, I see. Like, there's part of it that is, perhaps feels like a safe space. But, you know, there's performance everywhere. I'm not completely free in the Korean church either.
15:54 Sam Fragoso? So looking back at that time, you felt like even there you were performing?
15:59 Speaker 03 Sure. When I say performing, I don't mean like a conscious performance. I mean more like the role and the function and the persona and the character that you play within like a specific framework of like different social systems and people. And when I was in more of like a white space, I had to be relegated to like a specific image of who I was that, you know, maybe was a little bit self-imposed, but also felt imposed upon me. Whereas in Korean church, like, there was a level playing field. You know, everybody was Korean. So now we're just dealing with like personality. But I really do think that on like a human level, you know, as I explore this scene, like, it was just like, oh, the story that I tell of my life,
16:42 Speaker 03 the history that I have of Steven, of me, this thing that I gripped tight to, all the memories that I remember in my specific ways, negative or positive, things that I noticed that I encoded to say like, this is what my life is. This is what the trend of my life is, or this is the consistency of what my life is. Perhaps it doesn't need to be told exactly that way.
17:04 Sam Fragoso? I want to tap into some of these memories and just try to hold them and all of their weight and complexity and messiness and all of that. Because growing up, You see yourself in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, listening to alt-rock on 89X FM radio, where you said you felt a lot of confusion around why your family uprooted to America. Quote, "My dad didn't explain why we left. He took safety and displaced it and didn't explain anything." But it seems like the first time you witnessed the pain and anger your father felt in America comes at Murray's Auto Shop. What happens there?
17:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, my dad tried to return this hose in a car. And he had this red station wagon that we were hanging on to for a long time. And I was sitting in the back of the car. And he went into Murray's Auto Shop. And I just saw him get irate through the glass door. And he just was like shouting at people. And I was just like staring through the window, being like, what is happening right now? And he slammed the hose on the ground and-
18:14 Sam Fragoso? How old were you?
18:15 Speaker 03 Maybe I was like five or six. Actually, no, maybe like six, seven, around there. Yeah, he just had a, he just had a difficult run-in. I couldn't even really understand what was happening. All I could see was, I was like, oh, my dad is angry. He couldn't understand why. People couldn't understand what he was going through. Even, even what I'm saying now is like an assumption too. Like, I don't know exactly what was happening in his mind. But like, I could see all the difficulties that he would have to navigate, you know, in order to like, experience that experience. And I watched it from a third party as a child, being like, what is happening?
18:45 Sam Fragoso? That question, the quote I had, it also seemed like you didn't know why you had moved here.
18:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's, it's funny to like jumble it all now after I've like processed some things. But yeah, I didn't even question it, you know? Like, at that age, you're not even thinking about like, what is happening? You're just like, this is happening. I wish there was a little bit more explanation, but there wasn't, you know? We were just there.
19:10 Sam Fragoso? So we're pinpointing things. And there's this photo of you as a young kid in a classroom. A classroom that, as I understand it, you had to be like dragged to day after day.
19:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:24 Sam Fragoso? Because you were crying and upset about going to school. What is in this photo when you look at it?
19:30 Speaker 03 Oh, man, dude, look at, I mean, I look so terrified and just like spooked, just like completely confused.
19:37 Sam Fragoso? I like your outfit, though.
19:38 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you. You know, fresh is fresh.
19:42 Sam Fragoso? Fresh is fresh.
19:43 Speaker 03 Fresh is fresh. Um, he, you know, like, I'm looking at the space between me and the next person and I look shell shocked, if anything. I look like really scared.
19:54 Sam Fragoso? To bring it back here, like, did the church help bridge that gap that you felt between yourself and this country?
20:03 Speaker 03 I mean, that is the space, I think, of most immigrants, wherever they can congregate, the safe spaces, tribes, you know? Those are very vital to the survival of immigrants, I think.
20:15 Sam Fragoso? You had this pastor.
20:17 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:17 Sam Fragoso? That asked you to memorize this passage from Romans 12:2. Is that what it was? What was that?
20:24 Speaker 03 Uh, "Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and then you will be able to test God's good and perfect will." It's like right in there.
20:33 Sam Fragoso? It seems like you took that passage and away from high school and into Kalamazoo College, listened to that and did go your own way, that you didn't conform to the patterns of probably what was prescribed to you. And there's two performances in college that I just want to sit with.
20:53 Speaker 03 Oh, boy.
20:54 Sam Fragoso? Together. The first production that you perform in is a play called Balm in Gilead, where you play a Colombian drug dealer named Javier. Now, your mother came to that performance, right?
21:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:09 Sam Fragoso? How did that go?
21:11 Speaker 03 She said I was all right. I was like, Mom, how did I do? And she's like, it's okay.
21:15 Sam Fragoso? Well, you have one quote where you said, she said, "You were not very good."
21:18 Speaker 03 Oh, is that right? I, I padded it, I padded it. Uh, I'm pretty sure she's. No, she wouldn't have said you were not very good. Maybe I was like gassing that up. I think she just, maybe the affect and the vibe was, I didn't care too much for that. But that was totally justified. I was total shit.
21:39 Sam Fragoso? Do you remember that play?
21:40 Speaker 03 I do. I remember missing a cue one time, not showing up for one of my cues. I remember during rehearsal, she asked, our director asked for me to smoke a cigarette in it. And I tried to, I had never smoked a cigarette before, so I looked so stupid that she like came up in the middle of the scene. And she was like, alright, she snatched it from me. She's like, you're not smoking a cigarette. Like, she's like, you don't know what you're doing. It was, it was very like fly by the seat of my pants. And you know what's weird? Now that you're thinking, now you make me think about it is like, there's been a lot of potentially shameful, embarrassing moments in my life, like getting the cigarette snatched from me, that I easily brushed off and I don't know how.
22:25 Speaker 03 I remember them. They're clear memories, but yeah, I just keep it moving.
22:30 Sam Fragoso? Well, I mean, even your mom saying to you.
22:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
22:34 Sam Fragoso? Not very good. I mean, she didn't maybe say that, but.
22:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was very clear.
22:40 Sam Fragoso? She was saying it.
22:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:41 Sam Fragoso? No offense.
22:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, no, no, no, don't take it.
22:43 Sam Fragoso? And you took that and said to yourself, alright, I'm gonna let this propel me forward, not paralyze me.
22:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, that seems to be a consistent thing.
22:55 Sam Fragoso? Some people were more encouraging than others, though, because in your senior year, you perform at a stage reading of a play written by students. What happens during and after that performance?
23:07 Speaker 03 This woman came up to me after the stage reading. She just comes up to me, she's like, hey, I just want to tell you, keep going. We need people like you in there. And she was a minority actor herself. She's a black woman and she came up to me as also a minority actor in that, in that situation. I had never met her before. She wasn't faculty, I had never seen her again. She was like an angel out of nowhere, just coming up to encourage me and just say like, hey, I think you should keep trying at this. And I'm so grateful that she was there. I look back at that, I'm just like, what an incredible moment to hear that.
23:44 Sam Fragoso? What's so kind of poetic about this is that you have these two very different responses. One from your mother, one from a complete stranger who you'll never talk to again. And that you hear both of their reactions to your work and you take them with you. And leaving school, you move to Chicago where you're living in this rear coach house.
24:10 Sam Fragoso? An apartment with a vaulted ceiling. There's no sunlight. It's a piece of shit. Let's be honest.
24:15 Speaker 03 Yes, yes.
24:16 Sam Fragoso? I can say this as someone who's from Chicago.
24:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:18 Sam Fragoso? I know, I know what this is.
24:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:21 Sam Fragoso? Telling your parents to please give you two years in this city to try to make it.
24:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:27 Sam Fragoso? With those two years, you audition for the Second City Touring Group, where you're given a sketch to perform written by a Second City alum named Steve Carew.
24:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, just, you know, I think we all know. Do we know him?
24:40 Sam Fragoso? I think we know him. The sketch is called The Humidifier, and this was tough to track down.
24:48 Speaker 03 Oh, man, you got what?
24:50 Sam Fragoso? But we reached out to the Second City archivist, who was generous enough to supply us with a copy of the sketch if you wanna do it for the listeners.
25:00 Speaker 03 Love that sketch. It's not me, though, right?
25:04 Sam Fragoso? We're gonna do it.
25:05 Speaker 03 Oh, we're gonna do the sketch?
25:06 Sam Fragoso? You and me.
25:06 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, this is so cool. All right. Oh, my God. Holy smokes. Wow. All right, cold reading. This is fantastic.
25:18 Sam Fragoso? No world did you think this was going to?
25:20 Speaker 03 No, no, no. This is a dream.
25:23 Sam Fragoso? Why don't you set it up for people?
25:24 Speaker 03 Cool. It's Christmas. This is from a great, great review called Take Me Out to the Balkans. It says, "Christmas lights up on Fran and Steve."
25:34 Sam Fragoso? Now, just for context, Steve and Fran are boyfriend-girlfriend, and they're like exchanging gifts or something like that?
25:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, Steve is coming over to his girlfriend's house to exchange gifts for Christmas.
25:45 Sam Fragoso? I'll play the girlfriend.
25:46 Speaker 03 All right.
25:47 Sam Fragoso? I'm not gonna do a voice, but it's gonna sound like this. Yeah, I haven't really rehearsed this, but okay.
25:52 Speaker 03 Neither have I.
25:56 Speaker 03 Merry Christmas. I can't stay too long. I gotta go over to my parents, but I just wanted to stop by and say Merry Christmas and give you my present. I brought a little something.
26:06 Sam Fragoso? I love you. Take off your coat. I want you to open your presents.
26:10 Speaker 03 Okay, okay. What do I go for first?
26:14 Sam Fragoso? The green one with the holly. You're gonna love this.
26:17 Speaker 03 Okay, let's see. You got me tickets to the Super Bowl? Super Bowl tickets? Oh, God, honey. These are Skybox. You got me Skybox Super Bowl tickets?
26:30 Sam Fragoso? And you wanna hear the best part? You don't even have to go with me.
26:34 Speaker 03 Oh, God, thank you. Oh, my God.
26:37 Sam Fragoso? It's in New Orleans. I got you a hotel room. You can take your brother. You like it, right?
26:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, I, I love it.
26:46 Sam Fragoso? You always said women don't know what to get men.
26:48 Speaker 03 Yes. No, it's perfect. This is, this is perfect.
26:53 Sam Fragoso? I love you. In parentheses, it says they kiss. We're not doing that. Open, open up the red one.
26:58 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, you didn't have to get me anything else.
27:01 Sam Fragoso? Just open it.
27:03 Speaker 03 It's Michael Jordan's jersey?
27:07 Sam Fragoso? I got, I got it at the muscular dystrophy silent auction. I won the silent auction.
27:12 Speaker 03 God, look, he signed it to Steve, my best friend in the world. Oh, my, this must have cost a lot of money.
27:18 Sam Fragoso? I am on a five-year payment plan.
27:20 Speaker 03 Oh, God, no.
27:23 Sam Fragoso? Yes, remember when you said you were a kid and you always wanted an autographed baseball and then you got one, but it fell out under the car and your dad wouldn't go back to get it for you? It just made me so sad.
27:34 Speaker 03 Thank you.
27:35 Sam Fragoso? Do you love it?
27:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, I.
27:38 Sam Fragoso? Open the white one. Open the white one.
27:39 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, no, you've done, you've done too much.
27:41 Sam Fragoso? This one's just for fun. This is just for fun.
27:43 Speaker 03 Oh, man.
27:45 Sam Fragoso? I had, I had this first. Actually, this is the first gift I got you.
27:48 Speaker 03 A Blau punk CD player?
27:51 Sam Fragoso? Is it the right one?
27:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's the best.
27:54 Sam Fragoso? I read the Playboy advisor, and you know what? I got it at the Fretters, and if you spend more than a thousand dollars, you get a free 10-speed bike. And it's, well, that's in my bedroom, too. You can have that, and I'm not even gonna.
28:05 Speaker 03 No, no, no, no. Shh, shh, shh. Okay, okay, do this for me. Keep the bike, please. Do this, please, please.
28:13 Sam Fragoso? We can share it. We can share it.
