Television heavyweights Lee Sung Jin (Beef) and David Chase (The Sopranos) on the cultural impact of needle drop endings, finding humor in the melodrama, and creating whole universes.
Topics covered include: Learning to write everywhere, Lee Sung’s after death theory, the Bardo, David’s screenplay with Micheal Imperioli, Buddhism, the process of selecting iconic needle drops, bonding over created universes, comparing writers to golfers, Pavlov's dog, realizing The Sopranos was funny, favorite (and least favorite) lines in their shows, selecting Finneas for the wall-to-wall score of Beef season 2, the fifth character of fate, using John Carpenter as temp score, finding inspiration in the rock and roll of Mean Streets, rewatching old episodes, and David’s current passion project.
David Chase: Hi, I'm David Chase.
Lee Sung Jin: And hi, I'm Lee Sung Jin, and this is the A24 Podcast. We talked about this with Steven Yeun last season. It was just why we put in the show that we think Koreans and Italians are alike because we're both peninsulas.
David Chase: And there's a north and a south.
Lee Sung Jin: Should we save some of this for the pod?
David Chase: Well, you were at ... Talk about The Egyptian. The famous scene where Olivia's head doesn't work, the vis effects. People mocked that and complained about it, for since forever. And then-
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I don't remember that.
David Chase: When we said we were fixing it, “How dare they do that? How dare they monkey with something that blah, blah, blah.”
Lee Sung Jin: You can't win. You can't win. It's the same people, too, usually.
David Chase: I know.
Lee Sung Jin: But I don't know why I do seek it out. It is a chip on my shoulder. It never changes what I do, but it just makes me, I don't know, want to show them. The hardest thing for me was between seasons, everyone was like, "Oh, he's abandoning Asians. He's abandoning Asians." But I already knew that I had in my back pocket, I had cast two of the greatest Asian actors of all time, the dad from Parasite and the grandmother from Minari, and I knew that there was going to be more Asian cast this season than even the first. But then I just have to bite my tongue.
David Chase: So as to not give it away, you mean?
Lee Sung Jin: To not give it away. And then also, I keep people around me keep telling me to not engage.
David Chase: Don't answer them. I know. It's very hard.
Lee Sung Jin: Well, over the years, I feel like, especially during the Sopranos runs, I noticed in interviews, you can't help but fire back a little bit.
David Chase: It's not good. And they hate me. They hate me.
Lee Sung Jin: I don't know that anybody hates you.
David Chase: They do. They just hate me. And I'm a prick, I'm self-important. I'm blah, blah, blah, blah. And you feel like saying, "Well, you guys antagonized me." But see, the response to that would be, "Don't read it."
Lee Sung Jin: Why do you think it is that we seek it out? I read something that they did this study with kids, or with adults, rather. They discovered that everyone's self-talk is actually exactly how their mother or father talked between the ages of four through seven or something like that.
David Chase: You mean your inner dialogue?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. And I was like, "Oh wow, that makes a lot of sense." And I wonder if that is why we seek it out where we're like-
David Chase: So that it has nothing to do with your conscious mind.
Lee Sung Jin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're just literally...
David Chase: It's how you learn.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. It's not actually you.
David Chase: Right.
Lee Sung Jin: I feel like the Columbus Day episode, too, is something that's so funny to me because I feel like back then, there was such an uproar. But now I feel like it's more timely now, maybe more than back then.
David Chase: Well, strange you should say that because I want to watch it again because I don't remember the ending, and boy, did they hate it. I really felt like I was getting my guns off. And I also thought, I don't remember the message of it, but it was like Tony delivers this sermon that you're you, you're not part of anything. I think that's what it was.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes, yeah. That could be a fun screening at that.
David Chase: You know what? That's a good idea.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. When you say that you wrote that with her, I'm curious about your writing process with other writers, because you're so specific.
David Chase: Well, actually, now that I think ... It's a long time ago, and it's hard for me to remember some of this. I think she got story credit.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I see. Okay.
David Chase: I believe. She didn't really write anything, but we discussed things, and she got story credit.
Lee Sung Jin: So then usually there's someone like her, she gets a story by, there's some parts of the idea that she came up with, too, but then you go off and is most of your writing done solo, you have to go off into a room and just drown out everybody, and then you come back with it?
David Chase: Well, I had a friend when my daughter was a little kid and we made friends with another couple who had an only child and she was a psychologist at UCLA and she used this phrase, "Field dependent." and I realized that being a TV writer, it was my job not to be field dependent, that I'd not have to go into a little room by myself, that the pages have to be done by tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. And so if you're going to do it during an earthquake, that's what you have to do. So I've always taken pride in that, that I could write anywhere.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, wow.
David Chase: I'm not sure it's true.
Lee Sung Jin: Do you like writing?
David Chase: I don't know. Less and less, I think. Less and less because I'm getting older. I'm not as good at it.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I don't know about that.
David Chase: No, I'm serious. I'm not being humble. My brain doesn't function the same way. It doesn't function as fast. I don't find words. And what I really don't find as much is the muse feeling. You get finished with the page, and you realize, holy shit, where did that come from? Wow, that's really good. I didn't do that. That's a higher power.
