Beef Creator Lee Sung Jin on Season Two's Emmy Haul, Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan's Personal Contributions, and the Science of Getting Used to Things
Beef season two picked up 16 Emmy nominations, and its creator says the central conflict between Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan's characters was shaped in part by the actors' own memories.
In a feature interview published by The Hollywood Reporter on 14 August 2026, showrunner, writer and director Lee Sung Jin laid out how the second season's signature fight — between a couple named Josh and Lindsay — was built. The scene grew out of the writers' room and what Lee described as hours of conversation with Isaac and Mulligan, who contributed personal recollections to the development of the argument on screen.
Beef is structured as an anthology, meaning each season tells a self-contained story with a new cast. Season one, which starred Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, won eight Emmys in 2023, including best limited series or anthology, lead actor, lead actress, writing and directing. Season two shifts focus to an escalating rivalry between two couples working at a country club, with Isaac and Mulligan leading the cast (The Hollywood Reporter).
The Television Academy's official Emmy records page, updated on 6 August 2026, lists Beef as receiving 16 nominations for the 2026 ceremony. Across its full Emmy history, the show has accumulated 29 nominations, 8 wins and 1 honour, according to the Academy's show page. Isaac and Mulligan each received nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series, as confirmed by both Netflix's awards site and the Television Academy. Charles Melton and Youn Yuh-jung also picked up acting nominations for the season (Netflix Tudum).
Lee told The Hollywood Reporter that season two's thematic spine was hedonic adaptation — the psychological phenomenon where people adjust to a new normal, whether that means wealth, status or stability, and find themselves restless anyway. That idea sits underneath the country-club setting and the couple-versus-couple conflict that drives the plot.
What stands out in Lee's account is how much of the writing drew on the people performing it. The Josh and Lindsay fight was not handed to Isaac and Mulligan as a finished script. It was shaped across extended conversations in which both actors shared their own experiences of conflict, and those recollections fed back into what the writers built.
For a show that won eight Emmys on its first outing, a 16-nomination second season puts Beef back in awards contention with a completely different cast and story. The ceremony will determine how many of those nominations convert to wins.
