“Best Workplace Drama Since Mad Men”: The Sandwich Makers Who Shook The World | the television

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When The Bear hit screens in the US this year, it arrived with few expectations. A mini-drama based on indie vibes about a sick Chicago sandwich shop, it came with a semi-acclaimed cast and content creator best known for directing stand-up specials. Three months later, when it debuted in the UK, the hype was palpable. And now? The consensus is that it may be the best workplace drama since Mad Men.

The story of Carme Perzato, a famous chef who returns home to save the family business after his brother commits suicide, the bear reaches for the mare and never stops. There is a premonition. There is a mess. There is an episode delivered in one breathless take. The bear has been such a sensation that media coverage has long since crept from the pages of television. We’ve seen articles on food, music, and even my favorite brand of T-shirt, Berzatto. It has been called the sexiest show of the year and the most stressful. In an age dominated by spin-offs, imitations, and prequels, people have moved on to this original series very much like it was a long-lost relative. And the show’s crew is as surprised by his success as anyone else.

One of them is Ebon Moss Patrach, who plays the warrior Ritchie. “I would tell people about the show and say, ‘Well, it’s about a young chef who has to come home and take over his family’s beef sandwich shop,’” he said, speaking from his home in New York. “And people would look at me like, ‘What?’ Staring blank I’m going to get You know, you only get so many blank stares before you turn into self-doubt.”

Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richie Photo: Frank Oakenfels/FX

However, Moss Patras knew they were on to something special. “The writing was exceptional,” he says. “And when I got there, the cast was really strong. Most importantly, everyone was kind, enthusiastic, happy, and hard-working. I was starting to get paranoid. There’s a saying, ‘If you look around the room and you can’t see an asshole, you’re an asshole. ‘”

But a good environment doesn’t automatically translate into a good show. “Whether anyone will see it, we had no idea,” he adds. “Probably no one else would, and he would slip through the cracks because he’s such a weird little stranger from the boiling red-haired stepdaughters from the show.”

Ayo Edeberry, who plays Chef Sydney, similarly wondered if The Bear would ever find an audience. “I felt like we were all being challenged in ways that were new and exciting and different,” she says as she walks through her Los Angeles neighborhood. “At the time, I was reading a lot of segments that were like, ‘Why does positive TV matter,’ saying that people just want good time from TV. And I said, ‘Well, that’s not it.’”

Then there’s Jeremy Allen White, the 31-year-old New Yorker who plays Carmie. The reaction to The Bear was so volcanic that White’s career went above and beyond. As we speak, he’s in Toronto, filming the sci-fi flick Fingernails with Riz Ahmed and Jesse Buckley, having just wrapped a wrestling movie with Zac Efron called The Iron Claw. “I finished two weeks ago, and I’m in Toronto for a week,” he sighs on Zoom. “Another week here, and then I’m home for Christmas. It’s been a lot, but it’s been exciting.”

More than anything, White is excited that The Bear has found fans. “When we aired in the US, our producer Nate sent us a list of the most watched series in the last two weeks,” he smiles. “It was Star Wars and Star Trek and Ms. Marvel, and then Bear. I thought it was so cool that we could be on the same list as these huge TV shows. It’s space. It’s superpowers. It’s the lightsaber. And then we’re, you know, A show about people trying to make sandwiches together.”

Which may be a little undersold. Part of the bear’s appeal is its sheer sense of chaos. “We wanted to make the audience feel anxious,” White smiles, then goes on to talk about the show’s creator. “Chris Storer and I talk a lot about Uncut Gems and the frantic energy they have. We talk about what we can do to try and capture a similar energy.”

Ayo Addebiri as Sydney. Photography: Matt Dinerstein/FX

Much of that energy comes from musician Bachrush’s Richie, as loud and obnoxious a character as you’ll ever meet. Some have claimed that Richie is the most dangerous man on television, although Moss Bachrach disagrees. “I sympathize with this man,” he says. “I met someone the other day who said, ‘Man, you’re a walking idiot. ‘ But I think everyone on this show is kind of a prick. Richie’s a strong flavor in the soup. But it had to be.”