28:14 Speaker 03 Okay, okay.
28:16 Sam Fragoso? Do you like it?
28:16 Speaker 03 Thank you so much. I, I, um.
28:19 Sam Fragoso? Okay, my turn. This is, I'm so, okay. Do you wanna tell me anything about the gift first, or?
28:25 Speaker 03 Ah, uh-uh.
28:27 Sam Fragoso? Wow. A humidifier.
28:32 Speaker 03 It's a Panasonic 2000. These are great. Uh, I checked around and this is the best one they had. You know, you're gonna have so much fun with this. You put the, uh, you put the water in here and, and you have the variable control knob and, and, and this is great. Uh, a timer. So you can set it to like 2 a.m. at, at, at 2:00 in the morning. So you can just get, you know, this blast of moist air. Merry Christmas.
29:04 Sam Fragoso? Tell me the truth.
29:05 Speaker 03 You don't like it?
29:06 Sam Fragoso? Did you get this yesterday?
29:09 Speaker 03 No, I got it on the way over here today.
29:11 Sam Fragoso? Did you know before you went to the store that you were gonna get me a humidifier?
29:15 Speaker 03 I had no fucking idea. It was the first thing I saw when I walked in the store. It was.
29:19 Sam Fragoso? I spent $4,000 on your gifts. It's not the money. That's not even the point. I just, I worked so hard and I planned for so long.
29:27 Speaker 03 No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, my God, this sucks. Ah, this fucking sucks.
29:33 Sam Fragoso? I, I, I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I, I love it. I really do, Steve.
29:37 Speaker 03 No, it sucks. Okay, it sucks. This is a really sucky gift. I'm gonna go home and show my family all these great things you got me. You'll go home and, what did Steve give you? He gave me a humidifier. Everybody gather around Steve's humidifier. Well, Merry Christmas asshole.
29:55 Sam Fragoso? I really thought you were gonna buy me a fur coat. I mean, that's why I bought all this stuff.
29:59 Speaker 03 That, that's what I, I wanted to get you. Hey, hey, this is, this is my Visa Gold Card, okay? I want you to take it. You can charge up to $5,000 on that. I want, I want you to go and get the nicest fur coat that you think I can handle financially.
30:12 Sam Fragoso? The, the good ones cost like 3, $4,000. Is that okay?
30:15 Speaker 03 Okay, that, that, that's what I want you to do. That's what, that, that, that, okay, I do that. I love you and, and I'm sorry. That, that just sucks. Uh, but now you'll be able to keep your new fur all nice and moist?
30:28 Sam Fragoso? You know what? I, I can't take it.
30:31 Speaker 03 What?
30:31 Sam Fragoso? I know you don't have the money for that, but, but the fact that you were willing and that you wanted to, that's my present.
30:39 Speaker 03 I love you so much right now.
30:41 Sam Fragoso? You know what? We're gonna have such a great time at the Super Bowl.
30:48 Speaker 03 Wow. Holy smokes. That was cool. I biffed it, but that was cool.
30:53 Sam Fragoso? You biffed it?
30:54 Speaker 03 No, we both biffed it.
30:55 Sam Fragoso? Yeah, thank you.
30:57 Speaker 03 Cold read.
30:59 Sam Fragoso? That was, that was, when you read that, like when we're doing that now, like thinking back on that time.
31:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:06 Sam Fragoso? By the way, everyone that just listened.
31:10 Sam Fragoso? Only one of us was nominated for an Oscar, okay?
31:12 Speaker 03 Man, I just blew it. Oh shit.
31:15 Sam Fragoso? That was Oscar nominated Steven Yeun.
31:18 Speaker 03 Oh my god.
31:19 Sam Fragoso? And I did the best I could.
31:20 Speaker 03 We let the words speak.
31:22 Sam Fragoso? They did.
31:22 Speaker 03 And they're great words.
31:23 Sam Fragoso? We hope they're very loud.
31:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
31:27 Sam Fragoso? When you look, when you look back at that time, you're in your mid twenties, performing improv with all these people. Do you look back at it fondly?
31:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, that was really fun.
31:40 Sam Fragoso? I'm sure it was strange to be brought back with the sketch.
31:43 Speaker 03 It was because it brought me back to the smell of that stage, the lights, Natalie, my scene partner. Yeah, I just remember, you know, that I got to be a part of an incredible institution. I got to walk backstage and be back there in the green room while all these heroes who've passed by those halls got to play in the same place and even the ones that I was like there with, you know? There's so many people that I just admired and looked up to. That was a really fun time of just like doing something that I really, really, really loved.
32:16 Sam Fragoso? And yet there seemed to be some part of you that knew you could only take it so far. Like you didn't have ambitions to be on SNL, right?
32:25 Speaker 03 I mean, I would have loved that. I would have loved to have been on SNL. That was, that was like the dream that was accessible through that pipeline. But I think for me, what I was conscious of as I looked around the room and all my contemporaries, I was like, I am not the funniest one here and I am certainly not the best writer here. I don't know if my path is necessarily through this avenue. And I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but like one day I just remember waking up and being like, I'm gonna move to LA. And I just told everybody so that I couldn't back out. I told everybody. I was like, I'm gonna move to LA later this year. And that's what I did. I just wake up sometimes and I like make decisions.
33:05 Sam Fragoso? That was a morning. In 2009, that you woke up
33:09 Speaker 03 Right.
33:10 Sam Fragoso? And just had this feeling.
33:11 Speaker 03 Yep.
33:11 Sam Fragoso? You moved to Koreatown
33:13 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
33:14 Sam Fragoso? Here in the city with your then girlfriend at the time, now your wife.
33:18 Speaker 03 Actually, even earlier, I had met my girlfriend at that time, 2009, in June, before I left in September. We saw each other every day for six months. And then I had to leave. And I remember her dropping me off. Uh, she flew with me to LA and then I've, and then she flew back. And I remember her leaving and I was just sobbing in the airport, just like so sad. Like, where am I? Who? Like, you know, um, who is now my wife and, um?
33:51 Sam Fragoso? But you were, you were sad because you had made this big move to Los Angeles.
33:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:57 Sam Fragoso? Where you already were leaving everyone behind.
