‘The Bear’ Star Ebon Moss-Bachrach on Cousin Richie’s MVP Season 2

The Bear’s Cousin Richie, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, has come a long way from when viewers first met him as a curmudgeonly creature of habit who’s quick to fight his cousin, Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), and his sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) at every turn. When Carmy returns to The Beef after his brother Mikey kills himself and takes the reins back from Richie, who’s been at the helm in the interim, he’s resistant to the changes Carmy wants to implement while also navigating his grief about Mikey, his divorce, and sharing custody of his daughter. Overall, things aren’t looking up for Richie.

But there’s a glimmer of hope for everyone at the end of Season One when Carmy discovers his brother left him hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in tomato cans. The money, plus another loan from Uncle Jimmy, helps them build an upscale restaurant in place of The Beef, aptly named The Bear. Over the course of the second season, Richie leans into his new role at the restaurant and especially finds himself when he trains at a Michelin star restaurant under a chef Carmy also worked with and learned from, gaining confidence and the realization that he is, in fact, built for this world. Despite his initial hesitations, Richie changes his tune and finds a sense of purpose in opening The Bear.

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Richie evolves, grows, and realizes that he’s always had what it takes to succeed and make significant changes in his own life for the better. Viewers see his character struggle and endure hardship, but ultimately triumph.

Moss-Bachrach has played a host of compelling characters over the years, from Marnie’s volatile musician-husband Desi in HBO’s Girls to David Lieberman in Marvel’s The Punisher. He even appears in Jennifer Lawrence’s latest comedy, No Hard Feelings, which was released one day after The Bear’s second season started streaming on Hulu. Of all the major and minor roles throughout his career, Moss-Bachrach says Richie is a special one.

You made the first season of The Bear in a vacuum. No one knew just how much it would take off. What was it like to film Season Two knowing that it was such a highly anticipated show and everyone was going to pay close attention?
Obviously, it’s impossible to tune all that stuff out. When we got back on set, those expectations and that fear existed. I mean, there’s such a host of different anxieties and fears that I have when making something that’s just a part of the chorus of things that I have to try to tune down. Then you get into the scenes, and it goes away pretty quickly. But absolutely, we made it in a vacuum the first time around. I was really proud of it, but I had no idea if anyone would like it. I thought if anything, because I thought it was really good that probably meant that it was going to be a complete failure critically, and so that was just a total shock to me and to Jeremy [Allen White] and me and Ayo [Edebiri]. Maybe [showrunners] Chris [Storer] and Joanna [Calo] knew. They’re smarter than we are, and maybe they knew. But I guess when we came back to make the second season, the biggest emotion I felt was joy to get to be back with this group of people that I love and get to do it again. It felt like such a bonus.

Fans and viewers see a lot of growth and evolution from Richie this season. What was it like to film the “Forks” episode where he goes to stage at an upscale restaurant in Chicago? 
We shot at a restaurant called Ever, which is a two Michelin star restaurant in Chicago, and the chef is Curtis Duffy. They were nice enough to let us shoot there, although I’m sure we paid them tons of money. Richie’s crisis, journey, quandary, whatever you want to call it, is very clear: He’s a man who wants to stay involved in the restaurant, he doesn’t really know how he fits into the new thing, and he also knows he’s wanting to change to stay there, but he doesn’t know how to change. That’s the thing about blind spots: If you can’t see them, you don’t know what to do about them. In this episode, he begrudgingly goes to work at a place that’s completely antithetical to what he likes. It’s rarefied, expensive, prohibitive, elitist, fine dining, a place that everything in his makeup is set against, and through the course of this episode, he rebels against it, he resists it, and then allows a little bit of it in by the end. The really revelatory moment is when he goes out to get some deep-dish Pequod’s Pizza to give to customers, and he realizes that in this Michelin star, fancy restaurant, there actually is a place for him, and a place for Chicago, and a place for tradition, and deep dish, and he feels like the new doesn’t necessarily have to erase and eradicate the past. They can maybe exist together, in a way.

He grows, but the essence of it is that the things that are most essential to Richie — a little bit of razzle-dazzle, Chicago accents, being a man of the people — still feel valuable there. He has to change to allow himself to see that, but actually, the things that are the most him don’t really have to change, and I think that’s the big revelation — that he has an inherent value.

This episode is also when we learn the story behind the phrase “every second counts,” which holds a lot of meaning in Season Two. How do you think that philosophy applies to Richie?
I think that’s a phrase that can mean so many different things to so many different people at different times in their lives. “Every second counts” is something that applies to everyone as mortal creatures; everyone has it in their programming. We’re all going to the same place, nobody gets out alive. I think what that means for Richie is just to be present. If you’re going to do something, really try to show up even if your issues aren’t totally resolved. Put your criticism aside and just show up.

And what a cool surprise to see Olivia Colman on screen and be the person to deliver that message.
I was surprised, too. They said she was going to do it, and I was still a little bit surprised when she showed up on set. I was like, “Oh wow, this is real.”

What was it like to work with her?
It was great. I mean, she’s such a good actor. When she showed up she said in her perfect, beautiful accent, “Oh, I do hope I don’t screw anything up. I really hope that they like me,” and I was like, “OK, stop it, you’re Olivia Colman. Come on.”

Another significant shift for Richie after the “Forks” episode is his relationship with Sydney. What do you think about the evolution of their relationship?
I think it’s surprising, but I think when people have a common goal or common enemy that can happen. With Carmy being locked in the walk-in refrigerator [in the finale episode], the two of them are locked in with this common goal and this need to just get through it. There’s no time for either of their egos to seep in, and they recognize each other’s value. Maybe they don’t even really recognize each other’s value; it’s just about the task. Sometimes you just have to do what’s in front of you.

