DUBAI: What a difference a year makes. In the summer of 2022, “The Bear” — a series about a chaotic kitchen in Chicago led entirely by non-stars — was dumped on streaming with zero fanfare. Now, its second season is the most popular television show of the summer across the world. There’s a lesson to be learned there: Make something authentic and unique, and it will resonate the world over.
“This is the first time I’ve made something that even my parents see the magnitude of,” Lionel Boyce, who plays Marcus, tells Arab News. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to create something that people are really talking about everywhere, that they quote to their friends. In some ways, that didn’t seem possible anymore. But now I’m actually able to say, ‘This is what it’s like.’ This is what I always wanted.”
Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu and Lionel Boyce as Marcus. (Supplied)
While the show is often stressful to watch, as the characters grapple with the demands that come with trying to make a mediocre restaurant into a superlative one, part of the reason it resonates is the good-heartedness that the show emanates. There’s empathy for each fully-realized person and their struggles, and there’s a palpable sense of community that forms between them as they support each other through life’s biggest obstacles.
That community-mindedness also exists behind the camera. The show is the brainchild of creator Chris Storer, who served as an executive producer and director on the series “Ramy” before branching out and creating his own show, inspired by the life of a childhood friend as well as the career of his chef sister Courtney Storer, who now serves as the show’s culinary supervisor.
Jeremy Allen White as Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto. (Supplied)
“Courtney was instrumental for me, because I would go to her house and practice making things, to learn not only how a real kitchen works, but also to discover the joy of cooking. She would ask me, ‘What do you want to make?’ and we’d end up recreating things I loved in childhood, like the “Flintstones” popsicles that the neighborhood ice cream man used to sell, or experimenting with wild things like persimmon ice cream. I felt like a kid again standing next to my mom in the kitchen, it was incredible,” says Boyce.
For the second season, Storer brought his regular collaborator Ramy Youssef into the fold to direct the fourth episode. When all’s said and done, Youssef believes, he may be more proud of the fact that his series has spawned so many flourishing careers than he is of “Ramy” itself.
“It’s amazing that we’ve created this ecosystem where we all cut our teeth together and now can fracture out into a million different places, and then we can all support each other on those separate journeys,” Youssef says.
Lionel Boyce as Marcus. (Supplied)
“I’m so excited that some people will watch ‘Ramy’ and then discover ‘The Bear,’ or watch ‘The Bear’ and then discover ‘Ramy,’ and then discover a show like ‘Mo’ from Mo Amer. We have a shared creative and spiritual language, and it truly feels like a collective, where we all have our hands in each other’s creations, and our personal bonds help nurture our creative ones. People always say that their cast and crew is ‘like a family,’ but for us it truly is,” Youssef continues.
Another key aspect of the success of “The Bear” is its documentary feel, which comes from Storer’s commitment to doing only a few takes and working quickly so that no scene ever feels overly practiced. The show’s most acclaimed episode consists of a single 18-minute take, which they managed to capture in a single morning.
“We did it in only two takes. We were done by 9 a.m. that day,” says Matty Matheson, who plays Neil on the show (in addition to being a real-life celebrity chef). “We didn’t want it to become too rehearsed, so Chris said, ‘That’s it. We got it.’ I honestly requested to have as few lines as possible in that episode, because I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it for everybody else.”
For Storer, according to Boyce, a small mistake would not have ruined it, as embracing life’s chaos is the point of the show.
“He kept saying, ‘I don’t want it to feel too perfect.’ He’s someone who’s worked every job in this industry, and so we all trust him to make our imperfections work,” Boyce says. “And, at this point, that’s obviously something the world loves just as much as we do.”