Lee Sung Jin: Do you find, though, I feel like, I know for me, as I get older, the writing's changed. The way to write, too, and almost like you feel like you have more to say, I assume, because you've lived more.
David Chase: I think it's harder to get it out. I may have more to say, and the subject matter is different. And there's a whole thing about aging, especially at the age of 80, that everything changes, especially in Asian thought.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, yeah?
David Chase: Oh, yeah. It's not about the approach of death. It's a chapter that's built in that's supposed to happen. It is about approaching death, but you've been in training for this period, and you have to have this period.
Lee Sung Jin: I think the Dalai Lama once said his whole life is preparing for the death moment so that he can be able to enter it as unattached and free as possible, but that if he were to die suddenly in a plane crash or a car crash, that he's screwed because you're not ready. I have this theory that your brain keeps going for 10 minutes after your heart stops when you die.
David Chase: Does it?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. And some people say that there's anecdotal evidence that when you die, that your brain floods you with DMT, which is inherent in a lot of plants and animals. And so if that's true, then we can surmise that the death experience is the craziest, most hallucinogenic trip you'll ever go on. And so I almost think that death is just our perception of those 10 minutes, which seems like eternity. If you do too many shrooms, then it feels like an eternity. So imagine the most amount of shrooms your brain's just pumping into you. You think it lasts forever, but probably to us, it's just 10 minutes. And whatever you're going through, you're going to wrestle with for that 10-minute eternity.
David Chase: So that's a whole other life. That 10 minutes is a whole other life?
Lee Sung Jin: I think so. I think it's just-
David Chase: This is so interesting to me, especially since I'm getting there.
Lee Sung Jin: And I find that when you have a bad trip on shrooms or a psychedelic, then if you feel guilty about something or if you hold a grudge with someone, that consumes that trip. You're just almost trapped in a hell of your own making because you have all this baggage. I find that if it is true that our brains keep going for those 10 minutes, and we're probably going to be wrestling with all these things that we haven't processed.
David Chase: In those 10 minutes.
Lee Sung Jin: I think so.
David Chase: That's not the same thing as the Bardo.
Lee Sung Jin: As the which one?
David Chase: The Bardo.
Lee Sung Jin: What's the Bardo?
David Chase: The Bardo is a stage between incarnations where you're waiting around until it's decided, are you going to come back as a cockroach or are you going to come back as another, let's try Sonny again? Let's see how that works out.
Lee Sung Jin: Got it.
David Chase: So Bardo is like this waiting room.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, that's interesting.
David Chase: For to be reincarnated.
Lee Sung Jin: I wonder if that is ... I would like to think it is part of that 10-minute eternity. And I think that's also why so many people have gravitated towards Christianity, because to me, that's actually the best marketing gimmick of what better gimmick than when you enter that space and you're like, "Oh my God, I'm not prepared to wrestle with all my demons." That if you're like, "Oh, if you genuinely believe that someone else took all this emotional baggage and sins and whatever and took it for you, if you just believe it in that moment as you're freaking out during that 10-minute eternity, then you're good."So if I'm having that crazy trip as I die and I'm like, don't know how to wrestle with all my demons, if I can convince myself to actually believe that some guy just is going to take it all away, but then I think Buddhism is like, "No, if you can't just hand it off to another guy.” You spend many, many life cycles-
David Chase: Getting it right.
Lee Sung Jin: Training to.
David Chase: Trying to get it right.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, to be really free of impact.
David Chase: And you can be demoted. You can come back as a cockroach.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, for sure.
David Chase: Or a dog.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I'm pretty sure I have multiple times.
David Chase: You can be busted. I've tried to write a... Michael Imperioli and I wrote a screenplay about two guys who die at the same instant, and they meet in Rome, but it's not Rome. It's the Bardo.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, that's so cool.
David Chase: Yeah, it became too big. It was a comedy, really.
Lee Sung Jin: I'm sure.
David Chase: One was an ex-cop. It was going to be Steve Schirripa. An ex-cop and the other was going to be a Dylanologist, a guy who writes about Bob Dylan.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, my god.
David Chase: And written some books about him. And they get stuck together in this story in Rome in the afterlife.
Lee Sung Jin: That sounds amazing.
David Chase: It sounds expensive.
Lee Sung Jin: Did you introduce Michael to Buddhism or vice versa?
David Chase: No. Michael's a serious Buddhist.
Lee Sung Jin: But not during Sopranos.
David Chase: No.
Lee Sung Jin: But you were already, at least from what I could tell, grappling with Buddhist principles during Sopranos.
David Chase: Well, that's a good question. It's really peculiar because what I knew about Buddhism is what most people know, especially if you grew up in the '60s. And so when I got the idea of doing this gangster story, a mafia story, I thought maybe he's a Buddhist. Now, why would I say that? I really don't know what that means. And I said, "No, that doesn't make any sense." And so I forgot about it, but I'll be damned if that show didn't go that way 10 years later in some way. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't an attempt to make Tony a Buddhist, thoughts about the afterlife and Buddhism crept in there and I don't know why.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I think a lot of my stuff ends up that way, too, like the finale of season one and then this season's finale, which you haven't seen yet. But I think anytime you're grappling with time or meaning, it all goes to the same questions over again.
