All About 'Beef' Breakout Star Young Mazino

All eyes are on Young Mazino following his role on Netflix's new series Beef.

Starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, the new show follows two people who get into a road rage incident that ends up taking over both of their lives.

While Wong and Yeun are being praised for their performances, Mazino has also caught people's attention for his role as Yeun's volatile onscreen younger brother Paul Cho, who deals with his own share of conflict in season 1.

Following appearances on various shows and shorts, including Prodigal Son, Blue Bloods and New Amsterdam, Beef marks one of Mazino's first starring roles.

Speaking with PEOPLE, Mazino joked that working on Beef "kind of spoiled" him in a way as he got to work with so many great creators, including showrunner Lee Sung Jin.

"[He was so intentional and so precise with his storytelling and so open at the same time," he explained. "I just want to continue to work with people like that, who care about what they're doing and are pursuing film as a means of expression and perhaps beyond just profit and the bottom line."

Of his Beef character, he added that he hopes people see the good in Paul. "At a glance, Paul can come off as kind of silly, and he definitely has a lot of his own flaws and things he needs to work on, but I wanted to portray a character with empathy and that he's earnest and he's a good kid."

Here's everything to know about the rising star.

He's been performing since he was really young

Mazino grew up in Maryland, where he developed an interest in music and acting at a very young age. "Growing up as a kid I played the violin and I was performing just seemingly endlessly in concerts and recitals," he told PEOPLE.

"Since elementary school, I was always participating in the school plays," he said, recalling of his early experience acting, "that feeling was electric, just getting to be outside of myself."

"Then I would raid my father's VCR collection, and I would just get my hands on any of the moves I watched," he added. "So acting was always in the background of my life, just as a form of play or a form of escape."

He dropped out of college to pursue a career in acting

He didn't intend to get into acting as a career, but he listened to his gut and went for it. "I dropped out [of college] and decided to pursue acting because I reached this existential crisis just questioning my purpose," he told PEOPLE.

"I was headed towards a very traditional path that was safe and stable, but I was also very depressed. I had a very formative moment where realized life is very fleeting. It's there one day and it's gone the next. And I decided to pursue something I actually cared about."

He previously worked for Fresh

After dropping out of college, he decided to move to New York in 2014, where he ended up picking up various jobs to make ends meet, including a role as a business development coordinator at the popular skincare brand Fresh.

"It was serendipitous because I became friends with the HR manager when I was putting together hiring packets as a temp, and he knew I was an actor," he told PEOPLE.

"I took some business classes and I was working. I dabbled in supply chains. For me, it was more just a survival job that paid for everything — my rent, my drama school, my long distance relationship."

He's interested in working more behind the camera

Following his role on Beef, Mazino is already looking towards the future. While a second season of the Netflix series hasn't been confirmed yet, Mazino does have another project in the works.

"I'm currently editing a documentary I shot," he told PEOPLE, noting that he's interested in working more behind the camera: "Film, as an art form, is just a means to find truth and to pursue it."