Hey and welcome back to the 824 Podcast.
For today's episode we brought together two of this year's Emmy
nominees, Stephen Young and Michael Imperioli.
Stephen stars in our Netflix series Beef and Michael has a
very memorable role in season 2 of HBO's The White Lotus, one of
our favorite non 824 productions.
Please note this conversation was recorded pre strike.
We hope you enjoy it. So we should introduce
ourselves. Is that usually all right?
All right. Hi, this is Steven Young.
And this is Michael Imperioli. And today we're talking on the A
24 podcast. Where are you today?
I'm in my house in in LA. How about yourself?
Yeah, I'm in my house in New York.
Right on. It's really cool to talk to you.
Same here. Yeah, same here.
This is very cool. How long have you lived in LA?
I I'm originally from Michigan. You did a show meaning the The
Walking Dead, right? I moved here 2009 and I got here
and then I booked a show that took me to Atlanta for seven
years. So I've been, like in and out of
this place. I did the whole I hate this
place for a while and I'm, I'm, I'm back to.
I like this place. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That show Where?
Michigan? Where are you from?
I'm from Detroit Suburbs, Troy, MI.
I lived in Royal Oak for a while.
Oh, you did? For a year for a work.
Yeah, I did a series in 2010. Oh amazing. 2011 we shot in
Detroit, in the city that we made a studio.
Out of some warehouse in Highland Park, yeah, but I lived
in Royal Oak and you know, drove, which is very not far
from Troy. Not at all.
And Royal Oak is a nice place to get the real culture of of
Michigan. What did you think of Michigan?
You could be honest. I liked it a lot until it got
really till it got cold, it got very.
It's dismal, Gray and really cold.
It was hard for me because my my wife and kids were in New York.
They came for the summer because the job started in the summer
and the summers, Quite nice there.
There's lakes not far away and you know, it's kind of like
royal Oaks, like small town life.
It was really nice. And then they went back to New
York for school, and I would try to get back when I could because
I was. I was the lead of the show, so I
worked all the time. And oh, you did.
It was Detroit 187. Detroit 187.
So I would fly home sometimes, you know, we did like Fridays,
like all night Fridays. And then I'd get on the first
plane Saturday and go home, fly back Sunday afternoon and go
back to work Monday at 6:00 in the morning.
And it was I do that twice a month.
How old were your kids at the time?
Let's see. The youngest was like 8, the
middle was 12, No 13. My oldest was like 20.
Actually. My middle was on the show a
couple of episodes. Oh, sick.
He played my son, can I just say, like from afar, and I know
nothing of your life, but from afar I very much admire what
feels like a really balanced real life, doing this very
strange at times work and that's like so cool.
I'm sure it was not easy, but much much respect.
Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah.
My kids are now all adults and and live on their own.
So that period's over with living, you know, living with
the kids and raising them. But I got lucky because I had a
long stretch where the on The Sopranos I was in in New York,
where we were living at the time.
So yeah, I got to come home every night.
So that was really quite a long stretch of time.
And then can I ask, did being on something like Sopranos and
being able to do good fellas and kind of having, I feel like
maybe perhaps there was a plot for in an Italian American
existence to already exist, but you were part of the forming of
like an even more nuanced reality.
Does that does that make it easier at times or harder for
you to kind of be a pioneer of that life in a way?
Well, you know, it's an extension of what I would turn
me on to the, you know, in the business because it was like
movies from the 70s and early 80s, some of whom were made by
Italian Americans like Coppola and Scorsese and.
And actors like, you know, who all like De Niro or Al Pacino
who are heroes of mine, you know, So I definitely had a
aspiration towards those things. And you know that the Italian
American acting community in New York is kind of small.
Like there's a lot of Italian Americans in New York, but the
actual acting community is kind of small.
So a lot of us before Sopranos knew each other.
From other jobs, you know, Goodfellas and some of Spike
Lee's stuff and and and and other things, you know.
So when Sopranos hit, a lot of us were already friends.
I mean two of the actors on The Sopranos I knew from my when I
was teenager in in acting classes.
So it kind of felt like a real victory in a way that people you
can't only really. Lorraine Bracco was really the
only star when the show started. Everyone else was kind of in the
same boat. Done a lot of work.
Character actors, people knew you a little here from here and
there, but it felt like a victory when that became a
success. And a lot of us who knew each
other, you know, had that together.
That was really cool, yeah, you know, and really fun.
And that that it was so embraced that way.
Did you have difficulty that first season of like kind of,
maybe not how it was received, but I heard from Sonny, who
created our show, that they didn't quite fully understand
Sopranos that first season when it came out.
You mean the audience? Not maybe not the audience, but
maybe the industry. Or maybe life at large.
Or it wasn't celebrated at the way it is now.