David Chase: Now, you were raised Christian, right?
Lee Sung Jin: I was very involved. The Korean church is the hub of the Korean community, even if you're not Christian. You just go there to hang out with other Koreans.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, Koreans, that became our place to commune, and I was deeply involved with–I used to be in the praise band playing the songs and stuff. I think I told you about one church I went to in Texas, where it was a summer camp, and they were really out there and would do the laying of the hands and the speaking of the tongues, and I'm watching my friends literally collapse and faint and start speaking in tongues, and then they come to me, and they do this, and I faked it. I just started babbling because you feel this pressure to, and then you gaslight yourself into this pressure to. And then you sort of gaslight yourself into thinking like, well, maybe that was real. Maybe that was the Holy Spirit speaking through me.
David Chase: Yeah, maybe that's all it is. I mean, did you ever talk to your friends? "Did you fake it? Did you fake it?"
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Yeah.
David Chase: What did they say?
Lee Sung Jin: Well, some of them genuinely believed that they were overtaken by something else, and then some people were like, "No, I faked it. "
David Chase: But there's only one entity that knows whether it was fake or not, right?
Lee Sung Jin: Well, yes. And that's still you, I guess.
David Chase: Yeah. I find all this really fascinating.
Lee Sung Jin: I think that's why Sopranos, to me, remains just the thing that I keep coming back to. Because aside from the incredible writing and acting, and just the themes and the propulsion and everything, underneath it, there is an actual deeper layer of spirituality that is just simmering underneath. And obviously towards the back half, especially the later seasons.
David Chase: I agree with you. And I'm saying, I don't know where it came from.
Lee Sung Jin: Well, I think it came from clearly you thinking about those things.
David Chase: Okay. But I do believe in the muse, so it came from outside me. See, I sort of sometimes believe that we're just agents. We have the hands and the laptop.
Lee Sung Jin: That's true.
David Chase: But something else is happening.
Lee Sung Jin: Do you find that you can tell when you are channeling something? Like, you feel it after you've written it?
David Chase: Yeah. That's what I mean. I feel that less. I feel that less now than I used to.
Lee Sung Jin: When do you think that started to subside? Because I feel like-
David Chase: Maybe when The Sopranos was over.
Lee Sung Jin: Really?
David Chase: Maybe. No. Maybe the last couple of years.
Lee Sung Jin: Do you feel like that's something on your end or the universe's end?
David Chase: I don't know. I can say, obviously, very easily, well, it's age. Your brain isn't the same. It's not as fast. But I don't know the answer. Obviously, if I knew the answer, I'd feel a lot more comforted.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: What about you?
Lee Sung Jin: No, I definitely agree about the channeling thing. Just something like when it hits, you just feel it.
David Chase: It's an amazing feeling. Then it's the best job in the world, right?
Lee Sung Jin: Really.
David Chase: It really is.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes.
David Chase: And even to me, even if you look back on it, or not back on it, but if you think about writing, okay, and you have this job, and you're quote unquote “running a show,” and it's all that responsibility, and all the stupid questions and all the good questions, but you're creating a universe. Not a world, not a town, a universe. It's like, oh, I don't mean there's feelings of power.
Lee Sung Jin: No.
David Chase: I'm not talking about that, like I created the universe. You have your own universe to go to. I don't know about you, but while I was doing that show, I found it hard to go to the movies.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I can't watch anything while I do it.
David Chase: I would go to the movies, and I'd go, I don't get this. This isn't right.
Lee Sung Jin: It feels like a foreign language a little bit.
David Chase: Yeah. Well, it's someone else's universe, not yours. And you think about– you're in your universe all the time, even when you're not working. It's in your head. And so when you see something else, it's like, this is the mark.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. No, you're like-
David Chase: So you feel that too?
Lee Sung Jin: I definitely, when I am in it, and I would turn on something else, it feels very foreign. Almost the way people speak feels like I'm in a different reality, and I'm just so used to the way that everything is speaking in my head and in my world. But I think that's what's tough about when you're so locked into your show, that it does become all-consuming and there's so much about this job that I truly hate.
David Chase: Yeah. But that other aspect of it is what keeps you going.
Lee Sung Jin: That's the only thing.
David Chase: That's what keeps you going. And you say, you know what? I'm going to try something. I'm going to try. I'm going to try. I'm going to try. Because you're curious, in a way.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. And so then once it hits, it's like golfers, so much of golf just sucks, and it's the worst, but then you hit that one shot that feels clean.
David Chase: Yeah. I've always wondered about golf, like, what? What's it called? A good walk ruined or something like that?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, exactly. Which is the funniest way to describe golf.
David Chase: And what we're saying, I'm sure sounds arrogant. Oh, you created a universe and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that's the only place you're comfortable. It's not arrogance. It's just, you can call it an affliction if you want.
