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There’s nothing scarier than a pleasant-but-creepy man looking dapper in a nice suit, and that’s exactly who Steven Yeun plays in the fourth episode of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot, titled “A Traveler.”
Written by Glen Morgan and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, the story drops us in a local police station in Iglaak, Alaska on Christmas Eve, where Greg Kinnear is a clueless and narcissistic police captain named Lane Pendleton. Captain Pendleton has a tradition of pardoning someone in his jail every year at the Christmas party—and a mysterious traveler (Yeun) who suddenly shows up in a cell wants it to be him. It’s left to an officer named Yuka (Marika Sila) to uncover what this traveler’s true intentions are.
We won’t spoil the episode, but it’s all very X-Files, in the best way. For Yeun, who is best known for playing the sweet and funny Glenn on The Walking Dead, it’s somewhat new territory to be playing the charming stranger who also might kill you. (Though it is not dissimilar to his character in 2018’s Burning, the psychological drama from South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, which is headed to Netflix at the end of the month.)
Yeun hopped on the phone with Decider earlier this week to discuss Burning, but we had to ask a few questions about Twilight Zone as well. And while he didn’t want to spoil the episode before it aired, he noted it was “really fun” to play the object of nightmares. (And yes, he’s aware viewers will be forever haunted by the image of him in a pinstripe suit and hat, which is incredibly tragic, considering how well he wears it.) He traces the terror that his performance inspires to “playing a character from a place knowledge.”
“He’s someone who doesn’t have to submit to the system that functions within that particular place—in this case, Alaska, where it’s set,” Yeun said. “When you have an outsider come in, he’s able to deduce what that place actually is. He represents knowledge and the truth of the idea of chaos. I think that’s terrifying to a lot of people.”
Yeun didn’t get to work directly with Peele—who hosts, produces and developed the series—but said, “I’ve known [Peele] for a while and he’s a phenomenal talent, such a great guy. And Greg [Kinnear] is great. He’s such a professional. He’s so calm and collected and cool. As he should be, as a veteran!”
Yeun also had a confession that he hopes won’t upset the die-hard Rod Serling fans: He was more of an Outer Limits guy growing up.
“I can’t say that I’m a massive fan of The Twilight Zone,” he admitted. “Not because I don’t like it! But because as an immigrant kid, there wasn’t much access to it. For me, it was more Outer Limits that I saw.”
He does remember one original Twilight Zone episode that he saw and loved—the classic, “Time Enough At Last.”
“I remember the last scene terrified me in a way that I couldn’t even explain,” he said. “I’m sure I could deconstruct why it was so terrifying but it was also just a feeling. It was so scary, so unsettling.”
The fourth episode of The Twilight Zone, “A Traveler” is now streaming on CBS All Access. Burning comes to Netflix on April 29.
