Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan were the picture of opulent relaxation.
Tucked into a plush cabana at a luxury hotel in Los Angeles, Isaac wore a patterned shirt unbuttoned below his chest and a dainty chain around his neck. Mulligan reclined next to him in designer sunglasses and an oversize men’s wear top. Both sipped coffee from gold-rimmed mugs.
The vibe paired well with the country club setting of the second season of “Beef,” which stars the two actors and premieres Thursday on Netflix. All that was missing was an underlying sense of despair, simmering generational and class hostility and the chaotic fallout of terrible decisions.
The first season of “Beef,” created by Lee Sung Jin, won the Emmy for best anthology series for its darkly comic portrayal of two strangers who engage in escalating acts of destruction after a road-rage incident. (The stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun won acting Emmys.) The second season, also overseen by Lee, follows a new stressful story and a new batch of ethically fraught characters.
This time the conflict centers on two couples at an elite Southern California country club. Josh Martín (played by Isaac) manages the club, and his interior designer wife, Lindsay (Mulligan), is a frequent presence. The Gen Z couple Austin (Charles Melton) and Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) are employees there. In the season premiere, Austin and Ashley capture video of an explosive fight between their boss and his wife, setting all four down a path of blackmail and corruption that eventually stretches from California to South Korea.
Isaac, 47, and Mulligan, 40, had previously worked together on the films “Drive” (2011) and “Inside Llewyn Davis” (2013). During an interview earlier this month, they shared a casual rapport that bordered on giddy after days of promotional duties and little sleep. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What drew you to “Beef”?
OSCAR ISAAC I had seen Season 1, and I felt a lot of kinship over the stuff that Sonny [Lee] was investigating, as an immigrant and especially with the evangelical church aspect. When I was approached about Season 2, I did these long Zooms with Sonny, freewheeling conversations about our lives and relationships. It seemed like there was a lot of space to create these characters.
At that point, was the season already mapped out?
ISAAC There was one script, the first episode, and it ended up being quite different. Sonny was still ideating because he likes melding everyone’s personal experiences with his personal experiences.
CAREY MULLIGAN Oscar was a big part of why I wanted to do it, but also because I loved the first season. The creative possibilities felt really massive.
Was Lindsay always written as British and Josh as Latino?
MULLIGAN Neither. I was not Lindsay Crane-Martín. I was Lindsay Martin.
ISAAC And I was Josh Martin. I was like, “How about Josh Martín?”
MULLIGAN I advocated to make her English because there was a little improvisation — with dialect it’s doable, it’s just way harder. There was also something delightful about the fact that this was someone who had gotten by on social currency where she came from. She’s got a double-barrel last name. She’s a girl who would have gone to a debutante ball and been in Tatler [the British society magazine].
How do you view Josh and Lindsay? Do you like them as people?
ISAAC That was a really challenging thing for us. We’d look in the mirror and be like: “Look at their stupid haircuts. Oh God, I just want to slap them.” That’s what the audience is being challenged with, as well. Where your sympathies lie is pretty clear at the beginning, and then that starts to shift.
Where do you think people’s sympathies will lie?
ISAAC With Austin and Ashley. They’re in love. There’s a purity to them. They’re working hard for these rich people. They’re aspirational. All of that is positive. Once you see these people in their annoying haircuts have this horrible fight, something starts to shift. And then the kids’ response to it starts to challenge everything. You’re like, Well, I don’t know if I would do that.
MULLIGAN It’s hard to meet any of these characters and be like, “Well done, you.” But they’re people at their worst. If I’m honest with myself, if someone put a camera on the worst week of my life, there’d be stuff I’d be embarrassed about.
Lindsay says that couples who don’t fight are probably hiding something. Do you think that’s true?
MULLIGAN It’s probably true that if people never voice any kind of disagreement, there’s something weird going on. But the level of insanity that’s happening in their house — they’re on their knees until they’re filmed. Then they’re unified by this common enemy.
ISAAC It pulls you out of yourself. I’m reminded of this fight my wife and I were having in the summer home we have in Denmark. It was almost midnight, and I was like, “I just need to take a breath.” I went out, and you could see the Northern Lights and the Milky Way. She comes out, and we just started laughing because you suddenly recognize how small the thing that we’re fighting about is in the grand scope of things.
Season 2 has plenty to say about the American health care system and the lengths people go just to get by economically. How are you feeling about the state of our society right now?
ISAAC Terrified. Especially in this country, the way that we don’t take care of people with insurance, in particular, just how vile those companies could be even in the most desperate situations. I have little kids. You’re talking about the world these kids are inheriting. It’s like the fall of Rome.
MULLIGAN It’s pretty rough. I think there’s been a real decline in global empathy. Potentially, because we’re so inundated with terrible stuff, it is sort of a drawing down the blinds. It feels quite upsetting and unnerving. It is very easy to “other” people at the moment.
Josh describes the country club as operating on exclusivity and discretion, and also as “a land of make believe,” which is the way some people refer to Hollywood. How does it feel to be immersed in such an elite land of make believe yourselves?
ISAAC I come from humble beginnings. Nobody really belongs here. You find your way in and then, suddenly, it’s like I know all these people. It’s a very small window in time when actors have been elevated to this. We used to be vagabonds and thieves and look like carny folk.
On “Beef” your characters talk about the average human having 960 months to live, which is 80 years. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the current average life expectancy for Americans is a tad lower, at 79 years.) What do you hope to do with your remaining months?
MULLIGAN Oh God, that makes me want to cry.
ISAAC They sell these calendars where you can cross off your years.
MULLIGAN Savage.
ISAAC Just be present today. Not be caught up in future-tripping or trying to retcon things that have happened in the past. Finding every day a place of surrendering.
MULLIGAN Try to keep the home fires burning and keep prioritizing the right things. In a broader ambition, the charity I’ve worked with since 2014, War Child, protects children in conflict zones. I feel ambitious about making sure that I do enough advocacy around this issue.
Multiple characters in the show grapple with getting older. How do you feel about aging?
MULLIGAN It’s good to get older, but it is weird when all the Olympians are like 15 years younger. At the Winter Olympics they were like, “God, he’s 32, and it’s unbelievable he’s come back.” My kids were like: “Why do they keep saying Lindsey Vonn is [old]? She’s only your age, Mommy.” I was feeling fine about aging until I watched the Olympics.
ISAAC It starts to feel a little bit like, OK, these are all the bonus years now.
Generational angst is a big theme. Lindsay has a great line: “These [expletive] kids don’t know who they messed with. We have so many more years’ experience being petty.”
ISAAC We’ve got more mileage.
MULLIGAN It was interesting on this set to be like, Oh, we are the grown-ups. When we all met, Cailee and Charles were really deferential in an adorable way. We were like: “We’re the same, guys. Shut up! What do you mean you’re honored to work with us? [Expletive] off!” [Laughs.]:
ISAAC It always felt like we were the kids until very recently. We’d be like “Hey, I’m just trying to figure it out. You guys tell me what to do. I’m just happy to be here.” And now, they’re kind of looking to us, as if we know what we’re doing.
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