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Since its premiere last April, Netflix’s Beef, a 10-episode limited series about the deadly feud between two drivers involved in a road rage incident, stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun have collected multiple accolades for their performances as the embittered motorists. But it’s the relatively unknown Young Mazino as Paul Cho, younger brother to Yeun’s Danny and eventual love interest of Wong’s Amy, whose profile is getting the biggest boost from the 13-time Emmy-nominated show. In the steely standoff between Amy and Danny, it is Paul who becomes collateral damage; he in turn emerges as the beating heart of Beef. The 32-year-old actor, once regarded as an underdog to even be nominated, is now projected to win an Emmy for his breakout role.
Naturally, Hollywood has come calling. Mazino has officially been cast in season two of HBO’s The Last of Us. He’ll play Jesse, a trusted friend to Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. “Young is one of those rare actors who is immediately undeniable the moment you see him,” series co-creators, directors, and executive producers Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin said in a statement. “We’re so lucky to have him, and we can’t wait for the audience to see Young shine in our show.” Ahead, a look at Mazino’s journey to Beef and what else is keeping him booked and busy.
Who does Mazino play in Beef?
Paul, referred to as “a sensitive and misbegotten himbo” in Richard Lawson’s review of Beef, is Danny’s listless, live-in brother. He cycles through video games, trips to the gym, and dubious cryptocurrency deals until the road rage incident that sends his family’s life into utter turmoil. Paul is definitely somebody I understand,” Mazino told Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford last year. “I understand his head space and the kind of mentality where you feel like the world is against you and you’re in this bubble.”
Mazino, who was born in suburban Maryland to Korean-American parents, said that before he found acting, “at a certain point I might have been Paul,” adding, “but as I continue to grow and pursue art and pursue my truth as a human, I think I morphed out of that.” Like his character, Mazino skipped the traditional collegiate path and moved to New York, where he studied at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and kept odd jobs before eventually working as a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Fresh, a Skincare and fragrance company whose TikToks he now cheekily appears in.
“Knowing, in my community where I come from, when you’re a college dropout, there’s a stigma to that,” Mazino told VF. “So all of these things, I tried to amalgamate it into this character I was building.”
Young Mazino as Paul in ‘Beef.’ANDREW COOPER/NETFLIX
He expanded on the similarities he shares with Paul in an interview with Men’s Health. “As a Korean-American, you grow up not really feeling like you fit into the schools you go to. And then on Sundays when you go to church, you don’t feel that Korean, like the other kids who are from Korea,” Mazino explained. “When you’re forced to not have a full identity in either culture, you have to create your own.
“Through the process of migrating, your parents also lose a lot of that culture they left behind. They don’t have the time or the energy to catch you up on anything besides the core traditional values. You know, I did’t even know the Beatles existed until I was in high school. I didn’t know a lot of these things until I got old enough to figure it out on my own. For Paul, whose parents are back in Korea, he’s even more lost in the ether and left to his own devices. Which was something I tried to find through his posture, his clothes, the way he doesn’t quite articulate things very clearly and tends to mumble. He’s kind of a lost boy.”
What else has he starred in?
After his first brush with acting, playing the villainous King Herod in an elementary school production of a Bethlehem play, Mazino was hooked. “Growing up, I was supposed to be this good, well-natured kid, and getting to leave that box was very liberating. That’s when the acting bug bit me,” he told W Magazine, before noting the irony of his passion. “King Herod was trying to kill baby Jesus, and I never felt more thrilled in my life. But I still pray, so there’s a bit of a weird duality within.”
Following his biblical beginnings, Mazino appeared in smaller indie films and TV procedurals like New Amsterdam and Blue Bloods. After his breakout role on Beef, he played one of several love interests in SZA’s music video for her Grammy-nominated song “Snooze,” featuring not one, but two of Selena Gomez’s boyfriends, past and present—Justin Bieber and Benny Blanco.
Will Mazino appear in season two of Beef?
While series creator Lee Sung Jin said at the recent Golden Globes that he’s “definitely ready” for a second season of the show, no official plans for what was originally considered a limited series have been unveiled. “When you have a showrunner like Sonny, that world-building goes so deep that even after we stopped filming, those characters continue to live their lives. I can only surmise what they’re doing, and if Sonny wants to go back into that river and draw that story out, I’m sure that he could,” Mazino previously told GQ, before adding, “I’ve been to the casinos and sometimes it’s good to walk away when you’ve peaked. I personally think it was a perfect ending.”
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