Photo: Noam Galai/Getty
Steven Yeunsays his wild days are behind him.
TheNopeactor, 39, got candid in a recent interview withWSJ. Magazineabout discovering drugs after he found fame as an actor.
“I came to a lot of things late,” said Yeun, who garnered prominence after playing Glenn Rhee onThe Walking Deadfrom 2010 to 2016. He added that as a result, he “went a little HAM with that stuff, trying to make up for lost time.”
He explained to the magazine that the drugs “slowed down” his mind and prevented him from overthinking things, which he said was “really effective and necessary.”
Now that he has kids — 5 year-old sonJude Malcolmand adaughterhe and wifeJoana Pakwelcomed in 2019 — he said his focus has shifted away from that stuff.
“My entire life isPeppa PigandPokémon,” he quipped.
That said, Yeun is still slightly curious about psychedelics, tellingWSJ.: “It’s becoming standard to do DMT [dimethyltryptamine, a hallucinogenic that naturally occurs in many plants] or lick a toad. I haven’t done that, but I’d like to, at some point.”
RELATED VIDEO:The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun Marries Girlfriend Joana Pak
“I was pretty clear about who I was, to myself, from a really early age, and so life had been me mostly trying to explain myself” he added. “I was trying to make it so that I could stop explaining myself [in interviews].”
JC Olivera/Getty Images
Next up, Yeun is set to debut his next seriesBeefon Netflix. He stars alongsideAli Wongin the darkly humorous show as characters who “kind of destroy each other’s lives” as a result of a road rage incident
Yeun said he hopes said he hopes viewers will appreciate the nuances in this next project — both in how they see him as a South Korean-American actor, and in how they see themselves and others around them.
“Culture is great, it’s beautiful, but that’s not the depth of who we are,” he said. InBeef, he hopes people watching will be “able to see it and say, ‘Oh, that’s me. I’m not part of that culture, but that’s me.'”
Appropriately for a show that plays with the notion that what happens on the road doesn’t stay on the road, Yeun said he’s drawn to projects that surprise him.
“I love that feeling of, ‘Oh, I had no idea it was this until I got there,'” he shared. “I’d hate to do a project where I have a road map for where it’s supposed to go. That doesn’t sound like fun.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Beefpremieres April 6 on Netflix.
source: people.com
