‘East of Eden’ Stars Unpack the Trask Family Dynamics

Avery ThompsonSat, October 3, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC

0

Joe Anders, Hoon Lee, and Joseph Zada of 'East of Eden' -

For the early 20th century, the Trasks have quite the unconventional family dynamic. Shortly after giving birth to twins in East of Eden, Cathy Trask (Florence Pugh) leaves her family behind to work (and eventually own) a local brothel.

Lee (Hoon Lee), a Chinese immigrant, joins the Trasks as the family cook and servant prior to Cathy’s departure, and steps up when Cathy abandons her family and Adam (Christopher Abbott) is left devastated. Lee asserts himself as a parental figure in Cal (Joseph Zada) and Aron’s (Joe Anders) lives and even tells Adam not to interfere with how he raises the boys. Joseph Zada and Joe Anders spoke with TV Insider about how what Lee’s presence means to Cal and Aron.

“For me, I like to think of Lee as my mother,” Zada said. “That’s how I treated him. That’s how vulnerable I could be around him. There’s a different way that you behave around your mother and your father, and it feels like subconsciously he’s adopted a way of having that relationship with Lee.”

He continued, “And so I feel like, as well, it meant as an actor, I was able to be a lot more vulnerable and go to different places to benefit that relationship and to benefit my own performance. So whenever we have our scenes together, I’m a lot more comfortable, and I’m a lot more, I can say what I mean and mean what I say.”

Kirsty Griffin / Netflix

Anders added, “I totally agree with the whole mother thing. I mean, it’s almost like he’s like a spiritual placeholder or something for a mother, so it allowed me and Joe, when we had our moments with Hoon specifically, and got to share scenes with him, to be a lot more vulnerable and and a lot softer.”

Advertisement

The Trasks are the family Lee’s always wanted. The actor explained that his character doesn’t fully realize the integral and lasting role he can have within this family until he decides to return from San Francisco. In the end, he’s the one who holds the family together.

Related

Florence Pugh & Mike Faist Break Down That Surprise 'East of Eden' Reunion

“Caleb and Aron, they are proxies for that dream of his, but it’s a dream that he questions whether he has any right to hope for, and so it’s a distant dream,” the actor noted. “It’s an unattainable dream until his return from San Francisco, when he’s decided to engage with his life in a different way, and engage with the family in a different way. So, in that way, there’s quite a lot of hard longing for the family, and that’s one of the major thematics.”

He pointed out, “It’s funny in thinking about this book and in thinking about this story so much, you realize that in many ways everybody’s fighting to somehow be alone, and what they all need is to actually be together. And Lee, I think, is one of the few people that natively understand he wants to be together and feels he’s denied that. And so I think that he’s hesitant to reach out for that, but they represent sort of the fulfillment of his dream.”

East of Eden, Streaming Now, Netflix

Watch the full video on TV Insider.

Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”