Lee Sung Jin: Well, I think you and I, we relate to each other because I think what we're feeling is so similar. It's really not an ego thing. It's not a self thing. It's actually that channeling only happens if you dissolve your ego and you get out of the way. And so it's not about me, it's about whatever this is.
David Chase: I know.
Lee Sung Jin: Which is-
David Chase: And I think all those people on Reddit who are bitching about you just don't understand that.
Lee Sung Jin: But then the people on Reddit are also this.
David Chase: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Lee Sung Jin: I find that that's the only way I can calm down from the Reddit comments, is I have to remember that it's a mirror. It's just-
David Chase: Yeah. Okay. I just wish I could say, what do I care? What do you care what they say? What do you care what they think? But I wish they understood that what we're talking about, this is not arrogance. It's the opposite.
Lee Sung Jin: It's truly the most humbling thing.
David Chase: Yeah.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes. Do you still read Reddit comments?
David Chase: No. No, I don't.
Lee Sung Jin: Not today?
David Chase: I don't recall. Let's cut that.
Lee Sung Jin: I find that-
David Chase: See, because that's all they want to hear.
Lee Sung Jin: That is what they-
David Chase: Oh, we got him.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, we got him. But that is very comforting and relatable for me to hear that you read them too.
David Chase: Well, I go looking for it. I go looking for the trouble.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, I literally ... I don't have my phone on me. If you go to my Reddit now, the only saved search is my name in quotes.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I made it saved so I don't even have to type it now. I can just click on it, because the only thing that I look for is I have my name in quotes, and "Beef Netflix" as my two saved Reddit searches.
David Chase: Oh, really?
Lee Sung Jin: So I'm like Pavlov's dog. I just go, and I click it, and then I feel bad, and then I love it, and I go do it again.
David Chase: I know. It's so crazy.
Lee Sung Jin: I think that is the hardest part about this job. There's so many naysayers constantly throughout the process. There's this one particular writer in the room who, incredible writer, but just pretty consistently was always opposite of what I wanted. Even casting-wise, "Oh, that would be a horrible choice. No." Or like, "Oh, that will never work." Or, "I would do the opposite."
David Chase: Well, that's true. There are people like that.
Lee Sung Jin: It's just constant. I already have a very self-critical inner dialogue, but then it's just constant that even around me, so then it becomes so hard to quiet everything and listen to-
David Chase: But you keep them.
Lee Sung Jin: Some of them. Sometimes I like having some ... I mean, if it's overly negative, I don't bring them back. But one of my closest collaborators is Jake Schreier, who directed half of season one, he did two episodes this season, we do Marvel stuff together. He and I just bicker just constantly.
David Chase: You do?
Lee Sung Jin: People walk out of the room because they get uncomfortable because of how much he and I are debating.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: And I'll just straight up, I'll tell him he's wrong for this, this, and this reason. I'll bring up other things he was wrong about, and then he'll find ways to throw things in my face.
David Chase: Yeah, he's your partner.
Lee Sung Jin: What I like about it, I think we have a healthy amount of that because it's never personal. It's just purely about the craft. We don't ever dig at each other. It's always just like, "Why would you do that? Why would you have the camera there? You're going to have to do this, this, and this. You should have blocked it this way, and then we could have saved ourselves a setup, and you're not so cut-y this scene." And I'm like, "Well, maybe I wanted it cut-y because it's a fast-paced scene and I don't want to do your slow pans all the time."
But I feel like that back and forth is healthy because there's actually, it feels like two people playing the same sport. There's some marksmanship to the way that we're engaging. But when it's the other thing, when they're like, "Oh, I would never do that." I'm like, "Okay, well, tell me why." And they can't back it up, or their reasons are insane, just that their taste is ... that's the thing that I can't engage with. This job can be very isolating. I find that I start to ... if not for therapy, I'd be so screwed. Because you have all these things that keep building up and bubbling up, and you have no one else to share it with, because very few people do what we do.
David Chase: Well, I did that. I'm sure you're familiar with it. Tony says to Sylvio, "You got no idea what it's like to be number one, blah, blah, blah." Okay.
Lee Sung Jin: Was that you venting about show running?
David Chase: Yeah. And it was Stevie, because Stevie and I have had conversations about his relationship with other people he's worked with. Yeah, that was me venting. But I know it doesn't sound like it, but also I thought some people will get it and they'll realize that it's being funny. I hope.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I think people do. I think more and more it's been interesting to see people's reactions. Even at the Cinematheque screening that we did where I had the pleasure of moderating you, Terry, and Steve, it was just nonstop laughter, both episodes, I found.
David Chase: Both episodes?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, I thought so. It was just certainly more laughter than my premiere last night for Beef.
David Chase: No, there's a lot of laughter.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, no. Those two episodes, I mean, “Pine Barrens” was just nonstop.
David Chase: Okay. “Pine Barrens” is just funny as shit. It's just really funny. And so compared to it, of course, I felt that “Proshai, Livushka” was not funny.
