Oscar Isaac Shares “Beautiful Surprise” Of Reuniting With Carey Mulligan On Beef

Beef is so back. Three years after Lee Sung Jin’s dark comedy debuted to critical acclaim — and picked up a slew of Emmys — the Netflix anthology series has returned with an all-new cast and all-new beef.

In Season 2, Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac play Lindsay and Josh, whose rocky marriage is complicated further when a younger couple (Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton) catches them in an incriminating fight — one that could threaten their future among their lavish country-club set. As Lee tells Bustle, he was interested in exploring generational differences between characters and viewers alike. “I think there’s a little something for everybody in this show. Hopefully your alliances change over time, too,” he says. “But I wanted to make something that kind of shows the full spectrum of life.”

While viewers meet Lindsay and Josh in a not-so-great place, there’s still plenty of chemistry between them thanks to their long history together. And as it turns out, the actors go way back professionally themselves — having previously teamed up before in the films Drive (2011) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).

“We got to do so much more together this time,” Isaac gushes to Bustle. “I knew, because of Llewyn Davis, and because I’ve seen Carey in other things, that her comedy is solid — but I didn’t realize what a comic genius she is! And she made me laugh so much on set, and then after watching it. Just the physical comedy, the timing of it, all of that. So I think that was a real, beautiful surprise.”

Mulligan was similarly delighted to work together more extensively on Beef, and was “amazed” to see Isaac’s acting skills in a new, up-close light. “There are very few people who can do what Oscar does,” she says — noting how her scene partner “can go from nothing to full, best take he’s ever done” in no time at all.

“He can conjure it out of nowhere, I think, because it’s so deeply embedded in his skill as an actor,” she says. “There’s very few people I’ve seen that can just go there straight away, and it’s the best take, and you kind of don’t need to go again.”

Over the course of the season’s escalating stakes, their characters reckon with what Isaac calls “terminal uniqueness” — that is, the tendency to think their love story is “completely separate and unlike anyone else’s.” But, he notes: “We end up seeing that we’re part of the same flow of humanity that’s always been and always will be.”