Over a series of long Zoom calls this winter, Yeun was candid and philosophical, the kind of talker whose thoughts balloon into long, floaty paragraphs stippled with the occasional “duuuude.” Earlier in his career, he had flittier, eager-to-please energy, but these days he's mellowed out; his speaking cadence has an almost melatonin effect. If this once-in-a-generation-actor thing doesn't work out, he'd make a great hostage negotiator.
“He thinks about things deeply,” Boots Riley told me when describing his own long conversations with the actor. He cast Yeun in Sorry to Bother You after the two shared a languid night out at a restaurant. Some weed was smoked, and a friendship blossomed from there. “If I'm going to call him on the phone, I have to have a few hours set aside,” Riley added, “because we're going to run the gamut of everything in existence that needs to be talked about.”
In the two-plus years since I'd last spoken with Yeun, a lot had changed—namely, it's boom times for Asian American film and television. You have rich and tasteless Asians with six-packs on reality TV (Bling Empire). You have hyper-violent Chinatown wars, where the gangsters also have six-packs (Warrior). And you have artful indie films such as Lulu Wang's 2019 feature, The Farewell, for which Awkwafina (six-pack unconfirmed) became the first Asian American to win a Golden Globe for best actress. Not everything being produced right now is “good” necessarily, which is in itself good. That's how this should work. Representation, practically speaking, requires some latitude to suck.
Few people have thought about their place in all of this with as much care and attention as Yeun, even as he acknowledges that when it comes to the topic of authenticity, conversations can quickly become circular. “It's like you get tricked into representing your entire culture, and then the game becomes policing your authenticity to each other,” he said. “But how can you be authentic? What's actually authentic to you is just being this middle person—Korean and American. This third culture.”
by Chris Gayomali, GQ | Read more:
Image: Diana Markosian
“He thinks about things deeply,” Boots Riley told me when describing his own long conversations with the actor. He cast Yeun in Sorry to Bother You after the two shared a languid night out at a restaurant. Some weed was smoked, and a friendship blossomed from there. “If I'm going to call him on the phone, I have to have a few hours set aside,” Riley added, “because we're going to run the gamut of everything in existence that needs to be talked about.”
In the two-plus years since I'd last spoken with Yeun, a lot had changed—namely, it's boom times for Asian American film and television. You have rich and tasteless Asians with six-packs on reality TV (Bling Empire). You have hyper-violent Chinatown wars, where the gangsters also have six-packs (Warrior). And you have artful indie films such as Lulu Wang's 2019 feature, The Farewell, for which Awkwafina (six-pack unconfirmed) became the first Asian American to win a Golden Globe for best actress. Not everything being produced right now is “good” necessarily, which is in itself good. That's how this should work. Representation, practically speaking, requires some latitude to suck.
Few people have thought about their place in all of this with as much care and attention as Yeun, even as he acknowledges that when it comes to the topic of authenticity, conversations can quickly become circular. “It's like you get tricked into representing your entire culture, and then the game becomes policing your authenticity to each other,” he said. “But how can you be authentic? What's actually authentic to you is just being this middle person—Korean and American. This third culture.”
by Chris Gayomali, GQ | Read more:
Image: Diana Markosian
[ed. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much from the new Netflix series 'Beef" based on what little I'd heard about its plot: a road rage "revenge tragedy" with confrontational, near psychopathic characters. But it's actually pretty great. The acting is terrific, especially Ali Wong and Steven Yeun. Below: the church scene in the second episode (followed by Yeun singing Drive). See also: Beef is the best show Netflix has had in recent memory (Vox):]
As they learn more about each other, they both realize they can do the most hurt by taking aim at the people the other person loves most. And as the show unfurls, there’s an increasing, heart-in-your-stomach fear that Danny will go after June or George or that Amy may retaliate by hurting Paul or Danny’s parents — innocent people who have no part in this feud.
The more Amy and Danny ramp up their feud, the more vulnerable their family members become. Amy and Danny inadvertently distance themselves from their loved ones, in an effort to keep their escalating war a secret. And insidiously, Amy and Paul become more entrenched in each other’s lives. (Vox)]