33:59 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
33:59 Sam Fragoso? But now you were leaving.
34:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:02 Sam Fragoso? Her back there in Chicago.
34:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:04 Sam Fragoso? When you dropped her off at LAX and she like, you know,
34:07 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
34:07 Sam Fragoso? Walks into the terminal.
34:09 Speaker 03 Yeah. She walked up the American Airlines escalator where you kind of look at them through the bridge up at the top. And they can still wave to you because you're just in this, in, in just like the drop off area.
34:20 Sam Fragoso? That is, that, that I've, I've done that.
34:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:23 Sam Fragoso? That's a cruel design.
34:24 Speaker 03 Agonizing.
34:26 Sam Fragoso? I don't want to see anything.
34:28 Speaker 03 Dude, I want, I want closed doors.
34:30 Sam Fragoso? I want, we gotta, we gotta close the door here.
34:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:33 Sam Fragoso? We do not need a window into my soul through American Airlines.
34:38 Speaker 03 Just tears, just openly weeping. Yeah, it was cra- pretty crazy.
34:45 Sam Fragoso? So when you drive back to your apartment in Koreatown
34:48 Speaker 03 Mm.
34:48 Sam Fragoso? That you're sharing with a couple buddies
34:50 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
34:50 Sam Fragoso? From Chicago, what's going through your head?
34:54 Speaker 03 Well, luckily we had cell phones, so it wasn't too crazy. I think for me, it wasn't that I was like, whatever, I'm fine. It was more like. I'm just used to isolation. And so it wasn't the isolation that was really terrifying. I wonder if it was just the separation that was really painful. And my wife and I, we're married now. And those early years, we just did long distance for a long time.
35:21 Sam Fragoso? Within the first six months of you living out here, you book three different ads and then land Glenn on The Walking Dead. The legacy of that show has been endlessly discussed. So I don't really need to get into that. But I want to understand how you made that character as a young performer. When you were called upon to deliver an emotional moment, much like that moment in Beef that we watched, what would you use to get to that place?
35:52 Speaker 03 I would use praise music. Or I would use, there was this one song from Cinematic Orchestra called Home. And that one always took me out. And I would just kind of like go away and listen. And this is something I picked up from my peers, like looking up to Andy Lincoln in his process. And he would just kind of like be in his earbuds and just kind of go away and like come back. And I stole some moves from these people that I got to work with, these incredible people that I got to work with. And I remember doing that. And you know what was interesting about it was that it started to wear out. It lost its affect over a while.
36:32 Sam Fragoso? In the process of making The Walking Dead?
36:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, I couldn't go to that song anymore or those songs. At some point, like that well dried up. Because, yeah, it didn't, it didn't work as much anymore.
36:46 Sam Fragoso? Do you think it dried up because in the six, seven years of making the show, it probably changed a whole lot?
36:55 Speaker 03 Massively, yeah.
36:57 Sam Fragoso? Like, that character, you've often described him as deeply palatable. You have this quote, "I felt beige with him, like I was servicing a concept of goodness as opposed to engaging with Glenn's humanity. And that's a thing I wasn't able to feel for a while because I was holding up this ideal that was bigger than me, way larger than any single human can possibly do. I was tired of not letting people know that I have dark thoughts, that I could also have anger." How do you hold that work and then the move away from Walking Dead now?
37:39 Speaker 03 I think for me, that experience was one of the most important experiences in my life, clearly, but just the fundamental basics that that experience allowed me to have of seeing how to be a professional, seeing how to be an actor, seeing how to be in the business itself, seeing how to navigate the ups and downs of it, being surrounded by Jeffrey Dimon and Scott Wilson, the late Scott Wilson, like, that's a download that like, people would dream of ever having, you know, to be able to sit in their presence and like, take in their wisdoms. And every single person in that cast for me was so incredibly important
38:24 Speaker 03 to my own growth.
38:26 Sam Fragoso? Professionally?
38:27 Speaker 03 Professionally. But I think what was the war with me is, you know, Glenn was written in a specific way, but I think also I have to face the fact that like, I was presenting in that way too, on a personal level. I was-
38:39 Sam Fragoso? That you were complicit?
38:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, I was completely complicit. And so I don't say those things without the awareness of that complicit nature. I think for me, in hindsight, I knew that I was trying to do the right thing at all times, if I could.
38:55 Sam Fragoso? What does that mean?
38:56 Speaker 03 That experience was really wonderful for me because it taught me two things. I remember this one moment, the season two of Walking Dead, at that time, I was like, the model concept of like, the guy doing the right things. Like, I was on time, knew all my lines, didn't take too many takes, just did it. I did it by the book and I did it. There were moments of freedom and a little charisma, I suppose, but like, I was largely there to not be a hindrance. That really locked me into a type of performance that was very rigid. And so I remember one time we were, everybody was fighting in front of the barn, the scene was to fight in front of this barn, argument, and like, I didn't have lines. And so I was like, oh, if I don't-
39:41 Speaker 03 I don't have lines. I don't know what to do. So I'm gonna try to get behind the camera and not be on camera. Because if I don't have lines and like, I don't feel free enough to do something random. Which completely went against all my nature of college doing and Second City doing improv the whole time. Which was so bizarre that I thought that way. And I remember Michael Satrizemus, who I love to this day. He was the first camera operator at the time. But now he's one of the most storied Walking Dead directors of all time. And he nudges me as I'm standing next to him. He just nudges me. He's like, yo, get in there. And I'm like, what? He's like, get the fuck in there. And he just like pushes me in. And then I was like, eh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop.
40:25 Speaker 03 And I just started like improvising what Glenn would do in that moment. And that was really important for me. Cause I was like, I have permission to be here. I don't need to offer anything other than my own presence to be here. I didn't fully grasp that idea. I was still very rigid moving forward. But then there was this other scene in season three where Glenn fights this walker in the chair. And he's tied to a chair. And I remember, you know, that is something that I knew I could always offer was my body. Like, that's what I knew. I was like, I'm gonna like, show you how hard I can go with my body. How tough I am, how many takes I can do this. I'll do all the stunts. I'll do all these things.