Lee Sung Jin: No, there were so many laughs. But all that to say, I feel like when I just remember when watching it 25 years ago on a Sunday in front of the TV, I don't remember laughing that much. Because I think at the time it felt very dramatic. It was very propulsive.
David Chase: It's a strange thing with that show, because I don't think ... it took a while for people to say, "Oh, this is funny." It took a while for that to catch on. It took 20 years, actually.
Lee Sung Jin: When people didn't get that it was funny, was that disappointing?
David Chase: No.
Lee Sung Jin: No, you were just-
David Chase: No, because I wasn't trying to write a comedy. I was just trying to write that show. I was trying to write life. And it was also very difficult ... no, it wasn't very difficult. The reason that show was good was because of the cast. And what it was about them, none of them were trying to be funny.
Lee Sung Jin: Exactly.
David Chase: They were just saying the lines as they felt them.
Lee Sung Jin: But you were writing those ... for example, when Tony, I think it was season five maybe, where he doesn't cheat for the first time with the real estate agent, and then he-
David Chase: Goes home drunk.
Lee Sung Jin: He comes home, and then the first thing he does is he opens the fridge and he's like, "What does a guy got to do to get some turkey around here?" I'm sure when you're writing that, that's supposed to be funny.
David Chase: Is it funny or humorous?
Lee Sung Jin: To me, it's the funniest ... because I-
David Chase: But see, that's the kind of thing that went on in my house, just these abrupt changes of mood, and everything is going fine and then you got to bring that up? And that was happening all the time. To me, it was only just writing honestly, whether it's honestly or not. To me, it felt like reality.
Lee Sung Jin: Do you find that you also find that psychology of these characters funnier as you get older? Was it less funny to you earlier on?
David Chase: I think so.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: I think they're funnier now. I mean, it-
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: I think they're funnier now.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: I mean, it blew me away. I mean, Pine Barrens just blew me away at the Egyptian.
Lee Sung Jin: It was incredible. Yeah, I've seen that episode maybe... I can't even count how many times now, and just always discovering new things too.
David Chase: You know what my least favorite joke is?
Lee Sung Jin: What?
David Chase: He killed 17 Czechoslovakians. He's an interior decorator.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes.
David Chase: His house looked like shit. That's my least favorite joke.
Lee Sung Jin: Why?
David Chase: I don't know.
Lee Sung Jin: It's so good.
David Chase: It seems so easy to me. Listen, it's funny, but I don't know. It's just so easy to me. And I've talked with Terry about it, I think I have.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: I mean, I love the episode. I love Terry's writing, he's a genius. He's better than me, but I don't know. That's why I said to you, what everybody else's favorite joke is is my least favorite.
Lee Sung Jin: So then when you have a joke like that where it's your least favorite, why do you keep it in?
David Chase: I guess I didn't hear it. I read it on the page, and I didn't hear the delivery, and I didn't hear how stupid Paulie sounded. Both of them sounded. It was over the top to me.
Lee Sung Jin: But there must be a part of you, and I'm very curious because this happens to me too, where I'll really not like something, and then either Jake or my editor or someone will be like, "You got to keep that in." And I'll begrudgingly do it. If I really hate something, it's not going to be in the show.
David Chase: Oh, yeah.
Lee Sung Jin: I'll blow up the shot structure to make sure that we can edit around something. But if it's like, "Ugh, I wouldn't do that," but other people seem to love it.
David Chase: Exactly.
Lee Sung Jin: I'm just like, "All right."
David Chase: Who am I to? Yeah. I mean, do you have a favorite line or a hated line?
Lee Sung Jin: In?
David Chase: Well, I don't hate that line, let me get that straight. I don't hate that line about the interior decorator, it's just, I don't know.
Lee Sung Jin: I mean, definitely in Beef, I'm trying to think of season one. There's definitely lines where I thought it wasn't going to hit as hard. There's a line that people love that didn't come from me. It was one of the writers, Alice Ju, really smart younger writer. She's got her own show now that's coming out on Peacock, but she came up with a line, "Western therapy doesn't work on Eastern minds," which is a great line. But sometimes when it's like writing's so perfect like that, that's a very clever line. Someone really smart came up with that.
David Chase: Well, it seems kind of studied.
Lee Sung Jin: It feels very studied. It came from the mouth of Steven Yeun who's playing this lower class, hustling character. So part of me bristled where I'm like, "That doesn't feel like something he would say."
David Chase: Lower order, whatever you want to say, hustling people come up with brilliant things.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes, exactly.
David Chase: And you got to have that stuff in it, otherwise-
Lee Sung Jin: Yes. I justified it in my head that he probably read that somewhere, loved it, and now says it over and over and over again. So that's how I was like, "Okay, we can keep that in." But then I'm so glad we did because people, that's probably... I don't have a lot of quotable lines from the show. I found Beef doesn't have... People don't seem to quote it that much, but that's the one thing that they do quote is that line.
David Chase: It's a great line, I mean.
Lee Sung Jin: I'm glad we kept it, but it was one of those things where I'm like, "I want to write that, but I'm going to just trust that other people seem to really like it."
