Bostonia: How did you initially become involved with The Bear?

I got a call from Eli Bush in Scott Rudin’s office, who at the time was producing partners with Rudin. I had done France Ha and Mistress America with them. They thought I would be a good fit for Eighth Grade, which was directed by Bo Burnham, the comedian. That became this wonderful sort of summer camp movie experience. The producer on that was Chris Storer, and his longtime partner, Gillian Jacobs, was an old friend of mine from another project I did. The three of us sort of became bosom buddies over the course of the years after Eighth Grade.

Chris comes from this culinary family and was attempting to tell [The Bear] more as a long-format narrative film project for some time. And, eventually, he reconfigured [the story] for television, which allowed him to explore individual characters that he would have never had the room to do if it was a movie. 

It was the first project that I had been able to engage with after COVID, during which I had been sitting on my butt for three years; I had, like, five movies fall apart in a row. When COVID hit, I was designing this giant Sesame Street movie for Warner Brothers that fell apart. So, I was really, really excited that the first thing back after COVID was going to be with one of my closest friends, finally getting to do this thing that he’d been trying to do for years. I was on a plane to Chicago the next day. 

Everybody was really excited to just make something cool and get back to work after being in an uncertain position for so long. I’m always hesitant to verbalize it this way, but The Bear was one of those [situations where] you’re having so much fun making something that you think there is no way this is going to be good, because there were no problems, it was an absolute pleasure. It was just one of those dream projects where everybody’s giggling, everybody gets along. Everybody’s on the exact same creative page about what the project needs to be and wants to be. And then it turns out exactly the way you hoped.

It was a wonderfully lucky experience. My biggest career regret is that schedule-wise, I couldn’t stick around for the series and had to go back to New York. I was contractually obligated to jump on another movie that didn’t wind up coming together. But it was probably the most fun I’d had up until that point in my career on a set.

I think they’ve done incredible work on the series, and the designer who took over is amazing.

Bostonia: What research and prep work did you do for The Bear’s pilot?

Chris Storer’s sister, Courtney “Coco” Storer, is kind of this hot shit LA chef. And they come from this culinary family who are as intense as the show portrays [Carmie’s family]. So, you’re coming in hot with this kid who knows everything about food and the dining experience, not just the preparation of it. So, there was this “hit list” of must-do, must-eat, must-tour, must-visit Chicago, most of which was explored in season two, when Ayo [Edebiri]’s character [Sydney] is navigating the town to get spiritual guidance for the rest of the recipes.

And then there was also this old-school niche thing of like what the narrative language of the space wanted to be, and how we could do middle-class sandwich culture justice. We used a practical location for the pilot that we didn’t make crazy alterations to. We sort of embraced the narrative language of what that space actually is, and that was a childhood hangout of Chris Storer’s when he was a kid.

And so there was this dichotomy that this [place] was of wild importance, it’s this Michelin chef climbing down into the gutter. But there is also this navigational responsibility for us as storytellers, too, to engage both with high Chicago cuisine, and also the everyman side of things. So, that was a big part of the preparatory period, in terms of navigating the look of the show, and that translated also into aesthetic references for what both the color palette and narrative language are going to be. 

I think there are some narrative threads that have hung around [since the pilot], things like Mikey and Nicky, the diner scenes, or the bar scenes. Chris and I talked about these very fly-on-the-wall, trophy-actiony movies from the 1970s that were inspirational. It’s because you’re injecting narrative tropes into a very real-world environment, and all of a sudden it becomes a lot more fun to watch.

Bostonia: The kitchen spaces you show in The Bear are lauded for being very authentic, capturing the true chaos and hectic nature of a chef’s work. How did you go about creating these for the pilot?

It was a nightmare. We used a defunct restaurant kitchen, so we didn’t have to build the entirety of the space from scratch. And then it became this ballet of navigating the blocking in almost the way you would shoot a dance film or something—and by that I mean the level of innate ability that Chris Storer brings to directing. He gets to set like 18 hours earlier than everybody else, sits there, and conducts the blocking in his head to try to navigate how best to be a fly on the wall in a space that is hectic. [We talked about] whether or not we should open up avenues for camera access, but he felt we should have to exist in the practical space. Walls should be walls, and the camera has to work within the confines of that space. 

The oppressive nature of the kitchen environment and the freneticism of having to navigate real food on screen, and having these things help define the cinematic language for the show, works, I think, in a really effective way.

Bostonia: What was your reaction when you learned you had been nominated for an Emmy?

Because I’m in New York and my agents are all in Los Angeles, nobody told me, because they were still asleep. And then a decorator friend of mine, one of these guys who gets nominated every year, texted me at nine in the morning congratulating me. I had no idea what was going on because I didn’t know they were making the announcement that day. I Googled myself, and then immediately called my parents. At that point, I quietly did a little dance in my apartment.

I’m a bit skeptical of an accolade for design in general. It’s easier to identify great performances on screen. But I think that really effective production design inherently should disappear, because you shouldn’t be pulled out of the narrative. And as much of an honor as it is—I’m over the moon, I can’t express how thankful and excited I am—the stuff that I’ve done in my career that I’m proud of, be it The Bear, the Safdie stuff, or [May December], I’m always innately concerned with the fact that if you stop as an audience member and say, “Wow, this is a great looking movie!” then you’re not paying attention to the fiction. And so I’ve sort of been proud to never get noticed for anything, because then I feel like I’m doing an effective job.

Bostonia: What’s next for you?

There are a couple of things coming up in 2024 that I’m excited about. I’m actually working on a diner right now with some friends in New York that we started during the strike. Yes, it’s an actual diner, not like a movie project, like an actual diner, which is going to be exciting.

I’m potentially doing a little short format project with Josh Safdie in the next month or two, and then, hopefully, starting a new Todd Haynes picture, which will be a 1930s period piece.