By the time you read this, Charles Melton’s life may have changed forever. Granted, it’s already taken an incredible turn. Three years ago, the somewhat under-the-radar, one-time “Riverdale” cast member became a cinephile favorite in Todd Haynes’ “May December.” This year, he delivered a celebrated performance in the second season of “Beef.” A portrayal that earned him of two Emmy nominations this year. But tomorrow night, there are rumors that a big reveal will occur at the annual D23 Convention in Anaheim, California. And Melton may be introduced as a member of the new “X-Men” cast. At least, that’s the word on the street.
Maybe.
Last week, Melton jumped on a trans-Atlantic Zoom call to catch up on his accolades for his work in Lee Sung Jin’s Netflix anthology series. The season earned 16 nominations overall, including Melton in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category as well as Outstanding Limited Series, for which he earned executive producer credit. He learned about his Emmy bounty during a stay in sweaty Paris last month. It was almost another day, if any day in Paris could be just another day.
Melton recalls, “I went to the park with my wife and my daughter, and we walked around, went to a museum. I drank five cold brews. This is very mundane and beautiful and simple, but I was like, ‘Hey, I think the Emmy nominations are going to happen now. They’re going to announce it.’ Because I do this thing where I try to act like I don’t care, but I do care, but then I really don’t care, but then it’s good to care because it represents so much. To be recognized by the Television Academy and my peers means so much. And then I know over 300, 400 people on our production and on our crew worked so hard for the show, and it means so much to them, and it means so much to me, and it means so much to our creator, Sunny [Lee Sung Jin]. I was just like, “Baby, it’s one more minute before they announce Watch it.'”
As Sunny told The Playlist in June, Melton was first pitched the project at a Gold House dinner. Sunny specifically asked if he could sit next to Melton to convince him to participate. Melton, meanwhile, was, well…distracted by the other filmmakers at the table.
“I was more worried about hanging out with Chloe Zhao and Lulu Wang. So, I was like, if I’m with one of two, I’m doing a movie with Lulu Wang,” Melton jokes. “If he sees that, he’s going to laugh. No, he sat down next to me, and I was a huge fan of season one of ‘Beef’ because it was the same year that ‘May December’ came out. I met him at the Gotham Awards, and we celebrated that night, and I had no clue. It’s amazing. It’s not really common where a creator is coming to me with an incredible amount of recognition and success in his arena with what he did with ‘Beef,’ saying, “I want to write something for you, and I have something in mind for you.’ We had hours of communication, but the way he pitched it to me was ‘love and capitalism.’ And then also he was like, ‘Your experience of both being Korean and American and the half-Korean experience and what that’s like and the dichotomy of that.'”
He adds, “I think like any artist, you want to be a part of something rich where it’s not limited to one thing, and it’s just not limited to identity, and that’s not what this was.”
It certainly was not. As Austin, Melton plays a young man who is seemingly at peace with his aspirational career as a fitness trainer, even if he pays the bills working part-time at a country club alongside his girlfriend Ashley (Cailee Spaeny). His opportunities begin to flourish after he and Ashley witness what appears to be a physical altercation between his boss, the club’s general manager (Oscar Isaac), and his wife, Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), an interior designer contracted by the resort. The arrival of the Korean owner of the club, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), eventually leads to all four Americans traveling to Seoul, Korea, where their lives are unexpectedly in danger.
The Alaskan-born Melton says he’d never seen anyone write about someone being inherently Korean without ever setting foot in Korea itself. He describes the experience of then shooting in Seoul as a “full circle moment” because he grew up in Korea for five years. Melton explains, “Austin, my character, has never been to Korea. People thought he was Mexican, and he didn’t really have any tethers to his identity, even though it ran through his DNA. And then to be in Korea and then have my whole Korean family man come to set and be with me, Korean farmers and people that would never imagine being on a set come see me, it was profound on so many different levels.”
“I didn’t get a script until maybe six or eight months later while they were writing it,” Melton reveals. “But what Sunny does so brilliantly as a creator is he doesn’t write words and then present them to you. He gets to know you, he collaborates with you, he understands your essence, and then he excavates certain stories or things that you may or may not have said, blends it in with his own experience, and then he translates it and transcribes it on paper knowing that there’s only that one person that he wrote it for that can bring it to life.”