It was critically celebrated right away, right?
Like the when it came, when it went on.
The other reviews are really off the charts, to the point where
Saturday Night Live did a spoof that first season on the reviews
of The Sopranos. Because the reviews were really
hyperbolic and over the top, you know?
And people started watching. You know, I think it was the
industry itself. Like we we were nominated for
Best Show that first year and we were the only cable show really
that was nominated for. Pretty much anything but the The
Sopranos didn't win best Show till like I think it was season
five. Which in hindsight, considering
like it's always on the list of the you know one of the best
shows ever and now in hindsight and all these younger people who
got turned on to it. The fact that the first four
years it lost best TV series to mainly to The West Wing and The
practice I think were the shows that.
We're beating it at the time. Maybe NYPD blew that first.
Maybe not, though that might have been on the way out.
So industry wise it was a little slow and we were such sore
losers. Like we went out to the Emmys
and we thought we were going to win because it did make such a
splash that first year and when we lost Best Show, we all walked
out. I love it.
We got up in the Emmys and walked right out, All of us.
That's we were just so pissed off.
Really were very sore losers and you know, overly cocky.
But yeah, was it was an interesting.
Time and it it kind of built overtime, you know?
I don't know. I feel like that feels so
justified and like also like part of the process of being
brave enough to put a show like that out to begin with.
Yeah, and it was, I'll tell you the truth, the.
You know, we did the pilot first, right?
And when I read the pilot, you can't really tell how kind of
complex and where it would go. It was, you know, the pilot was
fun and interesting, but you really didn't get a sense of the
possibilities. And I wasn't really sure the
tone of the pilot. Was it a spoof, was it?
There was a lot of very funny things.
And HBO series was not a prestige thing by any stretch of
the imagination. It was actually the opposite.
It was almost like the minor leagues of series.
It really was. Wow.
It was. There was no.
Prestige about it. It was really kind of like, you
know, second place to like network TV network.
I mean, I hadn't done much television.
I had mostly done theater and movies, mostly independent
movies. So it was like a series where
there's violence and profanity and nudity.
It really didn't have much promise, like as something
commercial. So we were kind of surprised
actually that it got picked up. And then when we did the first
season, that's when you really saw oh after.
Getting script after script, you're like, whoa, wait a
second, This is way beyond what I thought it was or could have
been, and it got really interesting.
What was the kind of parallel for you with, like, Walking
Dead? Like, did that immediately take
off? Was it a slower?
Well, for that one for me I was. So just on a ride that I think I
think if I look at it like from like a meta meta level, there
was like the ride that it took me on in terms of, you know,
just being a part of something like that where most everybody
was unknown. We got to work with Frank
Dermont, which was incredible. And then to feel, I remember
that that's the first thing I've ever really been on.
And to have the rumbling while we were shooting like episode
three, people are like, this is really good.
And I don't know. I don't know what that means.
Like, I'm listening to Jeff Dumon.
He wasn't saying that because he was wise enough not to say stuff
like that. But like, you know, there were
people that were like, this is feeling really good and I was
just enjoying it. And that took me on A7 year ride
where I got to see maybe not all the extremes of Hollywood, but I
got to touch a lot of things. I saw a lot of things.
And I don't mean that in like some way or like I saw some dark
nefarious stuff. I just mean more like, oh, I see
how this business can be psychologically difficult at
times. It can be emotionally draining.
It can be a weird social reality.
I I experienced a lot short period of time very quickly.
I'm just grateful for that experience.
I got to act being an Asian American guy, being a Korean
American guy in a post apocalyptic reality where nobody
cared that I was Korean American before the world had even caught
up to that idea. And I feel like if I had gotten
maybe the other pilots that I was close to, which were like
Office comedies or you know, something that was rooted in
like our current reality, I don't know if I would have been
able to see myself as clear. I I think I could have been very
easily reduced to like the role that someone like that looks
like me shouldn't have it in a reality that makes sense.
And I would have just bought into it because I was young and
like impressionable and. You want to work?
I want to work. Yeah.
I was like, what do you want me to do?
I'm a plucky assistant. I'll be a plucky assistant, you
know, But then like to have this carte blanche in a way to like
really grow my character overtime.
And it was weird, unintentional therapy for me, of kind of
deconstructing the way that I viewed myself as a person in
this place, looking the way that I do and so.
Just, you mean in the industry And yeah, in the industry and at
times in in real reality too. You know, I I came up doing
Second City Theater in. Chicago in Chicago and I had a
great time. And those are some of my
favorite years where like, you know when you're doing improv,
nobody cares also what your ethnicity is.
They're just kind of like we're just playing make believe, make
them up. So we're just fucking around and
I appreciated that. But then once things got
scripted in like sketch world, then it became like hyper aware
of like what you're able to play and like how the joke is
actually crafted around the way that you are and look.
