AFTER HE FILMED the first season of Beef, Young Mazino slipped away to Spain. He had no idea that the 2023 limited series with Steven Yeun and Ali Wong would make him a breakout star. But after Mazino earned an Emmy nomination, he suddenly saw possibilities opening up. "I'm still perplexed by everything," says the actor. "I don't know where this world is headed, but it seems to get more and more surreal."

Mazino recently took another major trip—bouncing from Tokyo to Indonesia—because he'd just finished the second season of the wrenching zombie hit The Last of Us, which premieres April 13. "I never judged my character, but he's a bit of a Boy Scout," says Mazino. "He definitely tapped into the brighter, warmer side of myself because I think I'm by default a little darker than him spiritually."

Growing up the son of Korean immigrants in Silver Spring, Maryland, Mazino felt like becoming an artist was an "outlandish decision." He kept quiet about his love of theater: "I didn't want my friends in athletics to know I was doing the musical, so I never told anyone until they'd see me on the stage," he says. "I was dealing with an existential crisis before I even knew what that was."

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After dropping out of college, Mazino decamped to New York, where he worked as a business analyst and studied at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. When he registered with SAG-AFTRA, he discovered there were too many actors with his given name, Christopher Kim. So he went with his Korean name, Young, and a surname inspired by Urek Mazino, a character in the South Korean web toon Tower of God. "His ideal is to not just get to the top of this tower, but to leave the tower and be under the real stars," Mazino says of his namesake. "That name was, in a way, to empower myself to strive for better, and be greater than I felt."

Even after finding success, Mazino isn't sure how he fits into Hollywood as a Korean American actor. "I do find myself in this weird kind of in-between," he says. "How selective can I be when I'm already in this weird space?"

Lately, he's been spending time in Maryland with his family. Other than that, he lives nowhere in particular, though he's thinking about returning to New York. He just had a small role in the A24 thriller Opus; he'd love to work with Hirokazu Kore-eda, Derek Cianfrance, and Terrence Malick someday. His mission, strange as it sounds, is to be uncomfortable. "I need to find myself in a room with people that are way beyond more talented than I am, because that's the only way I think I can really grow," Mazino says. "I constantly want to be in a position where it's daunting."