Steven Yeun was born in South Korea. As a young child he immigrated with his family to Canada, then to the United States. Yeun’s family lived in Michigan and attended a Korean church. He spent most of his time playing sports and attending Sunday school.
“When I was in school, I was playing within a persona,” Yeun told the New York Times. “I’m going to be quieter, nicer, friendlier. But when I’m at church, I’m going to be me. When I’m at home, I’m going to be me. And sometimes I think I was putting up such a mask and a wall when I was at school that I had no patience for anything when I was at home.” His emotions built up into “this constant anger.”
Yeun graduated from Kalamazoo College in 2005 with a degree in psychology and a love of improv. He joined Chicago’s Second City Touring Company and Stir-Friday Night, an Asian American comedy group. Moving to Los Angeles in 2009, he quickly landed the role of Glenn Rhee in the hit TV series The Walking Dead. Movies followed, among them Mayhem (2017), Okja (2017), and Sorry to Bother You (2018).
In 2020, playing a struggling immigrant father in the movie Minari, Yeun drew on his life experience. “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you,” he has said. With his performance in Minari, Yeun made history when he became the first Asian American actor to receive an Oscar nomination for best actor; he was also given the lead actor nod by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Critics Choice Movie Awards for the performance. Those distinctions were followed by Critics Choice, SAG, and Emmy awards for his work on the 2023 Netflix series Beef.
Yeun was also named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2021” — described in the citation as “somebody that people want to rally around,” an actor who handles his accolades “with a tremendous amount of grace.”