I thought it was a nice moment between them in the finale episode when Richie calls in Sydney to the front of the restaurant to get her blessing to officially open the doors for the friends and family run-through, and then she gives her go-ahead by saying, “Let it rip,” an homage to Mikey Berzatto.
I think Richie really does extend an olive branch to her. I think it’s probably his responsibility to do it because I think his behavior has been so out of line with her that it’s on him to sort of apologize, which is not to say that I don’t think that she’s without flaws. Both of them are not on their best behavior with each other. But he’s in a place where he’s feeling OK about himself for the first time in a long time, which is enough for him to reach out and call her chef and show the respect that I think she deserved.

It was also nice to see Richie apologize to Sugar. Why do you think that scene was an important moment in his character development?
He says at the end of that scene, “I need this place to work,” and I think he needs it in a very real way. He really, truly needs it — not for a paycheck, not just as a job, but literally to give his life meaning. He’s got absolutely nothing else going on, so it’s a little bit of that rock bottom kind of feeling. He knows this is all he has, and he has all his cards on the table.

We learn more about Richie’s backstory in the nearly hourlong “Fishes” episode, which is a flashback to a Christmas dinner at the Berzatto home. Mikey is still alive, and we meet a host of new family members and characters, including the Berzatto’s mother, Donna. It was also such a star-studded episode with Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney, and Gillian Jacobs. What was it like to film that episode?
It was different. I mean, it’s just an extraordinary episode in many ways beyond just the incredible guest stars. I think it’s a very special hour of cinema, TV, or whatever you want to call it that shows a flashback to a deeply fucked-up night. It was very exciting to make. I love our normal set, I love our ensemble, I love our crew — that feels like home to me. But even then, it was like throwing a dinner party with different people who brought in different energy, and certainly the energy that those foreign actors brought was incredible. I was nervous that their own kind of celebrity might distract from the story, but they were all so committed, so in service of the story, and humble.

What kind of insight do you think “Fishes” gives viewers about who Richie is?
I think that that episode shines a light on what could have been. He’s a concerned and excited father-to-be. In that scene between Richie and Uncle Jimmy where he’s saying, “I’m not sure I want to be at The Beef all the time; I’d love to get out and do something else,” you see sort of a fork in the road and he went one way instead of another, and you see what potentially could have been if he took a different road. It’s nice to see him be romantic with his wife, Tiffany, played so beautifully by Gillian Jacobs. In that scene upstairs in the bedroom with the two of them, you really see it’s a very tender, real, loving relationship, and I guess you get to see what he’s lost. I think that Christmas for him is so beautiful. It starts off so great: Everyone is there, Mikey is alive, Richie’s wife is there and she’s pregnant, Donna’s there, and Carmy came home. We see Richie alive and happy in a way that we don’t get to see him much in the present day. I think he’s having a great, great night.

A lot of people in that episode are not having a great night.
I think because he’s not Donna’s biological kid, there’s a difference for him. I think he has a pure, less complicated love and reverence for her. I think they have a really great relationship.

There are lots of chaotic moments in this series, but in this episode we see so much mental, emotional, and physical chaos. Does it affect you to film those kinds of scenes?
Sometimes it does. For that scene at the dinner table [when Mikey is throwing silverware at Uncle Lee], they would call cut and everyone would kind of just sit there quietly for a few minutes because it was so problematic and gnarly and just ugly, what was happening. For the most part for me personally, I like to rest and change the temperature in between takes because when it comes to all of that emotional stuff, if you’re doing it all day long, just from an energy standpoint, it’s very hard to maintain that all day. You’re going to get tired, and then you’re not going to be able to do it. I like to just chat with somebody a little bit or maybe play some chess on my iPhone. I can’t stay in that place all day. I found that that doesn’t work well for me.

Even though Richie grows a lot this season, the final episode shows high-stress moments when they do their run-through at The Bear. When Carmy locks himself in the fridge, the two of them really get into it. What did you make of their fight?
For me, that fight really comes down to the way that Carmy treats Claire. Richie is a very loyal, caring, loving person. For all of his faults, he cares deeply about people, he has a set of morals, and it feels like Carmy isn’t treating the woman that he loves well. I think he’s crossing a line for Richie, and I think there’s a very old-school kind of moral code that Carmy has crossed, and it pushes Richie’s buttons and he hits the fucking roof. He says, “What did you do? What did you do to that girl? What is wrong with you? What did you just say?” We did many different versions of the scene, and I have to be honest with you, I haven’t seen it yet, so I’m not sure exactly how it comes out onscreen. In one version Richie was saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over again to Carmy.

Were all of the different versions scripted, or were you riffing?
There was a script, and we would stick to the script, but we were encouraged in that moment to lean into, what’s it called, lizard brain? Some sort of primal scream. That’s sort of what we were looking for there.

The end of the first season felt pretty optimistic when Carmy found all of the money Mikey left him in the tomato cans, but the Season Two finale didn’t quite have that same feeling. Where does everyone go from here?
I think optimism is a bit of a big ask for this show. This show deals with fragility. People can make strides and make progress, but it’s also easy to slip back into old behavior. From where I stand, that’s a theme of this show. So, I don’t know. I’m not sure what the fate of The Bear is. I don’t know where they go from here.

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