David Chase: Well, that's why it's called a collaborative medium.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, exactly.
David Chase: Right?
Lee Sung Jin: I've always wanted to ask you, and I haven't gotten a chance to yet, how did you go about picking the needle drops in your episodes?
David Chase: How did I go about it?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Some people have a collection of songs that they pick from, where they're like, "Oh, I know I'll want to use these songs someday." Some people are just staring at the scene in the edit and then just something comes to you inspired and then you try a song over it.
David Chase: Well, before we talk about that, let's talk about the score.
Lee Sung Jin: Okay.
David Chase: Obviously, you felt that was necessary. That amount of it was necessary.
Lee Sung Jin: It was a lot, yes.
David Chase: Very good score, but a lot, but a very good score.
Lee Sung Jin: Thank you.
David Chase: And you're happy with it?
Lee Sung Jin: Extremely happy with it; it was very tough. We had much less score in season one because season one was more about two really lonely, isolated people that didn't... Even their relationships were kind of one-way streets, and so I found that anytime we tried to do any score with melody to it, it got weird and cheesy feeling.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: So most of season one score is very percussive, it's just tension-building percussion. And I knew pretty early on when we were writing season two, because it's all about love and marriage, and there's so much emotion, and all their relationships are two-way streets. We do hopefully care that these people end up together or not, that I knew I needed to switch composers and go with Finneas because I was just obsessed with the way he writes music. He's so emotive, and he's able to just pull out your heartstrings very elegantly and simply, so we early on were like, "I know this is going to have a lot of wall-to-wall score."
David Chase: You did know that.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I mean, even Jake and I, when we were shooting the cold open for episode one, that's a nine-minute cold open, which, it's way too long, and you're inner cutting between the two couples constantly. We didn't tell anybody, but Jake and I both, without even having to tell each other, knew like, "Oh, this will be wall-to-wall score for the cold open."
David Chase: Oh, really?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. We tried it without, it just, there's almost like.
David Chase: What was it like without?
Lee Sung Jin: It felt like it was missing, almost like the hand of God. I think there's a lot of fun of that there's something bigger looming above these characters or under these characters, tying them up-
David Chase: The hand of God? Or the brain of the creator of the scene?
Lee Sung Jin: I think truly, I mean more that there is a, outside of the four characters, these two couples, you're kind of missing the fifth character of fate.
David Chase: Fate.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, that there is something bigger than them pushing the two cars together to crash. And even as we were doing the first three episodes, we kept telling Finneas, "Hey, this is feeling too serious or too funny. The score needs to almost feel like God knowing that there's other stuff coming. There has to be something ominous."
David Chase: Oh, other stuff coming, that's interesting.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, a feeling of dread. And even if it's a scene that there's no dread to it, it's just a minutiae scene about two characters.
David Chase: But if you go da, da, da in that scene, you're going to say, "Well, something's going to happen."
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, exactly. I don't know why. That's why we used a lot of arpeggios, just this looming melody that goes up and down of, "I don't know why I'm feeling this way, but something's not good."
David Chase: No, I wasn't paying attention to it this way. So was it an orchestra or was it electronic or?
Lee Sung Jin: It was mostly synths.
David Chase: It was.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Because I don't know if you did this with Sopranos much, or on your film, I always had the grand designs of, "Oh, I'm going to get the composer started early, and we'll have our own original cues to use when we edit," and then that never works out, and so then you end up temping with other existing score.
And when we were trying to temp our first two episodes, nothing was working. I was just like, "Oh, this show's a disaster." I don't know, it's unscorable, because it was like if you put too serious of music on there, then everything feels so melodramatic. And then if it's too light, then it feels too broad, like the comedy's too zany, and it just makes you feel like I'm a terrible writer.
David Chase: Trombone, whoa.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. And then something worked when we put John Carpenter underneath some of the stuff.
David Chase: Really?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. It made me as an audience, feel like, "Oh, I am in good hands because it feels like whoever's making this knows that the tone of this is a little bit heightened."
David Chase: John Carpenter, the John Carpenter.
Lee Sung Jin: The John Carpenter.
David Chase: Boy, that's interesting.
Lee Sung Jin: So that's why we landed on synths, because we were like, "Oh, for some reason Carpenter's working on here, let's go heavy on the synths."
David Chase: You used John Carpenter, and it pointed the way.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: Wow.
Lee Sung Jin: And I think it is because of that ominous thing. You put Carpenter under there with those synths, you just felt like this is a normal scene at a country club, and it's just like someone texting while their general manager's watching them. But now that there's synths under it and it's Carpenter, you felt like, "Oh, I don't know, there's no monster, but there is something looming." And it felt like the right amount of wink at the audience too, it's not like-
David Chase: Okay, so you had no violence and killing, so you had to do something.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes, yeah, exactly. So it's a little bit of a cheat, but then-
David Chase: No, it's not.
Lee Sung Jin: Then what was weird is once we got to the back half with actual high stakes going on, the Carpenter stuff didn't work anymore because it-
David Chase: Isn't that amazing?
