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From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Sam Brigger.
That's one of the songs that convinced Jeffrey Seller to produce Hamilton.
You know what the most important decision I ever make is as a producer?
What play to produce.
He made some great decisions.
He also produced Rent, In the Heights, and Avenue Q. His new memoir is Theater Kid.
Also, the new season of the FX show The Bear is now streaming.
We hear from actor Eben Moss-Backrack, who plays Cousin Richie.
He'll talk about his character's transformation over the years and what it's like to act out such frenetic scenes.
And Ken Tucker has a review of a new collection of Bruce Springsteen music songs.
Springsteen wrote and recorded from the mid-1980s to the late 2010s but hadn't released till now.
That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
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This is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Sam Brigger.
Terry has today's first interview.
Here she is.
My guest was a key behind-the-scenes figure in Rent and Hamilton, two Broadway mega-hits that opened the door to new kinds of musicals.
Each won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
My guest Jeffrey Seller produced Rent with his business partner.
Seller's own company produced Hamilton.
He was also a producer of Lin-Manuel Miranda's first musical In the Heights, as well as the satirical adult puppet musical Avenue Q and the recent revival of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Josh Groban as Sweeney.
You may assume that, since his skills include raising money to produce shows, that he's from money, but he's most definitely not.
His family was often broke or close to it.
He grew up in a neighborhood outside Detroit that was nicknamed Cardboard Village, because the houses were so cheap and shoddy.
His father worked serving papers, 20 bucks for each summons served.
His mother worked for low wages as a clerk at a neighborhood pharmacy.
The family couldn't afford health insurance, and Seller had serious respiratory problems.
Zeller has written a new memoir called Theater Kid.
That's a fascinating look into his own life and into different parts of the theater world.
His life in the theater started when he was a child and landed a role in a synagogue Purim play.
After many stops along the way, he became a booker with a job of booking touring companies of popular musicals into theaters around the country.
That work led him where he always wanted to be, producing musicals.
He also writes about coming out during the AIDS epidemic and how terrifying that was and how it wiped out so many people who created and performed in Broadway shows, as well as a significant part of the audience.
We recorded our interview June 17th.
A few days later, on June 23rd, an announcement was made that on that night a group of Democratic senators, along with Jeffrey Seller, would host an invitation-only Pride celebration at one of the Kennedy Center's smaller theaters.
This was not programmed by the Kennedy Center.
Seller was also part of a protest in early March when Hamilton canceled its scheduled run at the Kennedy Center in protest against President Trump removing and replacing 18 Kennedy Center board members who were appointed by President Biden.
Trump fired the chair of the board and took over that position himself.
In a statement explaining Hamilton's cancellation, Seller said, quote, Here's our interview.
Jeffrey Seller, welcome to Fresh Air.
Well, since this is the 10th anniversary of Hamilton, congratulations of Hamilton opening on Broadway.
Let's start there.
Thank you.
You had already produced Rent and Lin-Manuel Miranda's first musical, In the Heights.
When you heard In the Heights' mix of rap and Broadway music, you felt a little out of your element because you hadn't followed rap.
Had you listened to a lot more rap by the time of Hamilton?
No, I had, of course, become completely enamored with In the Heights.
And, you know, that first time Lynn Sang lights up on Washington Heights at the break of day.
It was so warm.
It was like this Caribbean water that's just enveloping me.
And then when, after that, the Broadway chorus came in with In the Heights, I Wake Up and Start My Day.
My God, I already had the goosebumps.
And in many ways, Hamilton was just Lynn's next musical.
Okay, so since you mentioned In the Heights and that opening song, let's hear it.
That was Abuela.
She's not really my Abuela, but she practically raised me.
This corner is her escuela.
Now, you're probably thinking, I'm up Creek.
I've never been north of 96th Street.
Well, you must take the A train.
Even farther than Harlem to northern Manhattan and maintain.
Get off at 181st and take the escalator.
I hope you're writing this down.
I'm going to test you later.
I'm getting tested.
Times are tough on this bodega.
Two months ago, somebody bought Ortega's.
Our neighbors started packing up and picking up.
And ever since the rents went up, it's gotten mad expensive.
But we live with just enough.
