It’s the morning after the Beef season two premiere, and Charles Melton has ordered five scrambled eggs for breakfast. (“Can I add three more?” he asks, when told the scramble traditionally includes a paltry two eggs.)
He’s in oversized black pants, a black T-shirt with “AUTUMN DURALD ARKAPAW” printed on it, and a loose cardigan. The actor’s charm is immediately disarming—he’s circumspect and sensitive, but also inquisitive and solicitous (he greets our waiter at the Crosby Street Hotel with a buoyant “Your hair’s so cool!”).
Melton first hit the scene when he joined the cast of the CW’s Riverdale in its second season in 2017, but it was the release of Todd Haynes’s May December in 2023 that heralded his arrival as one of the top rising Hollywood talents (Melton garnered Golden Globe and Critics Choice noms for the film, which also starred Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman). To play the role of Joe, an earnest father of three, Melton put on about 40 pounds, shedding the image of the high-school jock heartthrob (and simultaneously transitioning from the realm of soapy teen drama to prestige cinema).
Now the actor—a military brat and former college football player—is playing a country club trainer in the hit Netflix limited series Beef’s second season, alongside Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Oscar Isaac, Youn Yuh-jung, and Song Kang-ho. Melton has received particular plaudits in the reviews, though he may not see them, as he says he tries to mostly avoid reading about his projects and has someone else posting for him on Instagram. In Beef, Melton brings an endearing innocence to the proceedings, as he strives—alongside Spaeny, who plays his girlfriend—to keep up (and then some) with the conniving Montecito club members he must cater to.
Melton also just became a dad for the first time, with his partner Camille Summers-Valli, a director and photographer; the two split time now between LA and Paris. He giddily shows me a slew of pictures of his newborn daughter during our breakfast, and, if there’s anything making him anxious this April morning, it’s not a post-premiere hangover or anything of that nature—it’s that he is desperate to get back to LA to be with his family.
You bounced around a lot growing up, right?
I’m a military kid, and you just cope wherever you go. My parents were like, “Okay, we’re going to Germany. We’re going to Korea. We’re going to Texas.” I’m like, “Okay. Cool.”
I feel like that sets you up well. It means you’re adaptable.
Very.
Is working out and training fun for you, or is it annoying where you’re like, “Dammit, I have to get in shape for this now”?
I never feel like I have to get in shape for anything. I think it’s more… Every role is different, obviously. [When I start a project], it’s like, Okay, what am I eating? What is this person eating? What do I feel like eating? When I did May December and played Joe, that guy doesn’t have time to work out in the gym and also raise three kids and be the provider. And in [the 2025 Alex Garland film] Warfare, the idea of a Navy SEAL looking like a bodybuilder is not… That’s not their body type. They’re the most athletic, fluid-movement [types].
There’s something spiritual that happens when you’re channeling something from within you, or something from you, to embody a role. How you talk changes, how you eat and what you eat changes, the music you listen to changes… It’s extremely spiritual. I’m very spiritual.
Do you generally stay in touch with people that you’ve worked with in the past?
I remember a few years ago, I said this thing that i-D magazine, I think, picked up. I said Riverdale was my Juilliard. It does feel like [with the Riverdale cast] I’m keeping in touch with people I went to college with.
I imagine it’s probably really nice to have that camaraderie of “We all went through this together and now we can all text about whatever’s happening.”
Yeah, anything we experience, things going on in the world, or when loss happens or someone passes away, or one of the friends in the group is going through a breakup, the camaraderie comes together.
We’re both the oldest of three siblings. I feel like I’m very protective of my younger brothers and other people in my life. Do you feel like the oldest?
I definitely do. But my sisters—even though I’m older than them—give me shit all the time. They guide me, they lead me, even though they’re younger than me.
I feel like we were such a little crew growing up, doing plays and stuff. Was that you guys, too?
As we were moving, adapting, [my sisters] were my homies. We didn’t do plays, but there was a time when I thought I was Indiana Jones, and we were throwing belts over the couch, and my mom was making us grilled cheese sandwiches.
What was exciting to you about doing Beef? How was it presented to you?
What was exciting to me was [Beef creator] Lee Sung Jin and being such a huge admirer of Steven [Yeun] and his work as an artist and his transcendence. I knew for a year that I was going to be in Beef before we started filming. There was a May December dinner thing that Gold House was putting together and Lee Sung Jin requested to sit next to me so he could pitch me all of season two of Beef. Dude, it was a moment. He jokes that I said yes around the second appetizer.