And the comedy was very rigid in that way where where you're self
aware of yourself. But for me, I was a young kid, I
was not self aware like that. I was just kind of like I wasn't
even in this like confident place to like properly make fun
of myself from a confident place.
I was just leading with self deprecation as like this payment
to be around in a way, if that makes sense.
And so it helped me really detox a lot of that stuff.
Yeah, that was my experience on Walking Dead.
It was a very strange trip that I'm very, very, very grateful
for. Was it a hit right away?
Yeah, it was, wasn't it? Yeah, pretty much
out-of-the-box. Popped off.
It was like, one day I walked into a Best Buy and nobody
cared. And then the next day they're
like, are you the guy? And then, like, I remember
feeling so shocked at that. It kind of fucked me up.
But I dealt with it. We're good.
Yeah, there's an abruptness to those things that some.
Truly, like with The Sopranos, I had been around a bit and like
Goodfellas was a very popular movie, so people would know you
from here and there. But all of a sudden it got very,
very different very quickly because, you know, that kind of
consistency of TV and, yeah, and you're in the intimacy of
people's homes. Yeah.
There's definitely a period of
adjustment to that, Yeah. Did that go well for you?
Was that easy for you? I don't know.
I wouldn't say easy. It was interesting when the
Spano said it was before social media and really before everyone
had phones. Capability to video and take
pictures all the time, yeah. Which was probably a good thing,
because, yeah, Oh my God. You know, it was a little, it
was a little bit more anonymity and especially when you have
young kids, there's a there's a little, I mean now it's a lot
more relaxed. But when the kids were young,
when The Sopranos hit, actually my youngest wasn't even born.
He was born in 2001. And there's this you know a
balance to wanting to kind of protect them and the and some
privacy and and things like that and them kind of navigate.
Gating that as well. Like what's?
Yeah, I'm finding that with my kids.
But they're they're young, but they're also how.
Old are your kids six and four. Oh yeah, You're in deep.
Yeah, I'm in. I'm in deep.
You see the bag? That's the beginning, yeah, but
it's a it goes very quickly, believe it or not.
It doesn't seem like it in the midst of it.
But and but it's it's wonderful. Those are wonderful ages.
I'm. We're having a great time.
I'm of course, and that's kind of what I meant earlier, too, of
just like seeing from afar and making a lot of assumptions
about how to navigate that stuff.
But I always appreciate when I see an actor that's feels like,
you know you're doing your best. But going home every weekend,
that's like, that's not easy. That's not to.
That's not easy. No no it's not but you know you
you make it work, right. They would come out when they
could and you know on vacations if I was on location and after
The Sopranos I was on location a lot you know and different
sometimes out of the country or you know different parts of the
of America and and you know you just do your best and but what
was that like to do Sopranos and then do all this work this great
work in between And then not that they're like completely
tangential or like completely mixed but like it felt like that
must have been so fun to go to Italy for White Lotus.
I don't know. I'm.
Assuming it was. I mean, I was pretty much when
when they said there was interest in me for Season 2
White Lotus, I had not seen season one.
I'd heard it was really good, but they said, well, it shoots
for four months in Sicily and I was immediately like, unless
this is. Horrendous.
I'm going to want to do it. Obviously I had been to Sicily
before and I've been to other parts of Italy many times, and
my I have family that still lives in Italy.
So we had been, we had actually been to the place where we
filmed in Taormina, and I've always wanted to work.
I had not worked well. I we shot a soprano episode in
in Naples. That was the only time I worked
there but I was dying to like do a gig there and that was that
was a real thrill and and we shot in a small town tower mean
is relatively small especially in the in the summer it gets
very busy because it's a touristy place but when we were
there from the end of February was very quiet and we kind of
had the town to ourselves in a way and really fell into the
rhythm of that small town, Sicilian.
Lifestyle. And it was really fun.
Oh my God, you guys got like an old world rendering of that
place. Maybe that has never happened
before. It was very exciting because we
were, the hotel where we shot was closed, except we were
there, the crew and cast and the staff.
So we were living there and shooting there, which was
incredibly fun, you know, to, you know, take the.
The elevator to work, you know, it was pretty Did you become
weird, de facto tour guide? Did they make you tour guide or
you You were like, Nah man, I'm just gonna do my own thing.
You know we we did little day trips and and you can take the
train really easily there. So there was somebody on the
crew who really knew everywhere to go that you know was from
there and really helped us out. But you know, you find a couple,
a handful of cool places and. When I'm on location, I like to
find 123 good places and then just go there all the time and
they get to know you and they take care of you and you always
get a seat. That's what I like to do.
