[INTERVIEW] Netflix series ‘Beef’ Season 2 incorporates more Korean elements: director

Director and screenwriter for “Beef” Lee Sung-jin / Courtesy of Netflix

The award-winning Netflix series “Beef,” which swept categories at the Emmys, Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, returns April 16 with its second season.

Korean American director and writer Lee Sung-jin said he was excited but found Season 2 “even harder than the first” season to make as he aimed to “take some big swings and risks while retaining what is special about the show” during an online interview with The Korea Times on Tuesday.

Unlike Season 1’s road rage feud between lonely strangers, Season 2 unfolds at an elite country club where a young couple witnesses a shocking fight between their boss and his wife, and the web of blackmail that follows involving both couples and the club’s owner, Korean billionaire Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung).

While Season 1 focused on Korean American stories, Season 2 explores a mixed-race character’s Korean roots. “It’s a bridge between West and East,” Lee said. “Charles’ character is half Korean, caught in an identity tug-of-war as he’s pulled into the upper echelons of Korean society — the world of chaebol (conglomerate) families.”

A poster for Netflix series “Beef” Season 2 / Courtesy of Netflix

Charles Melton plays half-Korean Austin Davis, a former college football player turned part-time club worker and trainer. Austin and his partner Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) share a conflict-free relationship until tangling with Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), unearthing buried lies.

Unlike typical sequels, the director said, Season 2 isn’t a direct continuation but a “spiritual sibling.” Season 1 is about isolated people finding someone to live with. Season 2 is about couples who have found the person they want to share life with. But then what?

“It’s not easy to do that, especially in 2026 as capitalism becomes more and more unhinged, without checks and balances,” he explained. “The system we all live in presses down so hard on the middle class. Season 2 is a natural progression from where we ended Season 1.”

Song Kang-ho, left, and Youn Yuh-jung in a scene from Netflix series “Beef” Season 2 / Courtesy of Netflix

This season also includes more Korean elements.

“I knew Korea would be a big part of it long before I wrote a single word — it was something I was living myself,” Lee said. After Season 1, frequent trips to Korea to make BTS member RM’s music video and encounters with K-pop idols and chaebol heirs proved alluring: “I felt drawn to shooting more in Korea and so I thought it’d be interesting to take that experience and put it onto Austin (Melton’s character).”

Melton, whose mother is a first-generation Korean American immigrant, called it “amazing” that Lee wrote from his own “half Korean, half white” experience. Having lived in Korea for six years as a child, the actor said filming in Korea “felt like coming home.”

Casting Korean stars Youn Yuh-jung, Song Kang-ho

Casting choices were also part of efforts to maintain Korean elements in the show.

Youn Yuh-jung, best known for her role in the award-winning film “Minari” (2020), plays Chairwoman Park, the aging country club owner. Song Kang-ho, known for his role in the award-winning film “Parasite” (2019), plays her second husband, Dr. Kim.

The director expressed his admiration for both, labeling them “the two greatest, not only Korean actors, but actors alive.”

Lee also said Song initially declined the offer, unsure of how to play the role. It was Youn who called and persuaded him. “You’re Song Kang-ho. You’re the greatest actor alive — you know how to play any character. You’ll figure it out. You have to do this show,” the director quoted Youn as saying.

Melton called working with Youn and Song a dream-come-true. “Song fills this space with this sense of gravitas and humility in his preparation, where he is constantly working in his progress. Witnessing that was one of the greatest moments of my career.” Of Youn, he said: “There’s such a profound reverence — when she’s in the room, you can feel it. It’s this very ‘woo-woo, wah-wah’ magical experience.”