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meat Creator Lee Sung Jin reveals some details about the future of the anthology series.
The award-winning writer, director and executive producer says he would be happy if the series ended with its recently released second season. “I would be perfectly happy if this were the last season,” Lee says. Hollywood Reporter In a recent interview. “I think it’s really emotionally exhausting, both in terms of making it and putting it out there.”
Lee says that Jenny Hao, Netflix’s head of scripted series in the US and Canada, always told him that he should only continue the show if it really had something to say. “I feel like I said that over two seasons of meat. But I stay open if the universe shows me something in the future that I feel is right for him meat“I’m definitely open,” he says.
meatThe second season leaves behind the parking lot disputes of the first season, focusing instead on a couple, one a Millennial (Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan) and one a Gen Z (Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny), working at a country club in California. It also stars legendary Korean actors Yoon Yuh-jung and Song Kang-ho, alongside rising actors Seoyoon Jang and Matthew Kim, also known by his K-pop stage name BM.
Season 2’s titular beef falls between the Gen Z couple of Milton’s Austin Davis and Spinney’s Ashley Miller and their boss, Isaac’s Josh Martin, and his wife, Mulligan’s Lindsay Crane Martin, after the younger couple witnesses Josh and Lindsay in what appears to be an intense fight.
As in the first season, Lee was inspired by his actual life, after overhearing a “heated discussion” coming from a couple’s home in his neighborhood, and realizing that his younger peers and peers of the same age responded in very different ways when they heard the story.
A whole cast of characters come along, including President Yeon Park, the new billionaire owner of the country club, Jang Eun-yeun, the president’s assistant, Dr. Kim Sung, the president’s younger husband, and Kim Woo, the president’s stepson and the tennis coach at the country club.
Below, Lee reveals the Season 2 finale, connecting different aspects of his life and the upbringing he didn’t receive in Season 1, and what his work on X-Men The reboot is underway and what’s the deal with all these ants.
I’m not going to ask you the question that I’m sure you’re tired of asking, but all my colleagues wanted to know what ants mean. I was very clear about leaving that up to interpretation.
I mean, I’m sure you heard my answer. It’s definitely open to interpretation. I heard a lot of great interpretations, even though we were doing shows and stuff.
Oh really?
I heard one in Philly a few days ago where someone was saying, “Oh, is it because these characters are becoming more animal-like and then they’re kind of similar down to their core, almost lizard-brained?” I haven’t heard this, but this is cool.
Then other people, they picked up [the fact] Ants and bees are insects with a hive mind and a diving type at that. Some people link the idea of the hive mind to our topic of capitalism. These are all the right areas. I don’t think there is one answer. I think that sometimes for me, I start with an intention, put it into the show and then start seeing other interpretations of it.
It develops for you too after that. That’s the point of art, in a way.
exactly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at some of my favorite paintings or even listened to my favorite songs, and then the meaning suddenly changed over the years.
I like to talk about the ending. With Ashley and Austin [Spaeny and Melton]It was a bit inevitable that we would see them where Josh and Lindsay were [Isaac and Mulligan] He started. But why did you feel that this was the way you wanted to take things?
Thinking about generations and the passage of time, more often than not, in my own life and through what I observe from others, you end up becoming the thing you never thought you would be. I remember being in my twenties on a crew, and any time the director would make us stay past seven, I’d say, “Oh, maybe they hate their families. I can’t believe this.” Then here I am, 44, and routinely working until 11:30 p.m. It felt very appropriate. Whether people interpret that as a tragic ending or not, I think it really depends on where you are currently in your life.
All of my favorite pieces of art are myths. [They’re] Mirrors of our own existence, so we can see a shadow of ourselves and say, “Wait, I kind of know that person in this story. Is that me? Is that my neighbor? Is that my best friend?” Just to give yourself some pause and think about it. This was the ending we knew we were heading towards from the beginning, as soon as we wrote the first episode. But Josh and Lindsay, on the other hand, this is something we didn’t know. This is something we discovered. I can’t tell you how many collaborators have begged me to end their story in Kiss.
truly? Why?