And I did that in Sicily. You know, you try a few and
whatever's good. You just keep going and you make
friends and you tip well and yeah, and then you have friends
and you know what's nice. I think our job is a really nice
job to travel with because you you go somewhere and you
immediately meet people from that place, you know, because a
lot of our crew were Italian and you meet people from that area
who know it. And very different than going as
a tourist, you know, that's one of the benefits I think of what
we do. And it feels like too.
Like, I I've gotten to work in Korea a couple times, and every
time I go back, I feel like there's like a part of my, like
body that shifts. Or like maybe the easiest way to
be like, oh, like there's like a part of my consciousness that
opens up. But I also feel like it like
changes my genes or something when I go back to Korea and like
work there for a long time. When was the first time you went
to Korea? So I was born in Korea.
Oh, you were born there? Yeah, but I moved when I was 4,
so I was very aware of having moved.
And then I didn't go back. I went back periodically when I
was like 8th grade and like a little bit in college and they
didn't go back for a year or for like a 10 years.
And then I got to go back professionally to shoot this
movie called Okjar. And then I got to do this
succession of like other Korean projects of Okja.
And then I got to do this other film called Burning There.
Doing burning there really kind of unlocked my brain a little
bit, just feeling that place and like being there.
And yeah, I probably did a blasphemous thing, but my
character at the time in that movie was such kind of like a
ritualistic person. So I just hate Subway every day,
which? In in Korea?
You always spoke the language since when you were a kid, yeah.
Yeah, the best Korean food. And I fucking ate Subway every.
That's great. I was born in New York and my
father was born here. But my my father's father was
born in Italy. So there were about six or seven
kids, and half of them came my grandfather's siblings, Half of
them came to the US and the other half stayed.
So there's a lot of family there outside of Rome.
I never went till I was 25 and I went to Rome and I remember.
I I was in Paris for a while, and then I went to Rome, checked
into the place where I was staying, and then went for a
walk. And it was right in the center
historical center of Rome. And it was one of the weirdest,
trippiest things I I ever experienced.
And still kind of experienced it now, but that first time,
because it was, there were so many things that were familiar,
like faces and smells and sounds and light and stuff and yet.
It also was foreign. I never had that experience
anywhere else because there's definitely, I mean that part of
the world is where, you know, yeah my family's from there's
there's is this connection and I remember I got there I was with
an ex-girlfriend, you know when I was young and I had a phone
number of my aunt and I called and I I'm studying Italian now,
but I I've always had just like very pigeon Italian.
So I'm trying to really the last year I've been really making
attempt to learn a little more. And I called up and I told them
who I was, and they're like, oh, we're going to have dinner come
over. So we got on the subway and we
go over to that. And I I had only met the great
aunt. So then there was another aunt
who was my father's age and my cousin my age, and I had never
met them. And we're trying to communicate.
You know, they didn't speak English.
I spoke hardly, hardly Italian, not really.
But we're communicating. And then they serve dinner,
which was pasta. Now here's where it got really
trippy. The sauce from the pasta tasted
exactly like. The sauce that was made in my
grandfather's house because, wow, my great grandmother moved,
you know, to the US and live with my grandfather.
So that was her recipe and the same.
It was exactly the same taste. Wow.
And that kind of blew my mind because it was like, oh, this is
this is the recipe that kind of was started here.
You're like time traveling. You're like physically
traveling. Yeah.
You're like alternate dimension. That's amazing.
Yeah. It was really, really well, very
emotional. Very.
That first day was it was really overwhelming.
The kind of sensorial stimulation was like, it was
wow. And you see in people's like
mannerisms and speech patterns, like elements of your own family
and like, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's beautiful that way.
I felt like it was really fun to watch you in White Lotus to see
you choose like the comfort of being there.
Your character was like, yeah, we come here, we do this thing
and like, I know this place and I do this thing.
And that's always an interesting thing to kind of like see or
feel when you're, when you're watching somebody.
Especially when the show is like here's a foreign place where
like. The other half of your cast is
vacationing there, right? And you're just kind of sitting
in the pocket of that place. Yeah, And experiencing whatever
connection that is because there is a connection.
And at the same time, you're a foreigner.
That's the other thing. And so there's this weird
disconnect, this, you know, the connection and disconnection.
I've been back to Italy many times since that first trip, but
I really, really love it. Yeah, love being there every
minute. Do you go often to just visit
and spend time there? In the last decade plus, I've
gone to mostly work. I haven't really gone to
vacation. I hope we can do that more now.
Now that the kids are a little older.
Yeah. So we're looking forward to
that. Yeah.
We made this joke in our show about peninsula mentality and
how Koreans and Italians are the same.
Oh, right, because they're they're surrounded on three
side. We just made a bunch of bullshit
up. We were just talking, ringing
off the yeah. But like, it was funny to make
parallels of just like there's like food, there's like family.