Although The Bear is ostensibly about Carmy, the characters Edebiri and Moss-Bachrach are an integral part, in that they have very different visions of the restaurant. Sydney is eager to push boundaries and win critical acclaim, while Richie desperately resists change.

“Ritchie comes from a traditional place and wants to serve the people in the neighborhood,” says Moss Patras. “And Sydney’s idea to change it and make it more than it used to seems simple to me. But those two ideas are irreconcilable.”

This tension is what makes The Bear so compelling. And according to Edebiri, Sydney’s entire personality was on the page. She laughs, “When I first read Sydney, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a person.'” It doesn’t really feel like a device. She feels like a real human being. It was great to play a black woman who doesn’t have all these ideals. She doesn’t get up on the soapbox and say, “Here are my thoughts on race, gentrification, working in a capitalist society, power structures, and how power structures intersect.”

The Bear is a career changer for 27-year-old Edebiri. Although she was trained as a teacher, and worked briefly in west London—”I never felt more certain I was on the wrong track than when I was trying to teach Shakespeare to high school girls in London as an American”—comedy was her home. Until The Bear, she is best known as a stand-up and TV writer, working on Apple Dickinson and What We Do in the Shadows. Was it weird acting in a show she had no hand in writing? “When I’m in the TV rooms, he’s always on other people’s shows,” she says. “This is all about collaboration. You’re helping someone achieve their vision. This job is just a different way of exercising those muscles.”

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This was also a particularly important year for 45-year-old Moss Bachurch. And although he’s been working hard for more than 20 years, he’s had three blows on his hands this year. In addition to starring in Best Guardian Show of 2022, two other shows made his Top 50: Star Wars series Andor (playing Arvel Skeen, who Andor joins in heisting Aldhani), and The Dropout, in which he played Wall Street Journal writer John Carrio. Who helped expose the Theranos scam. “It’s very hard to do a TV show at all, let alone put on a good show,” he says. “So, to be a part of Three Fabulous People, I’m kind of pushing my luck.”

It was three completely different experiences for him. “In Star Wars, I was a very small cog in the thing,” he says. “I was just looking through the little keyhole in this world. We made maybe three episodes of Andor in the time it took us to make eight episodes of The Bear.”

and drop out? “I just thought it was going to be bad,” he shrugs. Is that true? “I don’t want to get into the dramatization of recent events,” he sighs. “I was like, ‘Okay, well, Theranos podcast is really great, and the documentary about it is great. But what do we really have to gain by seeing a group of actors play these guys? “I was completely proven wrong,” he says. “The series has its own life and energy, and it really throws some real insight into the story.”

Matty Matheson as Neil and Jeremy Allen White as Carmie. Photography: Matt Dinerstein/FX

Without giving too much away, The Bear season 1 ended with a twist that gave the characters a way to do anything they wanted with their lives. As such, season two could go anywhere. When I talk to them, the cast has been two weeks away from seeing any scripts. However, that didn’t stop them from speculating as much as the fans. Moss-Bachrach hopes the new season will take its cue from the real-life experiences of Matty Matheson, the professional chef who plays the handyman on the show.

“Matty has opened many, many restaurants,” he says. “While we were shooting, he was opening up his amazing, this place in Toronto called Prime Seafood Palace, a no-compromise restaurant that he’s always wanted to build. It looks incredible, and they just knock it off the ground. But I mean, seeing one side of all this The phone conversations he had every day on set? Like, it’s a very fraught process. Most restaurants aren’t likely to be successful. And so I think it would be really cool if we saw that rebuild from the beginning. The whole season, just to get to opening night.” .

During our conversation, White lets two things slip away. The first is that season two of The Bear will contain a few one-off episodes that focus on peripheral characters. He also reveals that he will soon be spending time with Chef Dave Beran at Pasgoli Restaurant in Los Angeles. “He’s working on a new restaurant,” he says. “So I’m going to join him and see if I can learn to build something from the ground up.”

Edebiri, meanwhile, essentially sees the end of season one as a missed opportunity. “It’s really funny to me that these people walked out. They could have gone, but, no, they’re going to do another,” she says. “It’s like, yeah, of course you can’t help yourself. This is your thing. This is what you have to do, even when it’s a huge stressor and exhaustion.” And there is, in short, the whole appeal of The Bear.

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