‘DMV’: Randall Park Breaks Down Beau’s Ice Cream Negotiation

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for DMV Season 1 Episode 7, “There Is No I in DMV.”]

DMV welcomed a new branch manager into the mix with its latest installment, “There Is No I in DMV,” as East Hollywood’s Barb (Molly Kearney) and colleagues infiltrated the North Hollywood branch helmed by Beau Young (Randall Park).

Touting the best branch in town, Beau’s team appears to be everything Barb wants her group to be: adoring of her and a well-oiled machine. But the facade is merely that, a facade, when Barb goes to the North Hollywood DMV with Colette (Harriet Dyer), Gregg (Tim Meadows), Noa (Alex Tarrant), and Vic (Tony Cavalero) in tow.

While Barb is eager to pick Beau’s brain to understand how his team is able to keep a short average time at the windows, helping customers, Noa tests the windows and finds himself tossed back and forth between stations in his attempt to register a vehicle. Meanwhile, Colette tries to prove to Vic and Gregg that she can be a rule-breaker as the boys hunt down North Hollywood’s rumored soft-serve ice cream machine.

Bertrand Calmeau / CBS

Beau is an arrogant leader, calling Barb by the wrong name when she makes an introduction to him, and as he wheels around the DMV floor in his Heelys (just barely), Barb is mystified. While Beau continues to be rude during a conversation in his office, Barb wishes to rally her team, only to learn they’ve stolen North Hollywood’s copier machine, and she’s forced to make them return it after a misunderstanding.

Upon returning the machine, the group realizes Noa’s ordeal tells a different story about the North Hollywood DMV, and Barb puts the pieces together that workers send customers to different windows when they reach a five-minute mark, allowing average times to be nearly half of what they are at the East Hollywood DMV. The realization puts into perspective that Barb does have a good team behind her. Perhaps the funniest moment of the episode, though, is Gregg and Vic’s negotiation with Beau over taking some soft-serve ice cream as a parting gift.

Below, Park opens up about reuniting with Fresh Off the Boat collaborators Dana Klein and Matt Kuhn, reveals whether he’d return as Beau, and breaks down that hilarious negotiation scene.

What interested you in taking on this guest-starring role on DMV?

Randall Park: I’d say at the top of the list was Dana [Klein] and Matt [Kuhn], who I had worked with on Fresh Off the Boat. I just adore them. If they need anything, I’m happy to help them out. Another thing was the opportunity to play a villain. Any opportunity to play a villain is always welcome for me because I’m known for playing pretty amiable, nice people, so to play a very conceited, conniving person, it’s always fun. And I’m a big fan of Harriet [Dyer] and Tony [Cavalero] and Molly [Kearney] and the whole cast, and then of course Tim Meadows… Any chance to even meet Tim Meadows, let alone to act with him, was just something I couldn’t pass up.

Bertrand Calmeau / CBS

Speaking of Fresh Off the Boat, you played a series regular on a comedy for so long. What’s the best part of being a guest star?

It’s all fun to me, but I think that a guest star, especially on a show that shoots away, as this show, and many shows do nowadays, it’s always fun to go away for a few days and explore a new city, but then also see a cast that’s gelled, to feel the dynamics and be a guest in their home. You get to come in and have fun, and you don’t have to clean the dishes afterwards, you’re just a guest, and it’s really nice when the cast and crew are, are good hosts and accommodating, and this group of people in particular are just wonderful.

Your character, Beau, sports some interesting footwear. Was it fun leaning into the physical comedy with those wheely shoes? Did you have any challenges with those? 

In the original version of the script, I was supposed to be an expert at them, gliding around the DMV, but I had never worn those before, and it’s very hard to get around on those… I felt like I was learning to roller skate or ice skate for the first time, and so I had a really tough time, and it was kind of a crash course for me. I just wanted to not fall, and so the way you see me moving around onscreen is actually me trying hard and trying to get some momentum to actually move, but then I could only move like a foot or two. I guess the physical comedy was me genuinely trying to move and to balance myself on those things.

I’d be scared to fall.

I fell while practicing. I couldn’t even stand upright. I was so cocky going into I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get it. I’m gonna get it,’ and it was so hard.

Barb really reveres Beau when she meets him because of his 10 and 2 cover. What was it like working with Molly during those moments of interaction between your characters? 

Molly is amazing. I was a fan of watching Molly on SNL and Barb as a character; there’s an innocence about her, and I think a purity about her that Molly captures so well. It was just great fun working with Molly.

How was it filming that negotiation scene with Vic and Gregg? That traffic cone as a soft-serve receptacle seems nasty.

There’s a hole in the traffic cone! That was so fun, in large part because I got to work with Tim Meadows and Tony, who I was a fan of from Righteous Gemstones. So, getting to work with these two people that I admired so much, in one really silly, ridiculous scene, was fun, and we played around. I feel like the whole time I was there, there was just this really loose environment; it felt very playful, which you want in comedies like this, just to explore a little bit.

While this is a guest star role, is there any chance we’ll see Beau again? After all, he is the manager of the North Hollywood branch.

I told Matt, whatever he needs or wants, I’ll be there. I’d be happy to come back if that’s in their plans, which I hope it is, because it’s just so fun playing Beau. I just kind of always have a mustache at the ready to come back, but yeah, it’s definitely something I casually brought up to Matt like, ‘Hey, if you ever need me, I’m, I’m happy to.’ So hopefully, I will get to come back.

DMV, Mondays, 8:30/7:30c, CBS