In the heights, I dim the lights and start my day.
There are fights and endless deaths and bills to pay.
In the heights, I can survive without the pain.
But tonight, he's like a million years away.
In Washington.
Next stop.
Okay, that's the opening of the Broadway musical In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's first musical produced by my guest, Jeffrey Seller.
So Hamilton was supposed to be a record.
That was the plan.
It was going to be called the Hamilton Mixtape.
And you convinced or helped convince Lin that it should be a musical, not just a recording.
How did you convince him?
Well, I'm going to give real credit to that to his colleague, friend, and director, Thomas Kael.
And Tommy had an idea, which is that if he could get Lynn to do a public cabaret performance of just the songs, that would persuade him that this could be a musical.
So in early 2012, they did like eight songs from Hamilton at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
And it was so clear from that performance that this was a book musical that after that I wrote a letter to both of them saying if you want to get going on a musical, I want to be your producer and I'll clear the decks.
I'll be your cheerleader.
I'll be your nurturer.
I'll be your critic if you want to go.
I had a new company at that point.
I named it Adventureland.
And I said, let's go on this adventure together.
And that was early 2012.
So as the lead producer, what was your role?
What was your job?
Sometimes it was to make lunch.
Like at one point, Lynn and Tommy and another writer we were considering working with came out to my house and they would work in the morning.
I would make egg salad with my own mayonnaise that I had learned how to make from the New York Times cookbook and serve.
But what I mean by that is setting the table for them to do the great work.
And giving them that space and giving them that praise when it was necessary, giving them that reinforcement and encouragement when it's necessary.
And then sometimes knowing when can I make a suggestion or not.
Can I sometimes knowing when is the right time to make a suggestion?
Tell us a suggestion you made that you think was really helpful.
You know, in the case of Hamilton, I would say I made less suggestions than I ever had before.
But, you know, one very important one was cutting the third rap battle in Act II.
You know, we had not two rap battles, but we had three rap battles.
You know, another situation was cutting the Dear Theodosia reprise in Act II.
I also seem to remember talking deeply about about how the set would be realized, which came later with David Korins and Thomas Kael.
I also remember talking a lot about the staging of Washington on Your Side, which may not have been in its best form the first time they did it.
Cutting.
Why was cutting the rap battle and the other song that you referred to?
Why was cutting them important?
And why did you think they needed to be cut?
How much can we as audience members take in?
We are not equipped for three-hour musicals.
And our musical already had a first act that was an hour and 15 minutes.
And, believe it or not, the second act was even longer, which actually breaks the rule that Oscar Hammerstein once said, which was that the first act is usually going to be twice as long as the second act.
Or let me put it another way.
The second act is going to be half as long as the first act.
And in our show, the second act was actually longer.
And one of our jobs is to really try to feel how the audience is going to stay with the show through every moment of the show.
And there's a moment where the audience, they can't take anymore.
Where are we redundant?
Where are we in a situation where we can actually lose something?
And in those instances I gave, and there were others in Act Two as well, that we succeeded.
What's the logic behind the second act being shorter than the first?
Because we give our greatest amount of energy to the show for the first act.
That's where you're establishing character plot, the rising dramatic action, that big dramatic question.
What is the major dramatic question?
And then in act two, we just really want to see it resolved.
And if you look at West Side Story, that's a show that has a 90-minute first act and a 45-minute second act.
Is there a particular song in Hamilton that, when you first heard the music from it, made you think this is great?
Well, Lynn shared with me the first songs probably around 2010, 2011.
And when I heard My Shot for the first time, I was like, whoa.
Like if In the Heights was this warm Caribbean embrace, My Shot was lightning.
It was a wallop.
And I knew he was taking this form to a deeper place that had even more impact.
And I knew he was on another creative tear.
Well, let's hear a little bit of my shot.
And of course, this is Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I am not throwing away my shot.
I am not throwing away my shot.
Yo, I'm just like my country.
I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot.
I'm going to get a scholarship to King's College.
I probably shouldn't brag, but dad got amazed and astonished.
The problem is I got a lot of brains, but no pot.
We'll be right back. that runs independently.
Meanwhile, Britain keeps f***ing on us endlessly.
Essentially, they tax us relentlessly.