Family culture, fashion, like it's it's a it's a similar kind
of thing. I feel like have cars, even
tradition, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Like ritual, kind of family
ritual and cultural ritual and stuff like that.
That becomes very important. Yeah, and a little bit of a vibe
of like, I wouldn't even call it superiority.
I would call it like chippy superiority, like one that's
built off of like have at least on the Korean side that feels
like a little bit of a chip on our shoulder.
So we're kind of like trying to flex.
I don't know what the Italian one is rooted in.
Y'all had roamed. So wow.
They they, yeah, I remember I read something.
Well, I forget exactly what it was.
They were saying, what's some of your favorite things about the
culture was just being Italian. That's what Italian said being
Italian is. There's a certain like a flex or
a swag that comes with that with just like there's a really great
word in Italian that doesn't really have a translation in
English and it's called sprezzatura, which means doing
something difficult but making it look like it's very easy.
Like, you know, like dressing really good, but making it look
like you just put it together, you know, there's a, there's an
awareness. Like I went to this restaurant
in Positano right on the water called, I think it's called Shea
Black. And they made this very simple
pasta, right? Like, it was like spaghetti with
these little round tomatoes that grow in the volcanic soil of
Vesuvius with like garlic and a little bit of cheese and olive
oil. Very simple, but one of the best
things I've ever eaten. And I told the manager, I said
this pasta, this is one of the greatest things I've ever had.
And he said in the day he goes this, the chef, he makes this
with one hand and the other hand, he's talking to his mother
on the telephone. You know, it's like like, ah,
that's good. That's very Italian.
But all the but all the preparation to make that thing
good, all the work is embedded into like everything before it.
Yes, right. Like growing that tomato, of
course. Picking that tomato, knowing
just the right amount of olive oil to put into that pasta.
I think simple's not easy. Simply che known fat Chile.
That's what they say. Simple.
Simple, but not easy. Yeah, because if you if you
there's only there's nowhere to hide anything.
There's only a few ingredients. Yeah.
If you don't get the proportions right or the preparation right,
it's you don't. Have it Totally, totally.
I feel that. I mean, not I, I mean, I didn't
know I was going to go here, but like that's that's kind of how I
feel about having watched your performance.
It feels that way. It feels like.
Watching you in White Lotus and in Sopranos, it never felt like
calculated. It felt very lived in.
It felt very like you did a lot of the work unseen.
Ah, I kind of felt the same way about watching you in Beef.
There was a simplicity. And again, simple is not easy.
And honesty and trusting that what you're bringing is enough,
you know? So I think sometimes as actors
in the past, always feel like there's there's you have to do,
you know, you got to be doing more and doing more.
And over the years I've tried to do less and do less, not do more
than what's needed. You know, there's certain
demands that have to be met when you play certain characters that
just have to know, like The Sopranos.
When I started that show, I based my character on somebody
that I actually knew who was a very well.
He was an Italian American from New York and he was very loosely
involved with the mob. He wasn't a made made guy, but
he had. He'd gotten involved with people
adjacent to the mob and then had to leave, you know, New York
because of it, had aspirations about being an actor too at some
point, but then that didn't work out.
But emotionally, what was interesting about him, he was
his reaction to things was so, like, so much like it almost
looked like bad acted like I couldn't believe he was that
invested in everything. Yeah.
And I thought that was really kind of interesting because
that's not me, you know, I'm not like that.
So I used that in the beginning. And then, you know, once the
show got started, you just kind of, you know that the engines
that you just turned the key, the engines already built.
But building the engine, I kind of used him.
I never thought about him again, probably after the pilot.
But with White Lotus, I really made an attempt to do as little
as possible like it was. It was really, really, really
deliberate. I always try to try to find
Parallels, You know, as much as I can.
Did you have a good time shooting beef?
I had, I did. I I had a good time.
It was. It was only painful in so much
as that I had to, like stay in a mindset that I myself, as kind
of an immigrant, have been trying to shed my whole life,
kind of a very deep scarcity. You know, but like staying in
it, justifying his reality from that place, like all of it, it
felt closer to your performance. And Sopranos in that way, where
like, my guy is also big at times, almost kind of like he
needs to, like, tell everybody that he's feeling this way so
that, yes, you know, like it becomes a performance on a
performance. He can't just, like, live with
the feeling. He has to, like, alert everybody
that. This is happening to him.
When you said deep scarcity, you mean in terms of the immigrant
experience and? Yeah, in that way, yeah.
Just kind of opportunity and things like that.
Gotta get it. If you don't have it means
you're not anything like you must eat it.
Now you might go away like never be satisfied, never be grateful,
just kind of live in this space at this mentality.
So it was fun because I was with friends and we were making,
we're just laughing, you were friends with with some of the
other actors and and yeah. Creator, Yeah, with the With the
creator Sunny Ally I met. Ally was really wonderful.