And Melton has a perfect example of that.
“There’s that line where Austin in episode three is like, ‘Yeah, I used to go to a Korean church, and everyone thought I was Mexican. I told him people used to think I was Mexican.’ And so he transcribes those little elements. Austin [says], ‘If I may say this,’ he got that from me. Because sometimes I preface. It’s almost like asking for permission to say something that might be controversial or maybe lead to conflict, which is a texture of Austin and who he is, where it’s like, ‘Gregory, if I may say something, if I may. My perspective is I really don’t like your shirt.’ You know what I mean? It’s almost like, do you give me free rein to say? And Sunny knows this, and we talk about it. It was a very vulnerable experience for me. It felt very naked because you’re kind of sharing these vulnerabilities and these truths and having trust in the creator.’
“Beef” is inherently a dark, dark comedy with Austin in the middle of many of the jokes even if they are not at his expense. He tells The Playlist, “It was never funny for me to film Austin. I loved Austin. Austin’s kind of a heartbreaking character, but on paper I can kind of judge him. I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s so naive.’ He was never funny to me. The context was funny. When I see the audience watch Austin in episode one, it’s the perfect example of who Austin is. He’s doing pushups. He’s of no use. He feels like he’s disappearing. No one needs him for anything. His wife, his fiancée, is starting to work a job. He’s a part-time trainer. All his clients canceled on him. He’s doing pushups by himself. He sees a bee struggling. And then immediately he goes, ‘Oh no.’ Runs to the kitchen, grabs a glass of water, and tries to save the bee. The bee dies, and he starts crying. That is who Austin is. And when you watch it, people laugh. For me, it’s not funny. When I was filming it, it was not funny.”
That dichotomy may tie into the inherent Korean sensibility Sunny has brought to the series. Melton recalls speaking to filmmakers Bong [Joon Ho] and Park Chan-wook about the perception that he’s this “great comedic actor” even though that was never his intention with the role. Their response was effectively, “Life is already too funny to even try to be funny. Just be you. Just existing is funny within itself. There are so many absurd things in life that happen all around us that are just funny.” Melton says, “I think it was a great kind of thing as an actor just to live in something that really touches on my Korean mannerisms, but also the kind of humor and comedy that I love that is reminiscent of ‘Parasite,’ ‘No Other Choice,’ ‘Memories of Murder,’ so many different kinds of Korean films. And that’s the way I’d rather do comedy and humor. It’s very like Cohenesque Brothers, PTA-esque.”
As for those never-ending “X-Men” rumors, Melton’s face lights up over the prospect of reuniting with both Schreier and Sunny on the project. He’s seen the rumors. He might even be checking out the reaction to his potential casting online. Maybe.
“It depends on what day or moment you catch me on, but right now I’d say I think I believe in Jake and Sunny so much, and I would love to work with them again, and many more times. They know that,” Melton says. “I try to stay away from the fodder as much as I can. So I’ve limited myself to Googling myself maybe 20 times a day instead of 50. It was really bad before.
Hey, baby steps, right?
“Baby steps,” Melton laughs. “I’ll just get down to Googling myself maybe 10 times a day. That’s normal, right? I’m kidding. I don’t do that. I don’t do that. Am I lying? I don’t know. Zoom in on the camera, look at my eyes, see what I’m hiding, see what I’m telling. But no, man, it’d be amazing to work with them again. And I think whenever people are talking about you in a very maybe positive, hopeful way, I think it’s exciting. But I think it’s amazing to be talked about and even considered for any of those possibilities about something amazing.”
“Beef” Season 2 is available on Netflix
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Bluesky
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Threads
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Instagram
Follow Gregory Ellwood on TikTok
Sign Up For The Breakdown Newsletter
Editor-at-Large Gregory Ellwood is one of the entertainment industry's most respected journalists and critics. Based in Los Angeles, he's the only current awards expert who previously worked on Oscar campaigns at a major movie studio. Over the years, he has written for the LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Vox, among others. He also co-founded the entertainment news site HitFix, which spawned a legion of influential Emmy and WGA Award-winning alumni.