Lee Sung Jin: So then we actually had to pull that back, and then we ended up going more percussive in the back half because, yeah, it's a weird balancing act.
David Chase: See, I don't really understand score that well.
Lee Sung Jin: I don't really either, clearly because I tried everything. It took me a long time to find Carpenter.
David Chase: What an idea, though. That's great.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, thank you. I mean, you in my head really created the idea of needle drops ending shows.
David Chase: Needle drop endings.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes. I don't know that I ever clocked that in television until Sopranos – how to use it. And in the room, I constantly told writers all the time, someone would pitch a song to end the show, and it'd be too on the nose. And I kept telling people, "No, what we're chasing is what The Sopranos did," which is what I love. It's like I was always so surprised by the choices. I'm like, "I don't know how David landed here, but this is the last thing I'd ever imagine for the scene, but it felt so." It made me want to lean in and interpret and get in your brain of, "I wonder why he's using this right now."
David Chase: Wow. I mean, that makes me feel great to hear that. Thank you.
Lee Sung Jin: Thank you.
David Chase: See, I wonder, is that over? Should I forget that now? Have we done enough of that?
Lee Sung Jin: What do you mean?
David Chase: The needle drop ending.
Lee Sung Jin: I'm doing it every single episode. I think when it works, it works really well. And I'm so curious what your process was like. Obviously, the biggest one that everyone talks about is “Don't Stop Believing.” It's such a wild choice. There's so many other things, but I can't imagine it any other way.
David Chase: I don't think we ever used any crappy songs.
Lee Sung Jin: No.
David Chase: Which would be a way of going.
Lee Sung Jin: Sure.
David Chase: Well, I mean, I could tell you how the whole thing came about, is that–
Lee Sung Jin: Please.
David Chase: It says here in these notes that I was given that... I think it's in here. It says that I wanted to be a musician, a professional musician. That's not really the case. I was in a band when I was... Well, after The Stones came out. I took two drum lessons and jazz drumming, I was really into that. Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Max Roach. I loved all that stuff.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: So, like a lot of guys my age, I wanted to be the Rolling Stones. And my friends and I formed a band. We never played one date, not one. Why not? We were too good.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh.
David Chase: And we're not going to share this, it has to be better before we... I mean, we have to really get it all worked out. In some way, that's where we were at. We were more comfortable living in this fantasy that we already were there.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah.
David Chase: So my friend Donnie, he was like the king of rock and roll in our town.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh.
David Chase: And he had had a band before this, an instrumental band like The Ventures called The Earthquakes. Four guys, and all of them were my friends, and I played the-
David Chase: ... and four guys, and all of them were my friends, and I played the drums, but I wasn't picked. So in 1967, I told him, "I'm thinking of going to film school." That's what I said to him. The other guy, the other guitar player, Pete. He said, "Well, okay, but I don't think you'll ever be anything more than the drummer in my band." Well, number one, it's not your band, and thank you because that's more inspiring than anything my parents ever said. Then I said to Donny at some point, I said, "You know what? I'm not going to use classical music like they do in movies." That's what I thought score was. He said, "No, what do you mean?" He was the king of rock and roll. I said, "No, I'm going to use rock and roll." He said, "Don't do that." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Don't do that. Don't use rock and roll."
But see, also, they had used rock and roll in Easy Rider. Then I went to see Mean Streets and that he had “Be My Baby” started it on boom, boom, boom, pah! I was in heaven. Oh, I went crazy. Then there was a song called, from the '50s called “You” by the Aquatones, very sad, almost religious kind of song. It was never on any oldie shows because there was some legal problem with it. So halfway through the movie, he's one great track after another. On comes You and I'm just like... I think I did start crying.
Lee Sung Jin: Wow.
David Chase: And then I got to be a producer in TV. I used “You” three times in three different series. Anyway, that's how it all... So when you say, "What is your instinct?" I don't know.
Lee Sung Jin: So it really was just songs you loved that you just found spots for, or you were-
David Chase: I didn't love all of them. Most of them I did. Most of them I did. I can see why they... Some of them were really great.
Lee Sung Jin: It's funny you say that because when we were working on season one, I kept telling the writer's room, I'm like, "Oh, I want to get that feeling that David got with The Sopranos, with those needle drops. And I don't know '60s and '70s rock as well. And should we use this song, this song?" And then... Because originally I had a bunch of '90s songs set for season one and one of the writers, Alex Russell, he was like, "Sonny, just stick to your '90s thing because '90s music to you is what those '60s rock songs were to David. So you don't have to go do the '60s rock, just do the thing that you grew up with." And that turns to the not in my head. Yeah. And then I was like, "Oh, okay. I'm just going to go dive deep into my teenage years and just pick stuff that I love."
David Chase: Isn't it weird, right? So how old are you when you're using your favorite songs as a teenager in this career-bending show or maybe you'll get fired?
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah, it was very... And at the time too, '90s hadn't come full circle back yet. I did have some people in my life because I was rediscovering all my old favorite albums, and I was just playing them nonstop, and just people in my life were like, "Why are you listening to so much '90s music right now? Ah, can you turn it off?" And I was just like, "No, I think this is it. I'm feeling like myself again."