Then King George turns around, runs a spending spree.
He ain't never gonna set his descendants free.
So there will be a revolution in this century.
And to me, he says in parentheses, don't be shocked when your history book mentions me.
I will lay down my life if it sets us free.
Eventually, you'll see my ascendancy.
And I am not throwing away my shot.
That's Lin-Manuel Miranda from the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton.
And my guest was lead producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller.
He has a new memoir called Theater Kid.
Was it hard to convince backers to invest in Hamilton?
Oh gosh, no.
Hamilton had this incredible power to galvanize audiences almost within minutes of any performance starting.
So when we started to share readings of Hamilton with people in the industry, they were going crazy for it.
So I raised the money for Hamilton faster and easier than I had raised money for anything else before.
We're listening to Terry's interview with theater producer Jeffrey Seller.
His new memoir is called Theater Kid.
We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break.
I'm Sam Brigger and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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Since you're a producer and part of your job is raising the money needed to produce the show and rent the theater.
Like I said in the introduction, people might assume you came from money, when the story is the opposite.
So describe your neighborhood that was known as Cardboard Village.
Okay.
Okay.
My father, who had inherited his family business, which was a tool business, bankrupted it by overspending and through his own manic behavior.
And then he was in a motorcycle accident on I-94 in between Detroit and Kalamazoo which caused brain damage aphasia, a kind of dementia, and disenabled him from working.
Our family wound up on welfare, and we lost our nice house in our nice neighborhood.
And we had to move to this neighborhood that the kids called Cardboard Village, because the houses were made of those shingles, those tar shingles, instead of bricks.
And instead of having basements, they were built on these 800-square-foot slabs of concrete.
You know, one teeny bathroom, maybe a carport, but certainly no garage.
And...
And that was the neighborhood where I grew up ultimately.
And no basement.
There was no place to shelter if there was a tornado.
Yeah.
So they'd like they would like tease you and say, you know, this is Michigan.
So they tease you and say, how you have nowhere to go.
Where do you go if there's a tornado?
And I would go, I don't know.
One of the craziest stories for me.
In the book your Hebrew school teacher is teaching about the Warsaw Ghetto during the Hitler regime, where all the Jews were kind of forced to stay.
And there was like no food.
I mean, it was horrible conditions.
And a kid asks her, like, was there anything contemporary like that?
And she says, yes, Cardboard Village.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just think, like, that's insane.
Like, I don't care how poor your community was.
It wasn't taking place during the Holocaust.
What was your reaction when you heard the comparison of the Warsaw ghetto to your home?
I wanted to disappear.
I wanted to... I was afraid I was going to be found out.
I was burning red.
I was... My heart was beating a million miles a minute, and I was...
Holding in tears.
And what I realized in retrospect is that it was inconceivable to this teacher that anyone in this class at Temple Israel could be that poor.
Right.
And you weren't very comfortable with the temple because most of the members were from an adjoining neighborhood that actually had money, which you did not.
Yeah.
So then your father.
Because of his traumatic brain injury, he became a summons server, you know, serving papers.
That's right.
Summons, subpoenas, all the different court orders to people in trouble.
Yeah.
So he dealt with deadbeat dads, prospective divorces, delinquent mortgage holders.
And when you were available, he'd take you with him.
But it sounded like a terrifying experience because he was a reckless driver.
And his way of serving papers was often very confrontational.
Like there were incidents that really left you terrified.
Would you describe one of them?
Well, I have this very strong memory of him like, come on, go serve papers with me.
And I didn't want to.
I didn't like it.
I didn't like going to these neighborhoods that were far from our house and leaving the house.
But he wanted my company so badly.
So I would say yes.
And I remember once going to this one neighborhood where the house doesn't look that different from ours.
It actually might have been a little bigger.
And he can't like he's banging on the door and no one's coming.
And then finally, this woman comes out and she is like you know, like she's wearing like a T-shirt dress.
And she's like kind of shaking her head.
No, no, no.
Meaning like whoever he's looking for isn't here.
And then from the other side of the house this guy comes around and he starts trying to kind of run away.
And my six foot three, 250 pound father starts chasing after him.
And then he winds up seeing, you know, getting him on the sidewalk in front of the next door.
