Friends From College star Jae Suh Park on life, love and laughter

Friends From College star Jae Suh Park talks about returning for season 2, working with the cast, and being married to a fellow comedy star.

Jae Suh Park is spending more time with her Friends From College. The actress returned for the second season of the Netflix comedy as Marianne, one of a close-knit group of quirky friends who continue to enrich—and complicate—each other’s lives.

She spoke to Netflix Life about getting to play Marianne for a second (and later final) season, the joys of going to work with the rest of the show’s immensely talented cast, and what it’s like when you’re married to another hilarious actor.

Get to know Jae Suh Park in our interview below, then stream Friends From College season 2 now on Netflix.

Netflix Life: Viewers saw the friends get into a lot of trouble last season. How much trouble is Marianne in during the second season?

Jae Suh Park: Nothing too terrible. I think there’s a few things that are a little more questionable this season, but she means well. She always means well. She loves everyone, and I almost feel like she’s become the den mother and wants all of her children to get along. There’s definitely a lot more of that, but we all get into a little more trouble this season!

A lot of the trouble in Friends From College comes from the characters’ own miscues. What’s your reaction when you get these scripts and see what they’ve gotten themselves into?

I definitely think it’s always a bad idea. (laughs) But I love doing it because I know that my life is nothing like it. So it’s so much fun to be in that world, and the actors are such wonderful people as well. We have so much freedom on set, to do some of these crazy things and feel supported as actors and as people. It’s so much fun.

The show has an amazing cast including Cobie Smulders, Keegan-Michael Key and Fred Savage; what’s the experience like working with this ensemble?

It’s so much fun! It feels like camp because it’s six to eight episodes. It’s like going and doing a movie almost, like two and a half months, and most of us don’t live in New York so it’s like being in camp. We all kind of go back and forth quite a bit for work and families, but for the most part when we’re together, we spend a lot of time outside of work when we can. We’re always down for a drink. It’s really fun, and like I said, it’s such nice people as well, that it’s nice to hang out with them as opposed to just being on set with them.

You’ve done a lot of comedy, so is there something about comedy that particularly works for you? Or is that just how your career has gone so far?

I think all actors want to branch out and do different things. Everyone wants to grow and develop as an actor; I think that’s very important. But I started out doing live comedy for a decade—doing different live shows in Los Angeles, doing improv, doing all that kind of stuff, so I almost feel like I fell into it.

I never told myself that I want to be a comedic actress. I just kind of fell into it, and I think when you do one thing you’re kind of seen as that, especially in Hollywood. I don’t mind it, because I love comedy and I feel it’s kind of a natural thing for me. I’d love to grow and deepen my well but I’m thankful for all this stuff.

Your husband Randall Park is starring on ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat. Since you’re both working on comedies, do you collaborate with each other at all?

When we started dating and were first married, we did do a lot more things together. He was doing a lot more web shows and he’s still writing quite a lot. We’re not working together on specific projects, but we’re definitely doing things together, talking about the business.

Now we’ll celebrate our nine-year [wedding] anniversary, we’ve been together over a decade, and it’s really evolved. We used to always work on it together and now, we hardly ever do that. I just feel like it’s hard enough to have a marriage, hard enough to have a child, it’s hard enough to be in this business that marrying all of that together is just a lot.

For us, our priority is our marriage and our family. I feel like that it’s it. Our careers are separate and different entities. We love working together, doing something together, but that’s what’s been working for us.

Friends From College season 2 is streaming now on Netflix. For more on Netflix original series, see the Netflix Originals category at Netflix Life.