David Chase: Wow. It's great. Oh, when it works, it's my favorite part of the whole operation, is putting the song on, throwing things on it and trying it.
Lee Sung Jin: When it hits, it's the absolute best.
David Chase: Oh, yes. It's it. You know it.
Lee Sung Jin: Yes.
David Chase: And what happened with us, they started sending us stuff.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, really?
David Chase: Record companies, yeah, started sending us stuff. People you've never heard of and haven't heard of since. There was some Russian band group, a girl group, and I thought, "That's great. Let's use that." Because it worked. And that was 2006 or something.
Lee Sung Jin: When you look back at the show, I mean-
David Chase: I have to give credit also to Martin Bruestly, who was our post-production supervisor, who picked a lot of the music. He picked more of the source music.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. One last thing I wanted to ask you, which I think I relate to so much because I'm the same way. When we were doing the Cinematheque screening, you talked to the audience about how the VFX in the second episode of season three has driven you crazy for quite some time. Similarly, for me, there's this one VFX in the finale of episode one that didn't-
David Chase: This year?
Lee Sung Jin: Last year, that didn't get uploaded correctly. And so the plants freeze. You see them moving, and suddenly they freeze, and it drives me nuts, and I need to open it up again and try to upload it. When you watch old episodes, are there things that you really, really wish you could go back and change or things that you feel like either-
David Chase: Yeah, sure. I don't watch it. I don't really watch it. I would say most of those episodes I haven't seen since the Sunday night big broadcast.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh, wow. How did-
David Chase: I mean, sometimes I've gone back to see if I'm trying to cast somebody, "What was that guy? Who was that?" I mean, I've done some of it, and I've done it at these events, but I haven't seen Christopher, and now I'm thinking, "Oh yeah."
Lee Sung Jin: Do you find that when you watched it, the two episodes at the screening, my head when I watch stuff back, it's hard for me to enjoy because I'm like, "Oh, that camera lens was wrong." Or “Why are we at that height?"
David Chase: I think the further away you get from it, this is like 20, 25 years for me. So when I look at it, I go, "Oh, okay." Because I'm not in the process anymore. I'm not in the process where I'm thinking, "God, damn it, three more frames." And all those stupid things you're thinking, they go away. You're just watching it because you don't remember it.
Lee Sung Jin: Oh God, I can't wait for that day.
David Chase: I'm telling you it's good. You'll like it.
Lee Sung Jin: The one last thing I wanted to ask you too about is about what you're writing now. I know you don't want to probably talk about too in depth, but I'm just so fascinated that you keep circling and coming back to MK Ultra and that era and LSD and it just feels like almost the spiritual next step given that where Sopranos ended and some of the existential deeper themes that you were examining, that really feels like the companion that to carry forth those themes. I'm curious, is that sort of your main passion project right now?
David Chase: I mean, well, it's silly. There's two. There's a movie that I've been working on for six years, a movie about MK Ultra and some other things. And then there's the series for HBO, which I thought to myself, "How did I get myself into this jam where I'm doing two projects about the same thing?" And I blame my agent because he made me go down and talk to Casey Bloys about it. So you can't option that book. You have a deal with HBO. I went down there, and I thought so... He said, "I'll buy it." So now I have two. But now I'm really excited about it because it can be completely different.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. No, I can't wait to see what you do with that.
David Chase: There is so much there. Oh my God.
Lee Sung Jin: I feel like it's such a fertile ground for you to talk about and express even more deeply some of these deeper life questions and-
David Chase: Yeah. Well, it starts in 1954, and that was America at its top. We'd beaten the Nazis, the economy was great, our science was better than anybody's. We had everything going for us. And then you go into the '60s and...
Lee Sung Jin: I mean, it's so funny how things are cyclical.
David Chase: Yeah.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. Here we are again.
David Chase: Well, I can't wait to see yours on the air.
Lee Sung Jin: Thank you.
David Chase: It will be different, right?
Lee Sung Jin: I hope so.But no-
David Chase: What do you watch on home? What do you watch it on?
Lee Sung Jin: I usually watch it on my TV, but then I don't know if you find this, because we spend so much time color grading the show, it's so hard to get that TV to replicate the color grade properly. And the only thing that replicates it exactly is an iPad Pro. So I sadly watch the episodes mostly now on the iPad Pro because my eye is so used to... It's so depressing.
David Chase: It's sad.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. It's just all that work, and it's like-
David Chase: It's sad.
Lee Sung Jin: ... me in a room with a little iPad.
David Chase: Oh, that's great.
Lee Sung Jin: 2026, that's where we're at.
David Chase: That's incredible.
Lee Sung Jin: I mean, I think we covered a lot. That's delightful as always.
David Chase: Same here.
Lee Sung Jin: Yeah. I could do this for hours.
David Chase: I could do a little bit better with you.
Lee Sung Jin: Okay.
David Chase: I'm joking you. I'm joking you.
Lee Sung Jin: I'll do whatever David wants. Yeah.