41:07 Speaker 03 And I would try to earn people's respect by laying my own body out. And I remember doing this whole scene. And at the end, I like break the chair and then I stabbed the zombie in the, stabbed the walker in the face and I kill him. And there was no scripting of this moment, but I just let out like a scream yell, just like a guttural yell. And I remember David Galbraith, who just recently passed away, who was our focus puller. And he is like the man. He's the guy that you want to be like, yo, you want his respect because he's seen it all. And I remember him being like, woo! There we go. Let's do another one. He like, he like gave it to me.
41:49 Speaker 03 And I felt so good. He saw me there. And then he was like, let's get that shot. And so then they repositioned the camera to get that yell.
41:58 Speaker 02 Hmm.
41:59 Speaker 03 And it again propelled me to understand that like, I'm a lot more free than I think I am. And so then by that point, I had kind of been complicit in locking Glenn into this model of goodness that I desperately wanted to shake out of.
42:22 Sam Fragoso? After the break, more from actor Steven Yeun.
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44:00 Sam Fragoso? Coming back, what's striking is that this model of goodness that you created around the character of Glenn, in some ways, it kind of seems like you had been rehearsing that same model in Taylor, Michigan, at Troy High School,
44:18 Speaker 03 Yep.
44:18 Sam Fragoso? at Kalamazoo College, at Second City.
44:21 Speaker 03 Yep.
44:22 Sam Fragoso? Over and over again, asked to not push the boundaries, to stay within the parameters.
44:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:30 Sam Fragoso? And I wondered, is taking the role in Okja the first instance of you leaving the past behind?
44:40 Speaker 03 Yes, I think that also leads into like, just maybe the concept of being an immigrant and just trying to fit into spaces and like, the code switching that needs to happen to survive. And that agreeableness, I didn't have to access at Korean church, you know? I was like, my full self at Korean church. I was angry, kind of shitty at times, like-
45:04 Sam Fragoso? The same way you probably were at home.
45:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, exactly. There is this societal ask that kind of like, feels like something that you must do. Or maybe perhaps it was just modeled by our parents, you know, who had just immigrated recently and just like, tried to just like, live in the track that was lauded for them. My dad was an architect, you know? He had all the reason to just kind of be free doing his own thing, but instead, he got just like, siloed into this specific lane and-
45:30 Sam Fragoso? But he wasn't siloed mysteriously.
45:33 Speaker 03 Right. And I think in the last, you know, or forever, we can certainly lay it at the hands of a specific construct that maybe perhaps you can call whiteness or white people. But I also understand that that type of gaze and that type of construct is just embedded into everybody, including myself. The thing that I've come to the awareness of is that like, you know, many things have changed and many things have loosened in rigidity to find us in this time, which I think is very exciting. And at that point, can we make our own way? Is the last boss myself? Am I putting the boot on myself? In the same way that I'm, I was complicit in that same way with, with, with the building of the character of Glenn.
46:15 Speaker 03 Then to come out and get to experience Okja, Sorry to Bother You, Burning, in which I play very morally gray, if not perhaps not good people. And that is something that I'm deeply thankful that people gave me the opportunity to explore.
46:32 Sam Fragoso? Well, let's talk about Okja and then Burning because in Okja, led by director Bong, you said the experience was, quote, "a shakedown of my being."
46:44 Sam Fragoso? What was the shakedown?
46:45 Speaker 03 Oof, I think around this time, I was becoming more conscious of the mysterious ride that is acting. Being cast in something, to be conscious of why you might be cast in something. You know, sometimes it is skills, sometimes it is just like you're the best actor for the job. And Okja, you know, was afforded to me by director Bong and he pushed for me. I think because he could see that I could ride this line of in-between, of being kind of a third culture immigrant kid caught in between spaces. And the ride of being able to experience that and sit in the pocket of that and see how,
47:27 Speaker 03 you know, I was there as an actor, helping to be like this de facto tour guide for my other fellow actors that weren't Korean and failing miserably at it. And then also in the subsequent other side, trying to like blend into being Korean because I was like going back to Korea and be like, hey, like I'm from here, this is what, this is my thing. And me being rejected by that place as well. The totality of me not being received incomplete. And so I was stuck in an isolation again. I was like stuck in this third place, this void space. And it was deeply unsettling for me at the time because maybe the ideal that got broken for me was that I thought at least there would be someplace I could like put my bags down.
48:11 Speaker 03 And during that whole time there, I was like, oh yeah, there's, there's no place. I'm the only one here.
48:18 Sam Fragoso? So if that experience was a shakedown? The experience of Burning, by contrast, was pretty profound and also profoundly different than what you experience on Okja. What happened there?
48:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, Burning was wild. Burning is a story about a down on his luck, kind of poor young man named Chong Su, who gets this random encounter with this girl he used to know. And as he continues this relationship with her, this other guy appears, who I play, named Ben. And he's a very worldly kind of character that is living at the top of his social stratum and-
48:57 Sam Fragoso? Kind of like a Gatsby-like character?
48:59 Speaker 03 Very Gatsby-like character. That was a really incredible role to explore because for me, it was the experience of a comfort in that third space, albeit ultimate privilege, but what it's like to live and sit in the void alone and be okay with it.
49:21 Sam Fragoso? So what happened in the two years? Like, how could it feel so isolating in Okja and something like Refuge on Burning?
49:31 Speaker 03 Well, a lot of things happened, actually. I got married, I had a child. I also got to experience the film Sorry to Bother You, in which I also touched isolation as the lone Asian-American union organizer that's embedded into a largely black, working-class space. And that was its own experience of sitting in the pocket of isolation, of just like being alone and kind of being a lone wolf. And I remember experiencing that film, and we shot this one scene where Squeeze, the character I play, is looking up at Tessa Thompson's character, and she's giving this art show. He was supposed to be kind of admiring her. And I remember thinking like, how am I gonna play this? Like, how do I show admiration?
50:16 Speaker 03 And I just was like, all I have to do is just look at her and just watch her and just be entranced in my own mind. And the stillness in which I found myself rooted into the ground as that character, in which he was firm in his own isolation, was a really nice precursor to going to then shoot Burning that same year of a wild ride of a man that does not move too much. He's very still. He's sitting in a pocket of an awareness that is beyond most people. And
50:48 Sam Fragoso? It's unnerving. It's an unnerving character.
