Olga Mill On Crafting Sides Of A Country Club World In 'Beef' Season 2

The celebrated anthology series Beef returned earlier this year to an enthusiastic response. The current season received 16 Emmy Nominations for creator and showrunner Lee Sung Jin’s remarkable mix of generational rage, class satire, and marital decay. This season featured Oscar Issac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Cailee Spaeny as two feuding couples with the backdrop of an elite country club. The contrast between the two couples is highlighted by the upscale attire of the older, richer couple and the younger staff’s outfits. Costume designer Olga Mill (Love Lies Bleeding, Echo Valley) was Emmy-nominated for the series for her excellent work. Mill recently spoke to Immersive about the experience.

[This conversation was edited for clarity and context.]

Talk a little bit about how you got involved with this and what your first impression was. Had you watched season one?

I watched season one, and I loved it so much. Grace Yoon, who’s the production designer on seasons one and two, is a close friend and collaborator. We’ve worked together a bunch. I’m not sure how my name initially came across Sonny’s (Lee Sung Jin) desk. It might have been through Grace. Sonny and I made time to sit and get a coffee together, and he gave me the broad strokes of what the second season would be about, which I found really inspiring.

I don’t come from a country club world, so, anthropologically, that’s what I love about my job. You kind of get this entry point into all these different worlds for a year or so and learn all about them. I like to create a pitch deck in response to emotion. I read a script, then I just let myself respond to the images on instinct and share that with Sonny, and I was really lucky that it resonated, and then we went from there.

What did your research on this look like? You’re looking into different worlds and different vibes. I’m glad you brought up emotion…

A lot of digging on Instagram, actually. It’s such an amazing resource for costume designers. So I did, like, a deep dive to find profiles I felt were related to our character descriptions. I looked for women who were kind of like Lindsay and whose identities were anchored in their sense of style. Women in Montecito and Ojai were sharing which designers they liked and where they were shopping.

Instagram is massive people-watching, where people can’t catch you looking at them.

It’s so voyeuristic. For character development in general, it’s so juicy. It’s so helpful. I did a lot of looking for people that I thought had elements of what Sonny was writing. I also spent time in Montecito and Ojai. That was, like, part of the gift of shooting somewhere where the story takes place. So Bailey Gardner, our assistant costume designer, and I did some field trips where we had lunch at Ojai Valley Inn, walked around town, and then spent time in Montecito. It’s invaluable. I find towns like that have, like, a kind of aesthetic economy, right, where they have their own little shops, stores, and boutiques.

As with culture overall, there seem to be more micro-trends than overarching styles you see everywhere…

Micro trends, for sure. There are so many pockets of the internet, and everyone’s having their own algorithmic reality experience. It’s crazy. In terms of trends, if you’re in one lane of the internet, you might think that what you’re seeing is the most popular thing… whatever type of shirt, and really it’s just you and your community. I think that is true for sure.

It’s interesting. Let’s talk a little bit about the actors. I was fortunate enough to sit in on one of those FYC events, and Oscar and Carey have such natural chemistry… Both of the main couples look like couples…

So much of my job depends on the casting director. Sometimes they do all the heavy lifting, and you are sort of playing off of that. The casting is so good here. The fact that Oscar and Carey have a history together, and genuinely like and respect each other. I think part of that is also the environment Sonny is facilitating. This was the first time he and I worked together, and very quickly, I felt okay throwing out stupid ideas, which is what you want.

Absolutely. How much did you make versus source?

I would say we mostly sourced, but then we also modified. We were lucky enough to be shooting in the places where the story takes place. The dress Carey wears in episode one at the fundraiser was one we sourced. That dress has a pastoral, super-feminine aesthetic that I felt was around in Montecito. We changed the neckline. We put in this chartreuse lining, which kind of gave it this almost green, pulsating underlife. We had a really fantastic tailor with us, Maria Ivakhinova. So that made the possibility of changing things to what we needed them to be completely open.

Any favorite pieces?

I really like that knit set that Lindsay wears. I think it’s in episode one or two. That’s like an at-home, it’s like a cream colored with maroon edging. And then also her green set. Lindsay’s at-home wear was a fave. Also that blue pastoral dress she wears at the kid’s birthday party.

Was anything particularly hard where you felt like, “Oh my God, we can’t find this thing that we’re looking for?

This show had a lot of multiples. I would like to give credit to Bailey Gardner, our assistant costume designer, who really tackled it beautifully. We shot scenes in Korea. It required a huge amount of multiples for us to have ready. We shopped a lot of that in the States. So the challenge was coordinating the shopping for things we knew we could get 10 or 15 of and making sure those options were available in Korea. I should also mention Elke Van Der Steen, our shopper, for wrangling those items.

Congratulations on your nomination. What’s it like having Beef season two as part of your repertoire now?

I feel so proud of it. I’m so thankful that it is resonating with people because the material resonated with me. It’s funny, when you’re in production, you’re just running. Then some time passes. And then when you get the opportunity to talk about the work, I’m reminded of the intentional, thoughtful work that went into it. When you’re running to get everything done, you try to stay true to those original thoughts. It’s cool to reflect on it and be like, “We really did what we set out to do, and that makes me feel really proud of our crew and everyone involved.”

Beef, season two, is streaming on Netflix.