We met before, but we didn't get to ever work together.
I didn't know her very well until this show.
With Sunny, just kind of getting to reminisce about kind of what
you said, like our friend who's like this and why is he this
way? And is that us too?
Are we this way? Or like, there's parts of us
that are like, oh, remember that at church?
Like how weird that was? Did you have that too?
And it turns out like, we did. And then life gets weird and
just fun. It's fun that way.
So at what point did you get involved in the your producer on
it as well? So were you on it and involved
in the inception of it and the creation of it as well and well?
Sonny came to me a couple years back and was like, hey, I want
to write this show about road rage incident.
This road rage incident, I was like, oh, that was the the road
rage, yeah. Yeah, he was like road rage.
And then, you know, him and I have known each other for a
while and most of our conversations start at some dumb
thing and then they end up at like, why does God exist or what
is that? What is God?
You know, we just existentially loop.
But as we got into it, yeah, we we, we started developing it
more. And then when Ali jumped aboard,
it really, like, made sense. There was something really it it
felt right and so. Yeah, the whole trip of it was
really bizarre and fun and strange and all of that comes
into the show. It feels in the show,
bizarreness, strangeness, fun, you know, fun humor.
It's, you know, I know I I, I've heard that Sonny talk about The
Sopranos and that that that was an influence.
I know him. But you know that that edge of
you know, real scary stuff, tragic stuff, you know
emotional. I mean your character's really
lost it seems and you know really lost.
And look and searching for meaning, right.
What, where, what has meaning and where and?
Especially when all the meaning that he's been ascribed or
conditioned to believe in was intrinsic, like capitalist
value. Like how much money are you
making? What's your status in this
place? And?
When he when, when, when he's living in America where they
say, where we say like, you can be whatever you want and it's
like, what do you mean? I can only, I can only be three
things. I mean doctor, lawyer, dentist,
like that's all I can I I gotta do these things.
I gotta make money. And I I think spiritually, what
Sonny was always pointing at with Sopranos was maybe the
boldness to, like, let people in on a little bit of the cringy
stuff that you usually don't lead with from a community.
Not that Sopranos was. I don't know if it was for you,
but, like, I don't know if it was like some like Italian
American plant or flag plant. It wasn't like some like, yeah.
And neither was B. For us.
It wasn't like we're telling you what Koreans are like or Asian
Americans are like It was more for us.
You know, when I watched Sopranos, I'm just like, usually
Tony is supposed to just be like a fucking rad, like Don, just
like dominating people, doing whatever he wants.
But. He also goes to therapy and he
has moments of weakness and you show you show aspects of
yourself that are like pathetic at times and that I felt like
was the spirit of it. Just this unabashed boldness.
To just exist. To to to just exist, yeah.
And that I mean the the dark part of that culture.
You know there's racism and homophobia and sexism and all
those things that smallmindedness that I mean I
certainly you know grew up around to some degree.
You know not everybody but the the the cool thing is that
people get I think the audience understands it's like you know
they're presenting this is how it everyone knows that there's
racism We're we're let's not pretend it doesn't exist and
it's like yeah you know the dichotomy of my grandfather who
was an inch you know grew actually my my mother's father
grew up here a few blocks away from where I live right now grew
up in a tenement right here. You know, father died when the
kids were young, was single mother with like 6 kids, one of
whom was severely autistic. And they they all had to leave
school really early and work and you know, that kind of, you
know, existence and stuff. And my grandfather could say,
sometimes would say the most horrendously racist things,
particularly about black people. Yet at the same time he was a
super in an apartment building that are mostly, you know,
African Americans. And sometimes on weekends he
would drive there were two women whose husbands were in prison
upstate and he would drive them upstate because they had no way
to get there. And then the next day he'd say
some horrendous thing. He's like, well, she's not like
that. She's she's, you know, good.
You know, I grew up seeing that kind of, yeah, dichotomy in
people who could, you know, who, you know, there's this level of
ignorance and fear. And I mean, I'm not defending
his racism by any means, sure, But I loved him, you know?
Defending it. I mean, you're not even
defending. You're just showing his
humanity. I I yeah, yeah.
I feel like that makes so much sense to me.
Not as a defense of these things, but more like.
It's easy to slip back in your small mindedness and fearful
brain when the chips are stacked against you and you're just
trying to make it at a place. When, like when your claws are
out trying to just make it, you can go back to like what the
worst, basic, dumbest, most small patterns of this place can
be. And then when you're your
biggest self, you're like, oh, I see a human being.
And we would have the biggest debates about all that stuff.
And then he he knew how to get me.
