With Beef back for another dramatic feud on Netflix, audiences are in for a whole new onscreen brawl.
While attending Wednesday’s Season 2 premiere in Los Angeles, stars Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac detailed how they brought their episode one fight scene to life, as well as the importance of making it “very truthful” to kick off the season.
“The fight scene was a big old puzzle that we took a long time to figure out with Sonny [creator Lee Sung Jin], over months,” said Mulligan, who plays Lindsay Crane-Martín.
Isaac, who stars as her husband Josh, noted, “We did improvisations, we did rehearsals where we taped out the thing, almost like a theater play.”
Mulligan added, “And because it was the inciting incident for the season, the onus was on it being very truthful. We also didn’t know who these people were, so it was hard to figure out how we make people listen to two people who are just fighting. And then, the end tableau that the children witness was a difficult thing to get to. And Sonny’s ability to just adapt and write live and respond to what he was seeing as a writer, was the reason it ended up working, I think.”
As Deadline reported when the cast was announced in 2024, Season 2 of Beef follows a young couple (Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny) as they witness an alarming fight between their boss and his wife, triggering chess moves of favors and coercion in the elitist world of a country club and its Korean billionaire owner.
Inspired by Lee’s personal experience with a road rage incident, Season 1 starred Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as two strangers whose lives collide in a strange way after they’re involved in a traffic incident of their own. The debut season was a critical success, earning four Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and three Golden Globes, including Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film.
