Hulu’s series The Bear proved there’s no such thing as too many chefs in the kitchen after two seasons of star-studded cameos.
The show, which debuted in June 2022, explores the food industry through the lens of a talented chef named Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), who returns to Chicago to run his older brother Mikey’s (Jon Bernthal) restaurant following his death.
Season 1 focused on Carmy’s attempts to help the sandwich shop thrive as he deals with his own grief. The initial episodes served as a jumping off point to the show’s second season — which followed Carmy, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and other employees at The Beef as they opened up their new restaurant on a very tight deadline.
In the middle of season 2, The Bear pivoted to a flashback Christmas episode that allowed the audience to see the unstable dynamics between various Berzatto family members such as Carmy, Natalie and Mikey’s mother, Donna Berzatto, who was played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Halloween star took to social media in June 2023 to open up up about bringing the complicated character to life.
“The secrets is out. We all have them. Every family. Every human being. The center of the brilliant masterpiece that is commonly referred to as @thebearfx is the story of a family secrets and the concentric circles of rage and trauma and grief and humor that revolve around, Carmen, Sugar, and Michael Berzatto,” Curtis captioned an Instagram post at the time. “When I saw the first episode of the first show, last summer and Sugar asks Carmen if he had spoken to their mother, in that second I knew that I would play her. Don’t ask me how. I just knew.”
Curtis referred to Donna as the “role of a lifetime” after joining the cast. “There’s not a person alive who won’t relate to what it feels like to be around someone like Donna Berzatto. I certainly have my own experiences. That’s what makes the show so magnificent,” she continued. “We can relate and commiserate and celebrate all of our communal survival in this thing called…. life. Thank you Chris @chrisstorer and the ENTIRE BEAR family of creative human beings and scene partners for allowing me in to let it rip!”
While Curtis manifested her role on the show, Bernthal’s journey was very different when it came to his pivotal appearance as Mikey. Bernthal joined the cast in season 1 after his former Punisher costar Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Richie on the series, recommended him.
“They were trying to cast that role Michael for a while. And they asked us, ‘Does anyone have any ideas?’ And they asked me and I was like, ‘I don’t think we should ever see him.’ Because when you talk about somebody, and hype them up so much, it’s always a letdown,” Moss-Bachrach told Cinema Blend in June 2023. “And then it did occur to me one day, and I was like, ‘Well, I do think Jon is such a charismatic and hilarious dude.’ I was like, ‘He actually would be really great.’”
Moss-Bachrach noted that it was easy to film Richie and Mikey’s moments, adding, “We really enjoy working with each other. So, he was happy to come. Even without reading the script he was like, ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll come I can do it. If we can make it work. We’ll do it.’ It was really cool. It was awesome.”
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Scroll down to see every star-studded cameo on The Bear so far:
Yana Grebenyuk
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