Lee Sung Jin On The Spirituality Of Netflix’s ‘Beef’

What It Covers

Rich Roll interviews Lee Sung Jin, creator of Netflix's Beef, across 110 minutes covering his mental health crisis at age 30, his evolution from Korean immigrant mimicking others to Emmy-nominated showrunner, and how Jungian shadow work, Buddhist concepts of samsara, and attachment theory shape both his personal life and the narrative architecture of Beef seasons one and two.

Key Questions Answered

• •Authenticity Through Specificity: The more granular and personal a story becomes, the more universally it resonates with audiences. Lee Sung Jin built Beef around hyper-specific Korean American immigrant experiences, road rage incidents, and personal mental health struggles — yet the show reached global audiences. The principle: resist the instinct to generalize for broader appeal. Specificity creates the texture that makes audiences feel seen, because shared human psychology means one person's precise truth becomes everyone's mirror.
• •Rock Bottom as Creative Catalyst: Lee Sung Jin's 2012-2013 mental health crisis — including hospitalization following a suicide attempt — became the structural foundation for Beef season one. Rather than treating crisis as something to overcome and move past, he reframed it as a necessary reset that forced intentionality. The practice: after a breakdown, systematically audit every relationship and role by asking "what is my actual intention here?" as a friend, family member, and professional.
• •Jungian Shadow Work as Cultural Medicine: Lee Sung Jin and his collaborators explicitly frame Beef as "Jungian shadow work at scale," giving mass audiences a rare cultural vehicle to confront disowned aspects of themselves. When viewers react with hostility to a character like Ashley, that reaction signals personal projection. The practice: when a fictional character triggers disproportionate anger, treat that reaction as diagnostic data pointing toward an unexamined aspect of your own behavior or psychology.
• •Tone Formula for Creative Consistency: To maintain tonal coherence across a large writers' room and multiple directors, Lee Sung Jin developed a precise percentage formula: 35% early Paul Thomas Anderson slash Sopranos broken-psychology comedy, 35% Netflix bingeability slash Fincher propulsion, and 30% Ingmar Bergman slash Hirokazu Kore-eda warm melancholic pathos. This formula was displayed during writing sessions and used as a checklist when reviewing individual scenes to ensure all three registers were present.
• •Wu Wei Applied to Professional Conflict: When facing network note standoffs, Lee Sung Jin applies Alan Watts' concept of wu wei — finding the natural momentum rather than opposing force directly. Instead of digging in against network feedback, he identifies the underlying concern driving the note, then redirects both parties toward a shared goal using the network's own energy. This judo approach consistently produces better outcomes than either capitulation or confrontation, and applies to any hierarchical creative negotiation.
• •Attachment Theory as Character Architecture: Lee Sung Jin and his writers deliberately constructed Beef season two's central relationship around anxious-avoidant attachment pairing — Ashley as anxiously attached, Austin as avoidant — to explain behavior that audiences might otherwise read as simply villainous. The practice for writers: before assigning character flaws, identify the specific childhood wound and attachment style driving the behavior, then plant visual breadcrumbs so audiences can access empathy even when they disagree with the character's choices.
• •Identity Reclamation Through Name: At age 36-37, after shrinking in a coffee shop when baristas mispronounced his Korean birth name, Lee Sung Jin deliberately reclaimed "Lee Sung Jin" as his professional credit, replacing the anglicized "Sunny" he had adopted in sixth grade in Minnesota. His reasoning: when directors Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook made culturally significant work, their three-syllable Korean names became assets rather than liabilities. The principle: professional credibility reframes perceived identity liabilities into distinctive markers.