He would say stuff because he knew it would provoke me because
I, you know, I was young and I was making my own points and he
would, you know, poke at me. But I think The Sopranos, you
know, by willing to show this kind of culture with warts and
all, people appreciated that. Yeah, because if you sanitized
it and cleaned it up, it would be like, well, you're just.
You're kind of sweeping all that stuff under the rug, which never
works out. Yeah, there's a real love to
just talk for real. Not from a it's intent to, you
know, the intent is so clear. It's it's so important.
And you can usually feel that off the screen.
I feel like when you can sense the intent, yeah, Yeah.
Is is a lot of Korean culture Christianity?
Is is it popular religion in Korea?
I think it became a popular modern religion.
I think originally it was very Buddhist, a lot of Confucianism.
But I think post Korean War there was a lot of there was
like Christianity was dropped off and then there was also a
little bit of hard capitalism dropped off.
Those things can mix very well at times.
Yeah. Yeah, I know.
And there are a lot of Korean Americans who are part of
Christian communities in in the US.
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, though. And and those were like those
central Nexus places where like it almost is like beyond the
religion itself, you know, it's a community thing.
And you know, people immigrate over here and they just kind of
settle into that place to connect and be around people,
sure. It's a community.
Which church might be in? General for everybody, that
could be a very good thing, especially if you know when it's
people who are coming from another country and you know
it's like a place you can find, you know, acceptance.
Yeah, yeah. And it's weird because, like,
now that I revisit Korean church these days, and no, no knock on
it, I think it's very invaluable for people who feel like they
want that community and and I certainly love touching it too,
but. I found myself going back to
Korean church lately and realizing that now that my
parents aren't here, it's not exactly the same.
It's not this like place to catch us, but it's now kind of a
place that can also hide us or be a safe space for those that
need. But maybe you can indulge in it.
To a little bit. That scene when when when you go
and you break down there is that kind of what's going on, feeling
that like acceptance a bit. And how did you see that scene?
Like what do you think was going on?
It's a very powerful scene, by the way.
It's really, it was very moving and very, you know, it's like,
wow, because you don't really expect it from your character.
No, up until that, you know, it's kind of the last thing.
There's a lot of things you don't expect from Danny,
especially, like takes over the takes over the praise band and
he's singing yeah, Amazing Grace right now.
But I I, I kind of likened it too.
This is where I landed. I think, you know, everybody's
going to come to their own conclusion about what that feels
like. For me, the process of making
that scene was really interesting because it kind of
illuminated maybe what was happening.
We shot the band, we shot the church members, and then when it
came to me, you know, we all had this, like everybody was being
very gracious to give me space. And I remember coming in before
when the camera wasn't on me and I was like the classic acting
thing where you're just like, oh, I'm in.
Like, when the camera's not on me, easy, like let's go.
I can do it. Like, I feel it already.
Like I I'm already kind of weeping right now in my bones.
And I'm like, OK, cool, I can't wait.
And then they flipped the camera on me.
And then everybody stops singing.
And they just were like, cool, Let's ISO on Steven because he's
there. Dried up immediately.
I like, I tried. I couldn't get it.
And I'm thankful that I have had enough experience to not push.
And so I just kind of like, did the take.
Didn't really go there, just try to be present.
And when we cut, I was like, hey, I'm sorry I didn't get
there, but I don't think there's something off.
Can I just go take a minute? And I was just going to go take
a minute and think about it. And then I came back and I was
like, maybe maybe I need to hear the song differently or
something like that. But then I realized I was like,
oh, everybody stopped singing. And that was it.
It was the IT was kind of the disappearing of the self.
That was the key to that place and that and that emotion.
It was. It was like Danny's holding his
story, his pain. The way that the world crushes
him, the way that his mind tells him the world is working at
every other waking minute. But when he's singing in chorus
with everybody, he can kind of like let that go.
And then all of a sudden he feels this lightness a little
bit. Or maybe this a lot of mixed
feelings, just just this feeling of it lands at acceptance.
But there's a. There's just, and I don't mean a
shame, but like, you're putting yourself out there when you're
singing, You know, like when you're singing.
I remember growing up at church and, like, mouthing the words
when I was younger because I was too afraid to sing because I was
like, it's embarrassing. I don't want somebody to hear me
sing. And then you just get more and
more, just like, you let go. You let go.
And I think that was it for Danny was a real letting go of
his story. That he tells himself every day.
That keeps him stuck in the place that he's stuck in.
Yeah. It was very moving and very real
and raw and uncomfortable, you know.
Yeah. And as it should be, because
it's like it takes you so by surprise.
Thank you. It was really, it's a really and
I. So when you when you shot it,
that next take, did you have them sing?
Yeah, I was like, I actually turned to everybody.
And I was like, hey, I actually think I need you all to sing
with me. Can you please sing with me?
And they all sang with me. And then I was sobbing.
