THE BEAR’S LIONEL BOYCE ON MARCUS, SYDNEY AND THE INTENSITY OF SEASON THREE

Lionel Boyce is relieved. The third season of The Bear, in which he plays the only calm person in the kitchen, pastry chef Marcus, is finally out. The show has been shrouded in secrecy and the 33-year-old actor had been feeling some spoiler-related pressure.

“The whole time you're just thinking, ‘I don't want to be the one to spill the beans. I don't want to be the one where you see the headlines like ‘Lionel Boyce said XYZ’ and that everyone else managed to be quiet except you.” (It’s worth stating here that yes, this article contains spoilers for The Bear Season 3.)

Boyce and I are speaking via Zoom from his London hotel room. He’s just begun the UK leg of the press tour. A mere three minutes before Boyce’s flight departed Los Angeles, the show premiered, meaning the California native spent the journey distracting himself by watching Please Don’t Destroy and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (again). “The entire flight it’s in my mind, like it's out and it’s real but I have no access to anything at all. It was a funny 11 hours.”

The Bear arrived on our screens via Disney Plus after a buzzy US debut in 2022. It was instantly praised for its depiction of a chaotic Chicago restaurant, the sharp writing from creator Chris Storer, and the balance of comedy and intense drama. The cast, including Jeremy Allen White as head chef Carmy, became household names. The second season upped the stakes, with starry cameos – hello, Olivia Colman – and water-cooler episodes: “Fishes”, depicting what might be the most toxic family meal witnessed on TV, “Forks” containing one of the best uses of a Taylor Swift song in a drama and “Honeydew” in which Marcus flew to Copenhagen to work on his dessert skills (opposite Will Poulter and directed by Ramy Youseff).

In the season two finale, amid a chaotic restaurant re-opening in which Carmy locks himself in a fridge, Marcus has a tense exchange with close friend, and possible new part-owner of The Bear Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) after awkwardly asking her out only to be friend-zoned. Before the credits roll, the camera shows missed calls on Marcus’ phone from the nurse caring for his mother in hospital. The third season picks up with a grieving Marcus (his mother’s death is confirmed in episode two) returning to work, and the rest of his colleagues supporting him at the funeral. “Yes his Mum died, that’s the first time I’ve said those words.

“Grief has always been there since the beginning of the show, the show starts with it so this is exploring it in different ways. Everyone's at a different stage of it and Marcus hasn't necessarily explored this so it’s come to him and he deals with it in a different way than every other character has. Marcus also has this newfound creativity on one hand, and now this real-life situation has happened. How grief can affect creativity is I think what Marcus is exploring.”

What’s his take on where Marcus and Sydney are at now? “They’re friends. Being in proximity with work, chemistry is chemistry but sometimes it gets confused, like are you a friend or are you more? Syd was very clear Marcus was a friend and then Marcus maybe was like, I don't know if this is more. But now, this situation has happened where his mother has died so his mind has completely shifted somewhere else. [The moment with Sydney] is now a trivial thing that’s in the past. Syd is actually a friend who cares about him, she's there to support as she knows what it's like to lose a parent.”

Boyce is full of praise for his castmates including Edebiri who made her directorial debut this season, with episode six “Napkins”, which focuses on sous-chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas). “I've told both Liza and Ayo that I think it’s one of the best [episodes] just from the series. Liza is an incredible actress and you can't get enough of her, you're watching her for 30 something minutes, and you're just like, ‘this is a masterclass’. I think Ayo does a really good job of being specific in making it feel in the world of The Bear, but it still feels like her DNA. I think that's all you can ask for with a directorial debut.”

The cast spent about three months together shooting in Chicago, hanging out at weekends, including one where they flew back to LA together to attend the Golden Globes. It was Boyce who had the daunting task of delivering the acceptance speech for Best TV Musical/Comedy series. “It's just huge stars and they're just staring blankly staring at you,” he recalls of the moment. “There was literally not a thought in my mind, it was like autopilot. It all happens in 40 seconds because you're actually more nervous of getting the music turned on. I was like, it's not like I'm accepting for myself so if I have the music turned on for accepting for our show that's just embarrassing. Let me get through this speech and get out of here.”

The magnitude of The Bear's success was once again proven to Boyce earlier this week at the show's first proper glitzy LA premiere (there was a small premiere for the first and the second season was released during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA).

“For the network and everyone to do this huge premiere, where they shut down Hollywood Boulevard like an Avengers movie, it was insane and overwhelming in a very positive way.” The best part for Boyce? The food, of course. He name drops chefs who cooked for the event, including from Chicago’s Avec and LA’s Alta restaurants. Naturally, he praises pastry chefs like Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader who made the chocolate cake in season one and Malcolm Livingston, who Boyce had trained with ahead of the third season.

“Chris had mentioned [Livingston] to me before and I learned about him, that he’s a Black pastry chef and [I] was like, that’s very cool. I was inspired by the way he approached things. He showed me where the margins were. Yes, it is a science, and there's certain things that have to be precise and exact, but everything else is free flowing to a certain degree, things aren't as like exact as you think everything needs to be.”

It's clear Boyce is taking The Bear in his stride. The show wrapped weeks ago, catapulting the actor into talk show appearances and red carpets almost immediately afterwards. While he has other projects on the horizon, including a part in Max Minghella’s Shell alongside Elizabeth Moss and Kate Hudson, for now he’s looking forward to his time in London. “It’s one of my favourite cities in the world,” he says. "I'm always trying to find a way to live here.”

What’s on the agenda? He wants to catch up with friends, see Jeremy O Harris’ Slave Play when it opens on the West End, and, in characteristic form, “get some good meals in”.

The Bear season 3 is streaming on Disney Plus now.

2024-06-29T08:10:13Z dg43tfdfdgfd