Who in ‘The Bear’ Cast Actually Has Some Skills in the Kitchen? (VIDEO)
As we saw with the first season of the breakout dramedy hit The Bear — besides the incredibly tense moments and jaw-dropping performances by lead (and Golden Globe winner) Jeremy Allen White as the classically trained chef Carmen “Carmi” Berzatto, who comes home to his family’s Chicago-based sandwich restaurant — this is a show for lovers of food. We’re talking about how the series lovingly shows the cast prepare it, taste it, and serve it. In fact, if you’re not hungry by the end of an episode, it’s only because you were eating while you watched.
As we prepare for the launch of Season 2 on FX on Hulu on Thursday, we were dying to ask the cast who actually had some skills in the kitchen and had the chance when they stopped by our press suite during January’s Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena. The cast was leaving for the Windy City soon after this interview to start shooting Season 2, so details on the new episodes were under tight wraps.
For Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays fiery Richie Jerimovich, he had to do the opposite of train for the myriad of cooking scenes in the series. “I like to cook a lot in my own life, so I had to unlearn,” he told us during the interview. “I had to just go back to a time before I could rattle the pots and pans.” Other cast members like Ayo Edebiri (Sydney) knew her way around the kitchen but still needed some additional guidance for a sense of realism. “The training was just getting it to a place of natural ability,” she said. “What does it look like when somebody’s cooked for years professionally?”
Liza Colon-Zayas researched her role as the often hot-tempered Tina by watching a woman in a real restaurant handle the male workers around her. But the actress also said she now knows how to correctly chop onions (and offered to help us with our own skills)!
Also during the chat, we had to ask Edebiri and co-star Lionel Boyce (Marcus) about the sparks viewers have seen between their characters. Watch the above video interview to see what they had to say as well as hear from co-stars Abby Elliott (Natalie) and Edwin Lee Gibson (Ebraheim).
The Bear, Season 2 Premiere, Thursday, June 22, Hulu