50:50 Speaker 03 Completely, completely.
50:52 Sam Fragoso? It's a hard movie.
50:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:54 Sam Fragoso? The Chet Baker music is a psych out. It's not comforting.
50:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:57 Sam Fragoso? It's not comforting.
50:58 Speaker 03 It was wild. And you know, the books I was reading at that time, this is so eye rolly, but like, I remember Director Lee and I were talking about this character and like, we talked about the Ubermensch and we talked about the Spokser, thestra. That was one of the books that he had actually written into the script that Ben reads. I just went and dove deep. A lot of things were going on in my life and I was playing in a character that was completely detached from that.
51:29 Sam Fragoso? What was happening in your life at that time?
51:32 Speaker 03 Oh my God, my wife is holding it down by herself with our child and she came to Korea with me near the end of it, but I was there for five months, just in and out of this character. And the world was reflecting back to me, maybe the same vibes of this character as I was experiencing it, you know? I was there as kind of a known person in Korea, staying at like this really nice hotel and eating buffet every morning and
52:04 Sam Fragoso? While your wife is
52:05 Speaker 03 While my wife is
52:05 Sam Fragoso? Taking care of your kid.
52:06 Speaker 03 Taking care of her newborn baby, you know?
52:09 Sam Fragoso? How much penance did you have to do? Like, did you do the dishes for like five straight years after that?
52:13 Speaker 03 We're still in it.
52:14 Sam Fragoso? You're still in it?
52:15 Speaker 03 I, I'm indebted forever.
52:17 Sam Fragoso? Did you get her a fur coat?
52:18 Speaker 03 She doesn't need that. She wants, she wants me. She wants me to be there. Yeah, the juxtaposition of that reality was part of it.
52:26 Sam Fragoso? It's a lot, the whole. I mean, I'm making silly jokes, calling back to a sketch we performed.
52:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that's so true. That is exactly what has happened. I got her a humidifier and she got me all these incredible things. She's so thoughtful and I got her this fucking humidifier. Oh my God. You just wrapped it right back around. That's amazing. Talk easy, got me.
52:53 Speaker 03 Thank you, Joe. I love you.
52:55 Sam Fragoso? I think collectively, all these experiences after The Walking Dead, marriage, fatherhood, Okcha, Sorry to Bother You, burning, a bit part in one of the best sketches of the last 20 years called The Gift Receipt, on I Think You Should Leave.
53:14 Speaker 03 Shout out Tim Robinson, genius.
53:16 Sam Fragoso? Was the humidifier a precursor to that?
53:19 Speaker 03 Wow, it keeps going.
53:21 Sam Fragoso? It keeps going.
53:22 Speaker 03 It keeps going. Did you put all this together when you were like planning it? You're like, whoa, I see the connection.
53:28 Sam Fragoso? Did Tim Robinson come up in Second City in Chicago?
53:31 Speaker 03 Yes, he did. Yeah.
53:33 Sam Fragoso? Was I 13 years old, watching him perform when no one knew who he was with Sam Richardson?
53:39 Speaker 03 Were you?
53:40 Sam Fragoso? I was.
53:40 Speaker 03 Wow.
53:42 Sam Fragoso? Did we both take mushrooms right before this podcast? Because that's what it sounds like right now.
53:47 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, you're blowing my mind.
53:49 Sam Fragoso? We didn't.
53:50 Speaker 03 Okay, cool. I didn't either. Right? I didn't.
53:53 Sam Fragoso? You're asking me?
53:54 Speaker 03 No, I didn't. I didn't.
53:54 Sam Fragoso? Let's ask your wife.
53:57 Sam Fragoso? I bring all this up because you take everything I just went through and put it into this character of Jacob Yee and Minari, a farmer in Arkansas that drags his family through pain and stubbornness and his will. But before that all happens, July 2019, you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two days before shooting, you're rehearsing lines in the shower. I don't generally ask my guests what happens in the shower.
54:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:34 Sam Fragoso? Right? But what happened in the shower?
54:37 Speaker 03 Cleaning happens in the shower, but also sobbing happened in the shower. I was like so terrified two days before we started filming. I was sitting there, holding my script, wondering how the hell I was going to do this. It was the scariest thing to that point that I had ever done. Burning somehow was not scary to me. It just felt like this ride. And Minari felt much more self-aware, probably because I was conscious that I had dragged my wife and my child at the time through what I wanted to do.
55:18 Speaker 03 And to come upon this script in this way, I was largely like lost. I think the biggest hurdle for me was back to, here we go, reconciling my father doing that to us. Not necessarily the act itself, but just the disconnection that happens from not being able to communicate with your father about what is happening. And so in that disconnect, which I think I share with a lot of immigrant kids, especially Korean-American kids that I speak with, is we don't have those types of humanized relationships with our folks. They kind of live in role and function and kind of like as authority figures in our life. And so you have these memes
56:03 Speaker 03 or these collectivized jokes of just like, you didn't get an A, you got a B, or like piano violin, or doctor, lawyer, dentist, or these things that we kind of build to make this Frankenstein idea of our parents was this looming construct sitting over me as I was about to play a person from my dad's generation. And I was in the shower freaking out because all I could do was just like, approach this character in mannerisms and in like ideas and in no real relation, but just like mimicry. And like, it was almost like a sketch. And I knew that was the wrong way to go, but I couldn't figure it out. And so I get into the shower. I'm like, just thinking about it.
56:47 Speaker 03 And then I just start sobbing. I felt abject fear. And then I felt joy, gratitude.
56:56 Speaker 03 And just like awe, I remember feeling all those feelings. I remember cycling through those emotions. And at the end, I was like, whoa, is this what it feels like to like, have faith? Not to have religious faith, but to just have faith.
57:12 Sam Fragoso? Faith in what?
