The Hulu series The Bear has been praised for its accurate portrayal of restaurant life, with chefs yelling at each other as they scramble to keep up with a barrage of food orders. But actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays abrasive and ornery cook/maître d Richie, says the show's set is nothing like what we see on screen.
"It's a very loving, fun, calm, well-run set," Moss-Bachrach says. "To make something that alive-feeling, in a way, it takes an enormous amount of rehearsal between the actors, between the actors in the camera department and the props department. We have such a deep and wonderful crew that it really requires a lot of sensitivity and listening."
Moss-Bachrach has won two best supporting actor Emmy Awards for work on The Bear. Though his character initially comes across as antagonistic, the show's first three seasons show Richie struggling with the end of his marriage and worrying about maintaining a relationship with his young daughter.
"I knew that this was a man who was suffering, who was finding himself in a world that he didn't really recognize anymore," Moss-Bachrach says. "As somebody who's at a certain point in my life, I also related to this guy of just seeing so many things that I loved in my neighborhood, in my city, changing and seeing things, everything becoming a bank. I really related to him in that way."
Moss-Bachrach grew up in Amherst, Mass., a college town in the western part of the state. He describes it as a "really nice childhood," filled with reading, riding bikes, playing Dungeons & Dragons and hanging out in the woods.
"Things are probably not all that different now — I love all that stuff still," he says. "I remember feeling lucky — even at an age of like 14 or 15 when you're not feeling particularly gracious towards your family or your surroundings — but I remember [thinking] you know what? This is not too bad."
Interview highlights
On shooting "Fishes," the infamous Christmas dinner episode of The Bear featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk and John Mulaney
That scene at the dinner table we shot over an afternoon. It was different. All of a sudden, there were SUVs on set, and the food was a lot better. … I think that they rolled out the red carpet a little bit for all of our esteemed guest stars that week. It's funny because these were actors [who are] so high-powered, we all know their work so well, but then they were guests on our set and one thing I've noticed over the years that I've done this is, like, no matter how experienced you are, and how many sets you've walked onto, it is always a little bit nervous and you feel a little bit shy. … So I was sort of observing these incredibly talented actors experience that.
On filming the episode "Forks," when Moss-Bachrach's character, Richie, does an apprenticeship at one of the city's best restaurants
I found it lonely, in a way. I thought the lighting was cold. It had a very different color to it than the rest of our episodes. There's usually a real warmth in The Bear and this one felt kind of blue and austere, almost like an operating room. I really love the people I work with and my favorite scenes to shoot are the group scenes … and everyone sort of talking over each other and there's this ... shorthand and here I was without any of those kind of hallmarks of the experience that I'd grown to love and look forward to, and I was working with all new actors. I remember that the layout of this restaurant was so confusing. I could never find where the bathroom was or where my little chair [was] ... I put my chair in some corner where I could sort of be alone and look at my lines and think about scenes and stuff and I could never find my way back to it. I was just confused, I think, most of the time.
On his brief appearance as a bellhop in The Royal Tenenbaums
It's such a good movie. I'm so happy to be a part of it, even in this tiny, tiny little way. … It was the second time I was on a set, probably my first time in such a fancy hotel. I remember mostly Wes Anderson's attention to detail, him coming down like a tailor and sort of adjusting the hem of my pants, fixing my hair, adjusting my little pillbox hat. I got that part because I had a good head of hair. … It kind of explodes. It's like an upside-down volcano or something.
On joining the cast of Girls in season 3 as Desi, Marnie's musical partner turned husband (then ex-husband)
I watched a little bit of it the first season, but I also was so jealous that I wasn't [on it]. I really wanted to be a part of it and so it was complicated for me to watch it. … And then once I was working on it, I wouldn't watch it much just because … I didn't want it to make me self-conscious.
I saw [Desi] as a little bit of a con man, really well put together on the outside, but a lot of crisis and chaos going on internally, a bit of a searcher. I feel like he was not committed, necessarily, to acting. He was a musician, I'm sure he painted, just kind of doing a lot of different things, which is fine, I guess … If I'm being really not charitable maybe [he wore] pre-distressed jeans. But also somebody that felt very deeply, loved deeply ... a baby.
On starring in Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway next year, opposite his Bear co-star Jon Bernthal
My process right now is to pretend that it's not happening for as long as possible and to delay, delay, delay. I'm very, very, very excited to do this thing and to spend a few months with my dear friend, Jon, and I'm sure it'll be a wonderful cast. I like nothing more than working on new American plays. It's kind of my favorite thing to do, to be in that rehearsal room when the writer's there, the writer is alive, they're there. It's a work in progress. It's a deep, deep collaboration between writer-director, dramaturg, and the whole cast. It's like everyone's getting their hands dirty. I find that just really exciting. To me, it's the closest you can get to kind of being in a recording [studio] making like a record where people coming in fiddling and tuning the drums and changing things around it feels very alive and exciting, and it's been a long time since I've done that.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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