Neighbor's house.
And they're like talking and I like roll down the window so I can hear it.
And then the neighbor who's actually living in the house next door opens the door and says leave him alone.
And then my father serves him the paper.
And then that guy screams to my father, get out of here, you pig.
And he used the F word.
And then my father ran up and put his hand through his window.
Yeah.
So, you know, during all of this, you fall in love with theater.
And was theater for you the kind of place you wanted it to be for others?
Like, you leave life outside the theater door and you immerse yourself in the characters or in directing or producing the show, and that becomes your world while you're in the theater.
I guess it became the greatest new world I could have ever discovered.
This world where we make plays and invent dialogues and create characters and build sets.
And I took it very seriously and I was incredibly rewarded by the audience reactions.
Yeah, because you started off acting.
Sure.
And then—I love this story.
You were in a play called Popcorn Pete.
It was a school play, right?
It was the community—it was the youth theater play, yeah.
Right, right.
It was the youth theater play from a local theater company.
That was an adult company but they had a kid's part.
Correct.
And it didn't do well.
You know, the theater was half-filled.
And you decided—because, like, it's not a good play.
It's not a good title.
Why would anybody come—
And so you asked to be on the committee that chooses the plays that the kids perform.
And in a way, like that's your first time you were a producer and you were how old?
13 years old.
Yeah.
And you had to convince the adults that you were worthy of being on the committee.
So was that a very empowering feeling, like helping to choose the plays?
Well, that was the first step I took toward becoming a producer, because you know what?
The most important decision I ever make is as a producer.
What play to produce.
And is that a reflection of my aesthetic, my values, my likes, the characters I care about?
So that was a huge moment for me.
And I want to also say at the time I didn't even know it.
I just knew we could do better.
And I started reading plays every weekend.
I would read all these different plays.
And that's where I started to learn what makes a good play and a bad play.
Jeffrey, it's been great to talk with you.
Thank you so much.
It's just been a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
It's been my great, great delight and pleasure.
Jeffrey Seller speaking with Terry Gross.
His new memoir is called Theater Kid.
Bruce Springsteen has decided to release seven albums worth of previously unreleased material.
The collection is called Tracks 2, The Lost Albums, a sequel to the first Tracks anthology in 1998.
The new collection includes songs written and recorded between the mid-1980s through the late 2010s.
The range of sounds and styles is considerable, from synth-pop to folk ballads.
Rock critic Ken Tucker has listened to all 83 songs and has a review of this trove of new Bruce music.
Thought that I was flying, but I'm crawling on my knees.
Everybody's got a, A workaholic and a pack rat.
Bruce Springsteen is known for the volume as well as the quality of his music.
These seven so-called lost albums each represent collections that, at the time of recording, were polished up and ready to go, but then were held back for various reasons.
I'll give you an example.
In the liner notes to the album now called The Streets of Philadelphia, Sessions Springsteen says this material, created mostly alone in the studio during the 1990s, would have followed quote three solo albums about relationships in a row.
He felt the sustained downbeat tone might test his audience's patience, so he switched gears, got the E Street band back in action and went in a different direction.
But it's nice to hear some of these quiet, intimate compositions, such as The Little Things.
She said we could just sleep together, There'd be nothing wrong.
Yeah, we could just hold each other with our clothes on.
I went to answer I don't think we should.
And I heard a voice say yeah, I guess we could.
She kissed me lightly.
Said, you know, sometimes when you're down, it's the little things that count.
It's the little things that count.
It's the little things.
The seven albums in this collection include Inyo, consisting of original folk songs influenced by Springsteen's motorcycle trips around California, Texas and Mexico.
There's another album called Somewhere North of Nashville, full of pedal steel guitar and the Bruce version of country music.
My favorite moment on that one isn't a Springsteen original but a lovely cover of Johnny River's great 1966 number one hit Poor Side of Town.
How can you tell me That you miss me?
The last time I saw you, You wouldn't even kiss me.
That rich guy you've been seeing Really must have put you down.
So welcome back baby, To the poor side of town.
Given seven albums of material, there are inevitable weak spots.
Faithless, described as the soundtrack to a Western movie that was never shot, is rather listless.