What generally makes you say yes to a project?
The filmmaker first, then the script. But dude, I don’t even know what I’m going to do [in the future]. I can’t even tell you. I have no idea.
If someone was asking what you’re going to be doing in five years, you’d be like, “I do not know.”
If you’re like, “What role do you want to do next?” I can give you a bullshit answer, but I just don’t know until I know. Something will hopefully present itself and then I’ll feel some sort of bubbling fragments of my shadows, of my soul, come up [where] I’m like, Okay... It’s a discovery. To have relentless drive with constant curiosity is amazing, because your North Star is not this one job or this next job or this role. Your North Star is curiosity and discovery.
Are you someone who’s scrolling a lot? TikTok? Instagram?
I don’t have TikTok. And I don’t run my Instagram. On set, I usually have a flip phone or I’m only listening to music on my phone. The phone becomes… It’s not like a part of my identity anymore. [The flip phone] is kind of silly, but I love doing it, the act of doing it, the reverence of doing it.
How did you and Cailee develop your dynamic and build up trust?
We spent a lot of time before we started filming and after, too, we became really close. We had a lot of conversations about, like, “How did they meet? What were our lives before?” We took our families to a Kansas City Chiefs game. We spent a lot of time with each other because we wanted to. It was just easy.
Are you someone who looks at stuff and reads reviews?
It’s cool to say that I don’t read anything or try not to read anything, but I know reviews are starting to come out today, because the show came out. Am I tempted? Yeah, I’m fucking human. But also… I’m not. You know what brings me back? As we were having dinner [last night], I was thinking about the work that I did with Lee Sung Jin, Oscar, Carey, Song Kang-ho, Youn Yuh-jung, Cailee, our costume designer, Olga, Lori, our hair [person] Jackie, our makeup person, our cinematographer, James. How we went to Korea… I’m thinking about all these fucking people. I’m like, I don’t care what anyone says. We did this.
When you look back at the May December experience now, what are your takeaways or how do you view it?
I mean, I talk to Todd all the time. He’s in Mexico filming right now. We’re like a whole family. I talk to Julie and Natalie all the time. It was magic, man.
Is there anything in the world or in the culture right now that’s making you anxious or stressing you out? You feel like a really positive person to me.
Thank you. I want to get back home to my partner and my daughter.
How have things been going? Is being a parent different than you expected?
She’s such a happy baby. They’re the best things in my world.
Do you feel equally at home in Paris and LA?
Just wherever my family is.
Is there any similarity to being on a sports team and a film set?
Absolutely. The director’s the coach, and you have your offensive coordinator, your defensive coordinator, your position coaches, you have the general manager. The owner’s the studio. And when you think about sports, because I have a sports background, preparation is key. The off-season is key. You’re like, What am I doing when I’m not working? I’m enjoying my off-season. I’m enjoying my baby girl.
And I’m sure that helps make it so the next time you go on a set, you’re refreshed and ready.
Refreshed, because my life is lived, and I’m not trying to live my life with each role that I’m doing next. My life is lived. My life is full. My life is boring. My life is mundane. My life is perfect to me. Then when I go to work, that’s a different thing. My life is not my life because of my work.
Do you like being on a schedule?
Yeah. But that’s the difference between doing a role and being on set and then my life outside. [My work] is only supported by the life that I’m bringing outside of that role. What soul am I bringing if I can’t be soulful and full in my own life? I don’t want to go from this thing to the next thing to be like, “I’m fucking busy.” Nah… It’s a life lived, a life channeled, a life experienced. I feel like that comes from my favorite actors—or the greatest athletes—where they have a reverence for the game, but they still know it’s a game.
You still need to have something outside of it to make it meaningful.
You know, communion’s a beautiful thing. I’ve participated in communion in the church in my early childhood. It’s a very cinematic thing to witness, because all these people are coming on this specific day. There’s this process of drinking Christ and eating the body of Christ, and it’s beautiful and sacred. Like, you can hear a needle drop on the ground. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. But at the end of the day, it’s just grape juice and a cracker.
What’s coming up? You’re going to Cannes for Her Private Hell, right? Are you excited about the fashion of it all?
Oh yeah. I love the fashion… But it’s [also] grape juice and a cracker.
Last but not least, are you a morning person?
My partner would tell you I’m a morning person. I don’t stay in bed. I don’t ever stay in bed. Seven o’clock is sleeping in for me. Even if I’m grumpy or tired. The normal thing to do is to stay in bed, but I just can’t.
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