With Phineas’ score and everything, it’s great to have them reconnect. But for me, I was thinking back to the passage of time. Is this honest? Do we want to keep them together or do we want to show that summer turns into fall in winter? It seemed so right to them – for Lindsay to marry at an older age, choose a safe path, and have a daughter, and for Josh to suffer the consequences of his actions. But also in doing so, he almost became a Trojan [William Fichtner]. He’s kind of free and loose and being himself. It was just trying to think about God’s perspective and the seasons of life and how to honestly portray what might happen to these characters.
We’re going through a strange time in media, where we sometimes feel like some younger audiences have lost the ability to understand the nuances of shows. Do you find it a bit difficult to present a show in these times and do what you do?
No one asked me that, but it’s a question I thought about daily. It’s definitely difficult. It’s hard not to fall into the trap of getting older where you have a get-out-of-my-yard kind of mentality. I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection this week, and I remember being in my 20s. There is no country for old men It came out and everyone was saying – obviously I know now that it’s an all-time great movie – but at that moment, in my youth, I was looking around and wondering: “Did we see the same movie?” I know I’m supposed to think it’s great, but I was like, “Wow, so depressing.” I pretended to like it, but in my mind, I was like, What am I not getting? It’s only because I didn’t live. Now, when I watch this film over and over again, I say, “What a masterpiece” – not just in its bleakness, but in its reflection of reality, life, and nature. It’s relentless. I try to keep that in mind.
I understand that.
I hope people come back to this show again and again. I hope younger audiences will watch it in 10 years, and if some people feel the same way, that’s great, but I hope some people will feel differently because they’ve had different experiences. Our goal for the show is how can we leave behind something that, over the test of time, will reflect different things to different people depending on where they are. I just have to constantly remind myself, as a creator, that it’s okay for different audience groups to feel differently. I’m just grateful that there’s even a letter. We live in an age where a lot of things don’t get done, and I love when people compare season one and season two. I’d rather they compare us to another show. I feel a certain way about seasons right now, but that may change for me too. The fact that this touches a chord enough that people want to talk about it and discuss it and have really strong opinions online on both sides, I welcome all of that. For me, it’s just about trying to fight the traps of aging and stubbornness.
Returning to Lindsay, there was debate about whether her end was worth it. You’re writing about flawed people because real people have flaws, so the idea that a character can be worth something is A strange idea to wrap our heads around. But narratively, people have things that they think characters should or shouldn’t have. How do you work around the traps of this idea?
That’s what’s fun as a writer’s room. A lot of us, we’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve been writing for 20 years. I know what chord people want me to play. It would be foolish not to acknowledge that. Yes, it’s very satisfying when a character does something, and then they either get the result from it or get the reward from it. I know what chords are supposed to be there, but as someone who plays a lot of music, that’s like my favorite thing is when you think the chords should be like this and then they do something else.
I know where we want Lindsay to be, but it felt real to me. I also think it generates that discussion about life not being fair. That’s not how it works, and if you want a story that kind of gives you a fairytale ending or predictable ending, there are plenty of other shows that do that. I watch those shows too, but meat She never presented herself that way. We’re going to keep pushing things, we’re going to keep turning left, and that might piss people off at the time, but I hope with some space and some processing, they’ll come back to those moments.
With Josh, in particular, where did you set his ending when creating this story?
It was actually a conversation with Oscar in the pre-time jump, because there were different ways the Prisoner’s Dilemma unfolded between the pair in early drafts and nothing was quite authentic. Oscar then said that he hoped his character would do something selfless in the end. He asked me: Do you remember? The last of the Mohicans“I knew exactly [what he was] We talk about it. that it [moment where] You sacrifice yourself without the knowledge of the person you are saving. It seemed as if this was so true for someone who was so focused on himself that he finally made this act of sacrifice. Even though he had to suffer the consequences of imprisonment, all the pressure he had been under throughout the entire season was finally lifted. He should be completely himself in prison. He’s just the guy. He gets people flustered and nail clippers, but he’s free. It’s more flexible. We were rewriting that ending until the 25th hour.