A slowpoke cowpoke.
Another album that's a kind of stunt is Twilight Hours.
By contrast, the best album of the seven is the L.A.
Garage Sessions, the sparse, lo-fi, one-man band recordings he cut in 1983.
This was after Springsteen's solo album Nebraska and before his huge E Street hit Born in the USA.
In the liner notes, he refers to these sessions as a critical bridge between those two albums.
It includes some marvelously unpretentious music, including the Beach Boys-ish Don't Back Down on Our Love and this song called Little Girl Like You that carries echoes of the Everly Brothers.
I want a little house, I want a little hill.
I want to settle down, yeah, think of her.
Settle down and find a little love that's true.
Settle down with a girl like you.
I seen a lot of girls, had a lot of fun.
Ran around a lot, now the run is done.
At its best, this capacious grab bag of music yields not just good songs, but songs that seem unlike anything else Springsteen has ever done.
From the album called Perfect World.
I love this thundercloud ballad called If I Could Only Be Your Lover, which sounds like the theme to a film noir not yet made.
Just another town, another house Boarded up, foreclosure signed Once.
This town, this house And you were my rusted latch On a backyard fence, The swing set swallowed up In weeds, Grown up Some back porch stairs.
I could only be your lover.
I'd never covered any of Most of these lost albums contain striking songs that would have deepened our understanding of both Springsteen's process and his value during any of the periods during which the music was made.
Spilling out these 83 tunes now is like finding the missing jigsaw puzzle pieces that enable fans to complete the full picture of who Bruce Springsteen has been for the past four decades.
Ken Tucker reviewed Bruce Springsteen's new collection of previously unreleased music.
It's called Tracks 2, The Lost Albums.
Coming up.
We hear from actor Eben Moss-Backrack, best known for playing Cousin Richie on the show The Bear.
I'm Sam Brigger, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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Our next guest, Eben Mas-Bakrak, has won two consecutive Emmy Awards for playing the role of Richie in the FX series The Bear.
The show, which has won 21 Emmys altogether, is now in its fourth season.
Mas-Bakrak spoke to Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado.
When we first meet the character Richie in The Bear, he's loud, abrasive, and ornery.
We get the sense that he's like this all the time, but he's also dealing with the recent death of his best friend and business partner Michael, and the return of Michael's younger brother, Carmy.
Carmi left Chicago to work at the world's best restaurants and now he wants to transform the neighborhood sandwich shop Richie used to run with Michael.
Here's Eben Moss-Backrack as Richie, with Jeremy Allen White as Carmi and Iowa Debris as Sydney, from the first episode of the series.
Hold on.
Listen, let's just have a conversation for a second.
Whoa.
What the f*** is this?
This is Sydney.
I'm staging today.
You're what-ing today?
That's Sydney.
She's helping us out today.
Cousin, you ordering different mayonnaise, bro?
Can I have one of these bananas?
No, all you, chef.
Yeah, all you, chef.
This man, he was using them to make a giant nut muffin.
It was a play on a panettone.
It would have been beautiful if you'd let me finish it, all right?
Richie Jaromovich.
Pleasure to meet you, sweetheart.
Don't say sweetheart, you weirdo.
Sorry, Carm.
You're so woke.
I mean, nothing by it.
Sydney.
I'm saying sweetheart's just part of our Italian heritage.
That's beautiful.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Okay, listen, I'm trying to talk to you, okay?
Don't be rude and start doing a million things.
I don't have time for this right now.
I got all kinds of receipts from my divorce lawyer backing up because all the time I've spent trying to put your family back together, because you're too much of a to come home.
The guys are texting me.
You're telling them to do all sorts of weird backwards.
Don't do that, Carmen.
Don't go messing with their heads and ordering different mayonnaise and hiring new bras without talking to me first.
This is your brother's house, okay?
Yeah?
Remember?
I was running it fine without you.
Why didn't he leave it to you then?
As the show goes on, the viewers grow to love Richie, learning all the ways that he's hurting, which include the end of his marriage and his worry about losing a relationship with his young daughter.
Moss Bachrach has won two Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for playing Richie.
He played Desi on the TV series Girls and starred in shows including Andor and The Punisher.
