All You Need To Know About The Breakout Star From Netflix’s Beef – Young Mazino
- Young Mazino is the breakout star from Netflix’s 2023 hit series, ‘Beef’ in which he plays Paul Cho.
- Prior to appearing in Beef, he made appearances in Prodigal Son, Blue Bloods, and New Amsterdam.
Young Mazino got his breakout role in Beef
Young Mazino has got a break through in his career for his role of Paul in the recently released Netflix series, Beef.
The show stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, and revolves around two individuals whose lives are connected by a road rage incident.
Mazino’s portrayal of Yeun’s unstable younger brother, Paul Cho, in the first season has gained a lot of attention.
In an interview with PEOPLE, he mentioned how working on the show had spoiled him since he had the opportunity to work with so many talented creators, including showrunner Lee Sung Jin.
He explained:
“[He was so intentional and so precise with his storytelling and so open at the same time. I just want to continue to work with people like that, who care about what they’re doing and are pursuing film as a means of expression and perhaps beyond just profit and the bottom line.”
Talking about his Beef character Paul, he said:
“At a glance, Paul can come off as kind of silly, and he definitely has a lot of his own flaws and things he needs to work on, but I wanted to portray a character with empathy and that he’s earnest and he’s a good kid.”
He dropped out of college and moved to New York in 2014 to pursue acting
Mazino dropped out of college to pursue his career in acting. He had not really intended to pursue acting as a career initially but went for it.
He told PEOPLE:
“I dropped out [of college] and decided to pursue acting because I reached this existential crisis just questioning my purpose.”
In 2014, he dropped out of college and moved to New York. He started out by working as a business development coordinator at the popular skincare brand Fresh.
“It was serendipitous because I became friends with the HR manager when I was putting together hiring packets as a temp, and he knew I was an actor.”
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Young Mazino had other minor roles before working in Beef
Although Mazino’s breakthrough role came in Beef, he has worked in various projects before. Following his works in independent short films and student productions, he pursued a year of training in theater and enrolled in the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in 2017.
A year later, he successfully advanced to the final callbacks for ABC Showcase, and in 2019 he auditioned for the acting program at the prestigious Yale School of Drama.
The Korean-American actor has since appeared in several network TV shows such as Tommy (2019), New Amsterdam (2018), and Blindspot (2016), and he recently had cameo roles in Prodigal Son (2020) and Blue Bloods (2019).
Following his role in Beef, the actor is now thinking about the future. The popularity of Beef has skyrocketed but as of now, a second season has not been announced.
However, he is working on his next project already.
“I’m currently editing a documentary I shot. Film, as an art form, is just a means to find truth and to pursue it.”
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