57:13 Speaker 03 The unknown. For me, I rationalize it as you have two options. You can either face this head on and jump in, completely dive in and take it, or you can run away. You know, people search their whole lives for a challenge, for something to be placed in front of them that they can do and accomplish or conquer or experience. And here's one right in front of you, as it's been many, many times in your life. Are you going to be ungrateful and run? Or are you going to be courageous and jump through? You know, I only saw one option, which was be courageous and jump through. In doing so, the image of my father's generation kind of shattered to me. I was like, oh, yeah, he is not the
57:57 Speaker 03 amalgam of these ideas. He is a human being in the flesh that has his own unique desires that gets in there, like acting, like character study. But this particular character was hard to crack. And so, you know, by the end of that experience, I was like, oh, I am my father. I am living my father's life as well in a continuum.
58:22 Sam Fragoso? As it poured out of you and turned into this performance, it eventually would be situated in a film that would premiere at the Sundance Film Festival at the Eagles Theater, January 2020, about six weeks before the world shut down.
58:43 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
58:45 Sam Fragoso? Your dad attends
58:46 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
58:47 Sam Fragoso? that screening of the film, right?
58:48 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
58:50 Sam Fragoso? How does that go?
58:53 Speaker 03 Sitting right next to me. And at the end of the screening, I just turned over and looked at him and gave him a hug. And I remember just like putting my hand on him or he put his hand on me. And we exchanged no words. It was just like, I see you, you know, I experienced what you experienced. And he just started sobbing. I started sobbing. And it's pretty great. It's pretty great.
59:23 Sam Fragoso? Why do you think you both were crying?
59:26 Speaker 03 Because we've been missing each other. You know, we've been completely seeing each other in an idea, trying to connect, but never being able to. Trying to not hold each other in images, but but have the space in love to kind of like let someone be their full self and accept them exactly as they are. We had missed that exchange with both my parents for quite some time. Maybe, maybe ever since we came here, you know?
59:59 Sam Fragoso? And yet it's in images that it sounds like you were able to access a part of him that previously remained inaccessible. And I was thinking, we started this conversation talking about beef. And I'm wondering, is this show really the clearest example of your father being able to access a part of you that maybe he wasn't able to before?
1:00:28 Speaker 03 Yeah. Danny certainly was tapping into an old sense of self of just that ultimate frustration. Of just not being understood or not feeling seen, not feeling appreciated, just stuck. Yeah, I'm gonna, it's gonna be interesting to see them watch that because yeah, I don't know what they'll think.
1:00:53 Sam Fragoso? Well, it's also the anger of this show.
1:00:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:00:57 Sam Fragoso? Of this character. It sits in such stark contrast to the model of goodness that you played in Glenn, that you were desperately trying to get away from. Like, the thing you wanted to do, you've just done it. And when you walked into this room today, you said, I feel really uncertain. And I wonder, do you feel uncertain because the aim that you had since leaving The Walking Dead in 2016, like, that bifurcated self? Maybe that gap is closed with this show.
1:01:32 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
1:01:33 Sam Fragoso? And the question now is, what the hell is left?
1:01:36 Speaker 03 Yeah. That's so, wow, you're really helped. Thank you for this, because you're helping me process all of this. I think you're right. Like, I think, you know, I was conscious of what I was exploring. I was conscious of what was coming, what we were touching with this. But, you know, I'm not in other people's minds. I'm only in mine. And so, when I say uncertain, it's not a nervous uncertain. It's really calm. I'm sitting in a calm right now that I feel so grateful for. One that doesn't feel as pushed and pulled as it used to be. But really, I'm just kind of like, cool, I'm all here. Like, all parts of me are here.
1:02:17 Sam Fragoso? Sounds like confidence.
1:02:18 Speaker 03 Yeah. You know what? There's a great story about confidence.
1:02:23 Speaker 03 When I was shooting Burning, one of the biggest healing things for me was I remember walking down the Han Gang, the Han River, with my friend Tommy. And I was talking to him, and I was like, hey, man, what's the Korean word for confidence? At this point, I was like, doing my language lessons, and I was like, I knew Korean, but like, I spoke Korean in a very expat way, a kippur way, which is like overly honorific, very like apologetic of my own existence, which I think a lot of Korean Americans share, because it's not the first language that we tap into. And we only use it when we're usually probably around other elders.
1:03:03 Speaker 03 And so I would come to Korea and I started speaking, doing the lines of Ben. And Director Lee was like, no, no, no, you like Korean people don't talk like that. And I had to figure out what that meant. And at one point it clicked. And one of the things that helped me get there was I was walking down the river with my friend. And I go, what's the Korean word for confidence? And he goes, 자신감. And I was like, what does that mean? He's a confidence. I was like, no, no, what's the etymology of that word? And he's like, I, I don't know. I don't think Korean people do that. I think they just go to like Chinese characters. They go to like the original Chinese character to like figure that out. And I was like, okay, let's break it down like, what does 자신 mean? And he's like, self. And I was like, what does calm mean? He says, sense.
1:03:48 Speaker 03 And I was like, oh shit, that sounds like exactly what confidence means.
1:03:53 Sam Fragoso? A sense of self.
1:03:54 Speaker 03 A sense of self. And to go back to Korea for me and experience burning in that way. And to kind of like reform and merge with the part of myself that I had maybe not been able to access for some time. Was another moment of confidence for me. And I remember coming back from that experience, really rooted a different person, a different actor. And yeah, I suppose with this merging too, in this way. Getting to show this aspect of not just myself, but perhaps all of ourselves. That the part of ourselves that we're not allowed to show on social media, on camera. But we do show on the road when we think no one's watching, you know?
1:04:39 Speaker 03 Perhaps that is very healing. And perhaps that is something that, not even perhaps, that is something that we were trying to explore. What about all the things that we don't say? What about a side of ourselves that we completely like, don't access? But only in limited spaces and just push down until it comes out in random ways and gnarly places.
1:05:03 Sam Fragoso? If that's what you were exploring in Beef. You're thirty nine?
1:05:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:05:08 Sam Fragoso? Couple of kids?
1:05:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:05:10 Sam Fragoso? A wife, a humidifier?
1:05:12 Speaker 03 A humidifier, but many actually have three.
1:05:14 Sam Fragoso? Three?
1:05:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:05:14 Sam Fragoso? That's good.
1:05:15 Speaker 03 Each room.
1:05:18 Sam Fragoso? If you're not running away from who you were or the expectations that were placed upon you, as you're just now finally being yourself, like in yourself, what do you want in the years ahead? Like, if you and I listen back to this in three or four years, what do you hope happens?