For me, watching Josh’s arc is satisfying. Oscar’s performance in that final push is on his face, as he has to accept that he has to let go. It’s sad, but then it’s also very zen. Josh is finally in that zen space. Who knows? He’s in the classroom where Troy and Ava are. I’m curious where Josh will end up in his winter phase. We don’t know. I’m really grateful to collaborators like Oscar, [where] It’s just an ongoing conversation, never about ego. It’s never about anything other than what is the best idea here. Carrie, Oscar, Kylie, Charles – they really have their radars finely tuned for bullshit. I’m very happy with the way that prison moment went. Jake [Schreier] Obviously it was beautifully photographed as well.
I was thinking about something Seoyoon said to me. She had this moment in Los Angeles, sitting with YJ, where she realized she had never imagined this for herself or other Korean actors. This season is definitely a mix of actors from different places and at different stages of their careers. Do you have any other thoughts on this topic?
For me, this season is about bridging the aspects of my life and background that I wasn’t able to explore in the first season. Again, having done this for 20 years, I know everything I could have done to replicate the success of the first season in terms of leaning into the same narrative beats and covering the same ground. I find that for me as a writer, there are so many facets to the Asian experience and the Asian American experience, an infinite amount of dimensions. That given the limited time here on Earth that I will be able to do this task, I will run out of time to explore even a tenth of these things.
Naturally, in Season 2, I wanted to draw from what I’ve been through in my real life. It served as a bridge between East and West. I would go to Korea more than I did before. I was exposed to high society in Korea in a way I had never done before. In this constant quest to be as meta as possible, I then chose the king and queen of Korean cinema.
definitely.
I was flexing muscles that I had never been able to flex in my career. There are more scenes written entirely in Korean than in the first season. This particular scene in the third episode with Song Kang-ho and YJ at the breakfast table, this is probably one of the scenes I’m most proud of. It’s a long scene.
that it.
It’s one of the longest scenes of that episode. It’s just unapologetically complete Korean, and doesn’t hold back at all. Just all the culturally specific ways that Song Kang Ho speaks. YJ says “I love you” in English at the end. There are all these little touches that I know I may never do something like this again. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to expand my scope and try things I’ve never tried before. I’m also really proud of the fact that we’ve found more newcomers this season. Seoyeon is very talented. I think she’s going to have a very long career. Matthew Kim, his first time acting. It’s unbelievable. I’m excited for Matthew to continue to evolve as an actor. Even the senior advisor, Jason [Her]. It’s very hard to find an actor who speaks Korean and English fluently, has a Korean movie look, and whose hair looks like a wealthy society one. Just to still be able to constantly discover new talent, even while trying new things, while working with the greats, what creator doesn’t want that?
Why do you think you are able to do this?
I feel proud and happy that Netflix has been so supportive of all these decisions. I’m very aware that in other places, with other executives, I don’t know that I would have done that. I think there may have been a decline or… [asking to] One of the Korean scenes was cut [or for them] To start speaking English at some point. This was never the case. Netflix wanted more. When I said we were going to film the finale in Korea, they asked me, “What do you need?” I hope I keep getting those opportunities because I’ll keep trying to find new slices of the Asian experience that I can cover, but in new ways, in ways that people don’t expect me to, because that’s who I am.
We’ve talked before about how you realize that it’s better to have the ideas for the seasons of this show come to you rather than trying to manufacture them. You just quit your Netflix deal. What are you looking to do next?
For series meatI would be perfectly happy if this was the final season. I think it’s really emotionally exhausting, making it and publishing it. Jenny [Howell] He always said to me, “You should only do it if you really have something to say,” and I feel like I said that over two seasons of the show. meat. But I stay open – if the universe shows me something in the future that I feel is right for it meatI’m definitely open.
In the meantime, I have a lot of other projects I want to pursue. I was in the lab every day with Kevin Feige, Jake Schreier, and Joanna Calo. We are working on X-Men Tirelessly. It’s the privilege of a lifetime, dealing with the best intellectual property in the business X-MenSo I’m looking forward. I’m definitely constantly trying to tell interesting stories and I hope they reach a lot of people. Maybe I’ll come back meat In the future, but if not, I’m very proud of the work we’ve done over two seasons.
