Since the arrival of Beef in 2023, showrunner and creator Lee Sung Jin has been hailed as “the preeminent social satirist” working in television.

The Emmy-winning writer/director joins us around the anthology’s return (3:10) to discuss the source material behind this latest season (4:30), the rise of scammers (12:00), and the distinctions between Korean and American elites (18:00). Then, we move through Lee’s nomadic childhood (28:45), his years as an NBC page (38:28), and a decade of working inside writers’ rooms for shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Silicon Valley (43:45).

On the back-half, he speaks candidly about his battles with depression (53:00), the PowerPoint that lead to Beef landing at Netflix (1:01:00), the pains of perfectionism (1:03:30), what the next generation of writers can do to break into television (1:07:30), the day director Bong Joon Ho visited his set (1:22:20), and why Lee feels he’s just getting started (1:24:38).

Clips from Beef courtesy of Netflix. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel.

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