1:05:40 Speaker 03 I think that's it. I don't hope anything happens. I don't hope for anything. I think I'm in a spot where...
1:05:48 Sam Fragoso? You're just in it.
1:05:49 Speaker 03 I'm in it, and I'm not watching myself anymore, which is nice.
1:05:55 Sam Fragoso? Well, then, as we leave, I want to go to one final scene where you're just in it. There was a day on the set of Minari. You're in Oklahoma. It's really hot. And it's one of those shoot days that just seems like it's never gonna end. And on break, you find yourself looking at the sunset, smoking a cigarette. And the crew spots you in the distance and sort of, in quick succession, gets the camera in the right spot and starts filming you from this tall wheat grass. And as you were gazing off into the distance, I wondered if you were thinking about
1:06:41 Sam Fragoso? some lines from a piece of poetry called "The Farm"
1:06:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:47 Sam Fragoso? by Wendell Berry. Is that right?
1:06:49 Speaker 03 That certainly captures the feeling. What happened was Locky, our DP, and Isaac had gone out, because we had finished our scene, to just catch some late sunset B-roll. And they were just shooting. And I'm a camera nerd, and I'm a director nerd. And I walk over there and be like, "What are you guys shooting? I want to know what's happening, what's happening over here." And they're like, "We're just shooting some B-roll." And I'm like, "Cool." And I remember Isaac coming back, "Do you want to shoot some stuff here?" And I was like, "Yeah, maybe you can just shoot me smoking a cigarette."
1:07:26 Sam Fragoso? Just in it?
1:07:26 Speaker 03 Just in it. And they just turned the camera. And I... Try to turn off any expectation. And I just sat there and I started to be there and sit in it. And then I was compelled to pray. And I was compelled to be lost in it all. That was a very pivotal scene that actually changed the course of how the script went, which is pretty fucking cool.
1:07:59 Sam Fragoso? Unbelievable.
1:07:59 Speaker 03 Yeah. There's this shot where we were supposed to have Jacob come into the bathroom and try to turn the water back on, but it wouldn't work. And out of frustration, he was gonna punch the glass and like just go nuts in the bathroom. But instead, after shooting that, Isaac was like, I think I'm just gonna do a slow push in on this sink as it turns back on by itself. That gives me chills just saying it, because I was like, whoa, that is amazing. That's, that's the incredible nature of, of Isaac's directing and.
1:08:30 Sam Fragoso? And doing this work.
1:08:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. Which is that Wendell Berry farm, which is that poem.
1:08:36 Sam Fragoso? Would you like to read it?
1:08:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, I love this poem. And so you make the farm and so you disappear into your days, your days into the ground. Before you start each day, the place is as it is. And at the day's end, it is as it is. A little changed by work, but still itself. Having included you and everything you've done. And it is who you are and you are what it is. You will work many days. No one will ever see. Their record is the place. This way you come to know that something moves in time that time does not contain.
1:09:20 Speaker 03 For by this timely work, you keep yourself alive as you came into time and as you leave. God's dust, God's breath, a little light.
1:09:34 Speaker 03 You can't not almost cry reading that every time.
1:09:38 Sam Fragoso? I did.
1:09:41 Sam Fragoso? Where'd you find that?
1:09:43 Speaker 03 I found this book in a bookstore in Tulsa. I was looking at the poetry section and I just see this book called The Farm. And I was like, oh, that's cute. Like, we're making a movie about a farm. And I pull it and I flip to this passage and it's that passage first. And it blew me away. It formed the basis of the way in which I shaped that whole character for myself.
1:10:07 Sam Fragoso? What did it do for you? What hit you that blew you away?
1:10:11 Speaker 03 I think, no one will ever see.
1:10:14 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
1:10:16 Speaker 03 And it is as it is, having included you. That blows me away.
1:10:21 Sam Fragoso? It is, uh, one of the most accurate descriptions of what it is to give yourself. To work. To art. And it's at once affirming and also a little depressing.
1:10:38 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:10:39 Sam Fragoso? And painful.
1:10:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:10:41 Sam Fragoso? And beautiful. Which I suppose is a whole lot like this conversation.
1:10:46 Speaker 03 Yeah, man. Uh, this was a wild conversation, Sam. What did you do?
1:10:53 Speaker 03 I am amazed and I have blessed timing. And the conversation I was having with my wife in the car as we was coming back from the premiere this morning, exactly wrestling with this. And you just closed the loop. I'm good. I'm healed by this conversation. I appreciate this.
1:11:14 Sam Fragoso? I was gonna say, um, maybe a fourth humidifier would be good.
1:11:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, I should bring another humidifier home with a dial, better dials.
1:11:22 Sam Fragoso? Stephen Young, a pleasure to sit with you.
1:11:24 Speaker 03 A true pleasure. Thank you, man.
1:12:28 Sam Fragoso? And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to give us five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever you do your listening. I want to give a special thanks to speak to the team at Narrative PR, Chris Pagnosi at Second City, Harrison Cameron, and of course, Stephen Young. His new show Beef is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix. We'll be including a link to that and more on our website at talkeasypod.com. If you'd like to hear other conversations with other great actors, I'd recommend our talks with Bob Odenkirk, Natasha Lyonne, Pedro Pascal, Quinton Brunson,
1:13:09 Sam Fragoso? Bill Hader, Abby Jacobson, Titus Burgess, and Ethan Hawke. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at TalkEasyPod. If you want to support our show by purchasing one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. You can do so at talkeasypod.com/shop.
1:13:38 Sam Fragoso? As always, this show would not be possible without our incredible team. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by Clarice Guevara and mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was engineered by Tim Moore out of York According here in Los Angeles, California. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Photographs today are by Julius Chu. Illustrations by Tricia Shenoy. Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gabberzak, Ian Jones, Ethan Sinica, and Leila Register. Special thanks to Paulina Suarez and Kalen Ung. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. We'll be back next week with another episode.
1:14:22 Sam Fragoso? Until then, stay safe and so long.
1:15:09 Speaker 05 I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.
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1:15:31 Speaker 05 Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.
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