Steven Yeun, with co-stars Norm Reedus and Jeffrey DeMunn, at The Walking Dead panel at last July’s Comic-Con. Photo by John Shearer/AMC
Steven Yeun: The Grateful Living
The star of the AMC zombie series, The Walking Dead, is thankful his stereotype-breaking character is back for season 2.
by Jimmy Lee
In The Walking Dead, zombies roam a bleak American landscape, biting their way through the last bastions of humankind. In Internet forums, fans have found a tasty dish they’d be more than happy to sink their teeth into in Steven Yeun, the 27-year-old actor who plays Glenn.
“Steven Yeun is about to be everyone’s cat’s meow. This boy is delicious,” one admirer wrote on IMDB. “He’s a sweet piece of eye candy,” commented another.
When asked about enjoying his newfound hottie status, Yeun is incredulous. “I don’t even know how to answer that,” he says.
In real life, Yeun is modest and deferential, and repeatedly praises his co-stars. On the critically acclaimed zombie drama—that’s right, those words can go together, especially when a show successfully explores how people struggle to maintain their humanity when faced with adversity and horror—his character Glenn is scrappy, resourceful and fleet-footed. He’s also got a few felonious skills up his sleeve, like hot-wiring a car, which come in handy when you’re trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. And when The Walking Dead returns to the AMC cable network for a highly anticipated second season on Oct. 16, there will be one particularly notable development in store for Glenn: romance.
Although, you won’t hear that from Yeun, who tows the company line and stays tight-lipped when it comes to future plot points. But read the comic book, which debuted in 2003, from which the television show is based, and connect the dots with the few facts that have been divulged about the upcoming season, and you’ll deduce that Glenn hooks up with Maggie—a role to be filled by the fetching Lauren Cohan.
“You’ll get to see another side of Glenn [in season 2]” is all that Yeun will reveal.
So, yeah, not only does he get to evade the bane of Asian American actors—no emasculated male stereotype here—but also gets the hot girl!
Photo by Gene Page/AMC
There are other sides to Yeun, as well, including a comic side. In fact, a performance by a sketch comedy group he saw while a freshman at Kalamazoo College in Michigan inspired his desire to act. “I saw the show, and I was like, holy sh-t, I got to do that,” remembers Yeun. He failed to make the troupe his first attempt, but an improv class he took afterwards helped land him a spot his sophomore year.
After graduating in 2005, he told his parents he wasn’t applying to medical school, and they in turn told him he had two years. But things quickly fell into place. He moved to Chicago and found an agent in six months. And within a year, he earned a highly coveted position on a touring company of The Second City, the famed comedy group whose more recent alumni include Steve Carell and Tina Fey.
When Yeun relocated to Los Angeles in 2009, guest roles like the one on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory came his way, to go along with the waiter gigs he needed to pay the bills. But then Yeun thought he hit pay dirt. “I tested for an ABC pilot, which I was so excited about, and it came down to me and another guy, and they took the other guy,” recounts Yeun. “And I was thinking, ‘Oh great, that’s the end of my career.’ And then The Walking Dead came along, and the [ABC] thing didn’t even get picked up.”
Glenn and Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) in The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 1. Photo credit: Gene Page/AMC
Yeun is certainly thrilled about playing a part that breaks the stereotype. “Robert [Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead comic book,] wrote an amazing character that he took to places that he didn’t have to. He really took Glenn and made him a person, and not a stereotype. He made him an ethnicity as a look, and then he just carried him on from there and made him the character he wanted him to be.”
The part of Glenn also resonates with Yeun personally. “Glenn was me—when I was 19, in the middle of college, [and graduating]—and all I could think about was how much I wanted to be the best at everything,” he says. “I grew up with a chip on my shoulder. And I think that’s kind of what Glenn is—he’s always trying to prove himself; he’s always trying to put himself in situations where he can get his piece of glory. And for me, that is exactly how I grew up.”
Coming of age in Michigan helped to foster this rougher side of Yeun. “Growing up in a not-Asian-dominated area, you do grow up with a slight chip on your shoulder because people expect certain things of you. They say, you’re going to be the best on these tests; you’re going to have the best GPA. But you’re not going to be the best basketball player, [or] the best football player.
“I’ve evened out a little bit ‘cause I don’t have that as much anymore,” says Yeun. “It’s now more of a controlled [desire] to do my best work.”
So for the cast member with the least experience, it means sponging off his co-stars.
“I told them from the very beginning, ‘I’m going to bug you guys with questions,’” says Yeun. “What’s amazing for me as an actor was they were all so giving, so helpful. I learned way more in those three months [shooting season 1] than I probably ever have in all of [my acting career].”
Now for this second season, there’s more motivating Yeun than just having a love interest. “It’s a platform for me to really push myself,” the actor says. “I didn’t play it safe by any means [last year], but I definitely wanted to do the right things. And this season is more about just being confident in myself, and also taking in everything at the same time.”
The question is: Will Yeun be around to continue having this opportunity to grow as an actor? Glenn is still around in the comic book, but in a show like The Walking Dead, there’s no telling which character will get the ax. The series has deviated significantly from the comic book in just one season. Who knows what awaits this band of survivors on the small screen?
Fortunately, Yeun has made an impression on Kirkman, who’s also an executive producer of the TV series. “It’s a delight for me to see such a young actor come out of nowhere and really take the role and make it his own,” Kirkman says in an email to KoreAm. “It’s strange for me to have been writing the character for a decade, and now I can’t write for Glenn without picturing Steve.”
May that portend a long, zombie-bite-free life for Glenn and Yeun.
This article was published in the October 2011 issue of KoreAm. Subscribe today!