He's also appeared in many plays and films over the decades.
And next month, he co-stars in the next big Marvel film, The Fantastic Four, First Steps.
Eben Moss-Backrack, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I know that you're very protective of the characters that you play.
So I want you to know, I mean this in the best possible way.
I think that Richie is the character I've done the most dramatic 180 on, maybe ever.
We just heard Richie from the beginning of the series.
But as the show goes on, I know I'm not alone when I say that we're rooting for Richie.
I feel that in many ways, he's the heart of the show, which is a testament to the writing and to your performance.
What did you know early on about the journey that Richie was going to take?
I knew that this was a man who was suffering, who was finding himself in a world that he didn't really recognize anymore, who felt under threat, back against the wall, kind of trying to grab anything that could keep him afloat.
And somebody in that position, I think that kind of a part can hold...
A lot of volatile, dangerous, spontaneous behavior.
A lot can be justified by somebody who's fighting for their survival.
And then as somebody who's at a certain point in my life, I also related to this guy.
I'm just seeing so many things that I loved in my neighborhood, in my city changing and seeing things everything becoming a bank.
I really related to him in that way.
I will say that the bear can be a pretty stressful watch.
You know, there's yelling often, adrenaline always.
And there's, you know, this anxiety that pulses throughout a lot of the time.
What is it like to film?
Does it feel that pitched as you're doing it?
Does it feel that like high octane?
It's funny for me to think about like a set that would be Like how the scenes are.
Like they call cut, and then everyone's screaming at each other and putting out the cigarettes that were in the scene and then lighting up cigarettes that they're going to smoke in between takes.
No, I mean to make something that alive feeling in a way.
I think you know it takes an enormous amount of rehearsal between the actors, between the actors in the camera department and the props department.
Like.
We have such a deep and wonderful crew that you know it really requires a lot of sensitivity and listening.
I think the people involved in making The Bear listen a lot more than Richie, Sidney, and Carmi.
So it's a very loving, fun, calm, well-run set.
I want to play a scene from season three of the show.
The restaurant is getting off the ground, but both Richie and Carmi are still battling.
They've just had a huge fight on the first day of service for friends and family and they really yelled hateful things at each other.
The character Richie even calls Carmi Didi, which is Carmi's mom's name.
And calling that may be one of the biggest insults Richie could give, because you know that mom is pretty, you know troubled.
Anyway, they're trying to get back on track and have the restaurant be successful.
But they have different ideas about how to do that.
So here's the scene.
Hey, Chef Sid, have you seen my iron?
Also, when you have a sec, would you ask Chef Carmen what the I did with my tables out front?
Chef Sid, would you please tell Richard that I thought I would set him up for success and arrange his tables in a more efficient pattern.
Is that what you did?
Yes, that's what I did.
It was really funny.
I walked in, and it was so strange.
It looked like the person who had done it previously had never left the city of Chicago.
I can leave the city of Chicago out of it.
Zero flow, no efficiency, so I thought I'd give you a hand.
Chef Sid, would you tell Chef Carmen that I can give him a f***ing hand if he wants?
If he wants to give me a f***ing hand, he can give me a hand.
I just might suggest that the both of you stop, because I don't like this at all.
Sid, it's fine.
Chef Carmen uses power phrases because he's a baby replicant who's not self-actualized, which is maybe why he repeatedly referred to me as a loser.
Richie, I apologize.
No, no, no, it's all good.
I don't need your apology.
I know how you feel now.
Also, I respect your honesty and bravery from inside a locked vault.
You know what?
Matter of fact, Chef Sidney, I don't remember Richard apologizing for all the shit.
He was literally screaming at me while I was in the fridge.
Like I love you?
Nope.
What?
You know what?
Out there, that's my dojo.
Shit gets rearranged without my approval or consent.
It creates an environment of fear, and fear does not exist in that dojo.
Richard?
I added more two tops because all those four tops were nonsense.
Okay?
I moved the flowers because Jesus Christ, that was a lot of flowers.
And I said I'm sorry, but I can't.
Apologizing.
And you're screaming.
Am I?
Yeah, yeah, you are.
Oh, yeah, that's rich.
Is it f***ing rich, Richard?
You want to get the f*** out of my face, Carmen?
