Seoyeon Jang

Photograph by Ro Rockhoon

It’s quite possible Seoyang Jang manifested her role in Beef season two.

The British-Korean actress recalls scrolling through Instagram in the weeks before she got the audition for season two of the award-winning Netflix series, when she came upon a clip from the show’s first season. “I remember thinking to myself, this is the kind of role that I want to do,” the 31-year-old tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom. She’s in L.A. for a slew of Beef press, finding a brief moment of respite.

Jang plays Eunice, the clever assistant to Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung’s chairwoman character, in the latest installment of Lee Sung Jin’s anthology series. She joins Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny to round out the main cast of the second season, which is set in a California country club.

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“I think I indirectly manifested for it because I got the audition,” the actress continues. “I was so shocked because my manifestations don’t really happen.”

Below, Jang shares how she found her way from acting in K-dramas to starring in Beef, why it’s so exciting to be surrounded by petty characters and what she’ll remember most from the experience.

You’ve done plenty of work in Korea, but Beef is your second U.S. project, correct? How are you feeling about it coming out?

Despite growing up in London and speaking the language, I’ve never imagined or thought that I would be able to work in Hollywood. In a certain way, I did limit myself. I loved K-dramas — and I still do, I love K-dramas so much — and thinking that’s what I wanted to do. Thinking like that limited me in the direction that I wanted to go in, because nowadays, it’s a global stage. You can do both. I was so adamant in wanting to do K-dramas because that’s where my passion first formed for acting. Then I did Butterfly. I met great people, which opened more doors, and then came to Beef. Butterfly was definitely a springboard for me. It was also a project that really changed the direction of my career as a whole.

Did you move to Korea from London for work originally? Or did you move younger?

I started as a K-pop trainee.

With what company?

I can’t say, but it was a big company. I was cast to become an idol trainee when I was really young. I moved back by myself when I was 19. From there, I gradually transitioned and found my love and passion for acting. Then I just sort of dropped the K-pop part, and I decided to pursue acting.

You’ve been in some big Korean projects, and you started acting because of your love for K-dramas. What made you decide you wanted to start auditioning in the U.S.?

It was never a conscious decision to try for Hollywood or Western roles. It was more if a certain audition opportunity came. It was literally just one thing leading to another — It was never me deciding to go down one route and trying to pursue it. It was just such a natural process. In hindsight, I’m so grateful that it happened this way.

Jason Jin as JB, Youn Yuh-jung as Chairwoman Park and Jang as Eunice in Beef.

Netflix

What was getting into this character? Sonny’s so good at making this heightened world relatable, but Eunice often feels the most relatable amongst some big moments and some petty characters.

I feel like we all have those petty sides to ourselves, and it’s very refreshing to see these characters amplify that pettiness because I feel we live in a world where we have to hold our tongue and really just get on with it rather than act in a way that we all want to deep down. It’s definitely exhilarating to see that and itself is very much a stress reliever for me. But playing a character that is normal is relatable because she’s just trying to stay inside her little society. She’s just trying to do her job, and she’s just trying to survive her own way. We are all trying to do our best, but the method is different. Eunice, despite having an educational background in international school, she was brought up in a Korean household like I was, and I think that does set a very different dynamic due to cultural differences.

You have some genuinely great moments of levity. In the first or second episode, when you’re bringing the chairwoman around, and Josh and Lindsay are talking, and you tell her, “There’s nothing worth translating.”

I love that part.

I loved it. This show’s form of dark comedy is so specific. What were you doing to prepare for that as an actor? Were you watching things?

No, because I directly empathized and related to Eunice as a person. As

Seoyeon Jang on ‘Beef’ Season 2, Portraying Eunice, Being Petty