And that was very moving to you immediately.
Yeah. It was this, yeah.
It was the feeling of not being alone.
Yeah. And all of them being vulnerable
singing because speak singing, there's a vulnerability to that,
right? Absolutely.
And all of them being vulnerable and and that communal experience
must have been very powerful. Yeah.
And and I think in that way that's where I feel a little bit
bonded with White Lotus as well because that show is about
vulnerability like you can't you can't roll up to that show as an
actor. I think without being aware of
some aspects of yourself or why you why you might be cast, not
because that person is you, but like perhaps you, it's the task
is it's asking you to access parts of yourself a little bit
to really connect with the audience and.
Yeah, yeah, when I first. Like I said, I when they said
they were interested in having me, I hadn't seen it.
They only sent a couple of scenes, you know, for the for
the tape self tape. So I went and started watching
it and at first I'm like, is this going to be some?
Because, you know, cynicism is very popular today, right?
Yep. Yep.
Is this going to be some cynical statement about how rich people
suck and white people suck and the world suck And I'm like, oh
wow. As I watched and watched them
like this guy, Mike White was able to kind of like find
humanity as you brought up before in these people who are
some of whom are, you know, saying or doing very despicable
things, living, you know, questionable lives.
Yet he's able to find an element of of compassion for them.
And that I thought was very skillful, yes.
And if you can do that and then suck you into a story.
A really interesting story. Wow.
And I couldn't stop watching it. And then as soon as I would, I'd
seen the show as I put myself on tape before I saw the show, I
was shooting something else and I was really busy.
And I just put myself on tape and my manager said, you need to
watch the show. I said, why?
They're like, you're not getting the tone.
And then when I went and watched it and then I retaped the scenes
after seeing it because I really understood it.
But, you know, I guess that's what a good writer does.
They're able to, kind of. You know, well there's good
writing and Mike White and you know, Sunny are incredible in my
opinion. But also, you know, you got to
find the right actor too. I don't know if you can just
roll up to that, I think. No, you know, no, you're right.
Yeah. Watching you play your character
that can be so heavily judged. That's not easy.
It's a that's a that's always the weirdest part about this
thing is how. Yeah, I don't know.
Every every role takes. You just cut in a little deeper
and then this world gets a little stranger, I feel like.
Yeah. And you have to see it from the
inside. You can't, you can't judge the
character on your own kind of moral standard because then
you're done, right? You're done.
Yeah. Yeah, you know then white load
is completely fails. Then white load.
Yeah, you know, that's that's the cool part was I was watching
every actor just come from a real place and that's awesome.
And I'm glad shows like that exists right now in such a hyper
cynical time where there's like new boxes now.
Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah.
Yeah, very exciting. New boxes?
You mean like uncharted territory?
You mean new boxes? Like, I actually mean like
there's now the old boxes that we all tried to war against,
which was rightfully so. You mean like new boxes of
definition and boundary? Yeah, we've created new boxes,
which got quickly very dark. And yeah, and it's cool, I
think, to have shows. And there's like a lot of shows
that are like this, which is really promising for me of like,
you know, not abandoning each other and kind of understanding
the humanity of people not to justify their actions, but just
to kind of like, look at it for a second.
Yeah, to look at it exactly. To look at it.
Yeah, and relate or not relate, but often relate, often relate,
often relate. You know, Yes, yes, often you
can relate, you know, feeling, you know, like Danny's, you
know, that feeling of like wanting to take.
To have that power, you know, not not to feel powerless.
You know, I have to, you know, this is not, you know what I
mean? And just like, I mean, I lived
in California for like 7 years and spent a lot of time in the
car. And it's there's a strange,
there's a whole different thing living.
I don't have a car anymore. So I try to take the subway and
walk a lot. Take Ubers, but the subway
probably more than anything. That's a very different thing,
totally. When you're in your car, there's
a whole other you can very see how very easily those road rage
can happen. Here is like bubbles on bubbles
on bubbles, whereas New York feels like there's bigger
bubbles and then there's a whole New York bubble.
But like here, you're like, you're trapped in your own
reality really hard unless you're actively trying to
connect with other people. I think in LA it gets gnarly
here, but yeah, it's it's nice. Yeah.
Every place has its positives and negatives.
Totally. You know what I've found?
Yes. Well, Steven, it was a pleasure.
Such a medium. Talk to you.
Yeah. True.
Honor this one by really quick. We could have, we could have
gone on for another couple of hours, I'm sure.
I hope I get to catch another conversation with you in the
future. Yeah, we'll do it.
We'll do it in person next time. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Over either Italian food or Korean food, or both.
Let's do both. Both.
Maybe some hybrid of the yeah yeah sure exists.
Now I'm going to find one. I'm going to find all right.
Sounds good. Thanks for listening.
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