Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan have a long history of collaborating together on screen after both starred in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis, but when the two actors signed on for the second season of Netflix’s Beef, they stepped into a space with new emotional volatility.
Isaac and Mulligan play the unhappy married couple Josh and Lindsay. Josh is the struggling general manager of an exclusive country club while Lindsay is the interior designer from a privileged English background who is confronting a midlife crisis set against the backdrop of her failing marriage. The season’s central conflict is set in motion when two younger employees – Ashley and Austin – witness an explosive argument between the couple.
Speaking at Netflix’s FYSEE Unplugged, Isaac and Mulligan dissected the importance of that scene, the pressure in getting it right and how trust in each other assisted in them delivering the best result.
“We felt this onus on us to get that bit right,” said Mulligan. “And it was a tricky thing because you are meant to meet them at that point where it could be like a fork in the road. It could have been the end.”
She said that they performed different versions of that pivotal scene, one where Josh throws his wine glass first, but when that didn’t feel right because “statistically, a woman will just shut it all down and back off” if a man makes the first violent move. “It felt like it had to be Lindsay who throws the wine glass first,” she said.
Isaac pointed to the immense gratitude he had in trusting Mulligan as his scene partner, in that they were both able to carry each other through safely. “It’s a humiliating thing to do this stuff,” he said. “That’s kind of the live wire act and so, to have someone you can trust so completely and there’s no judgement…it’s incredibly valuable and it’s freeing and it allows for a lot of fun.”
Mulligan agreed that trust was a huge part of the process because parts of the scene were “uniquely humiliating.”
“There were so many elements to this that were risky and more embarrassing, and I did feel like we were taking swings here and there and this is hard to do with someone you don’t completely trust.”
The pair, who are both gearing up for potential Emmy nominations in the Leading Actor and Leading Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category this year, also discussed their commitment to telling an authentic story about falling out of love. When looking at the “full circle moment” of Ashley and Austin taking up the mantle at the country club for Josh and Lindsay, Isaac remarked that “it felt kind of sad.”
“These cycles they repeat, and they repeat over again and you do become, in some ways, the thing you are railing against,” he said.
Mulligan added: “I always find stories about the passage of time so interesting and what we do with the time we have and the mistakes that we repeat and the ones that we learn how to steer ourselves away from.”
Check out the full conversation above.