And you both.
Shut up.
Please.
Sorry, Sid.
It's just textbook sublimation.
You've seen it once, you've seen it a thousand times.
I actually don't know what to do right now.
That's a scene from season three of The Bear, with Io Debrey, Jeremy Allen White and Eben Moss-Backrack.
When a scene is like that, with that much screaming, is it written that way or are you sort of improvising how you approach the arguing?
That scene.
To quote Walter in The Big Lebowski, eight-year-old's dude.
Um...
That scene was as written.
I mean, you know, at this point in Richie's life, you know, he's trying to do some work.
He's reading some self-help books.
And you know I don't really have that kind of vernacular at my disposal.
And I'm sure there were some changes in words from take to take.
But yeah, I wouldn't call it like improvising.
There's an episode that's focused on Richie's character called Forks.
And it's great and it sort of marks a transition for Richie where he seems to find new purpose.
It's season two.
They're trying to open the restaurant, and Carmi has sent your character Richie, to train at another restaurant, one that's called one of the best restaurants in the world.
I've read that you found filming this episode to be lonely.
It's a quieter episode, and you're really the only member of the regular cast in it.
What was it like filming this one?
Yeah, I mean, I found it lonely in a way.
I thought the lighting was cold.
It had a very different color to it than the rest of our episodes.
There's usually a real warmth in the bear and this one felt kind of blue and austere, almost like an operating room.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I really love the people I work with and my favorite scenes to shoot, like we said, are like the group scenes where you know I'm talking with Liza and Lionel and Edwin and everyone's sort of talking over each other and there's this shorthand.
I was working with all new actors.
I remember the layout of this restaurant was so confusing.
I could never find where the bathroom was or where my little.
I carved out some little.
I put my chair in like some corner where I could sort of be alone and look at my lines and think about scenes and stuff.
And I could never find my way back to it.
I was just confused, I think, most of the time.
I think that comes out in the episode, actually, that starkness and that confusion.
Yeah, I mean, it's an episode that I don't.
I've seen it once kind of through, you know, like squinting eyes behind hands.
It's just a lot of me, for me to take in, to be honest.
One thing that's heartbreaking about Richie is how he mourns the end of his marriage.
And because of flashbacks, we know that it seems like on the timeline.
As recently as five years ago, Richie and his wife were together.
They were about to have a baby and they were very much together.
But by the time we meet Richie, five years later, his marriage is over and his ex-wife is with someone else.
And I want to play a scene from that episode, Forks.
Richie is working at the Michelin star restaurant for that week.
He's taking a break and gets a phone call from his ex-wife played by Gillian Jacobs.
Hey.
Hey, how are you?
I'm great.
I'm great.
What's going on?
Is Eve okay?
No, she's great.
She's totally great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yo, uh, Jimmy, um, I got those Taylor Swift ticks.
You did?
Yeah.
Oh, she's going to be so excited.
I know, right?
It's incredible.
Actually, I got three if you want to come, you know.
You don't have to.
No, no, no, it's, I, that's so sweet.
That's so sweet.
Um, I, I just, uh, I know you're really busy, so I wanted to just tell you something.
Um, and it's a little bit hard to say.
Okay.
Are you alright?
I'm fine.
Yeah, I'm fine.
I just wanted you to hear it from me.
Frank proposed to me.
What'd you say?
I said yes.
He's like a really good guy.
That's great, Tiff.
Thank you.
And I want you to know that nothing's going to change between us.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And I love you.
That's a scene from season two of The Bear.
Will we learn more about what happened to their marriage in that relatively short period of time?
Yeah, that scene.
Bear.
A comedy.
Yeah, that scene's brutal.
First of all, Gillian Jacobs, such a great actress.
I love working with her.
Unfortunately, most of her scenes are phone calls because they don't have much of a relationship anymore.
Actually, I do think there's a lot of tenderness there and she genuinely loves him.
Do we learn more about what happened with them?
We spend more time with them together as parents, as exes.
In terms of like a literal sense of like a flashback of the two of them.
That's not something that we've shot.
Do you do work to fill in what might have happened to them?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I spend a lot of time kind of daydreaming and thinking about these things and filling in the blanks.
And these are thoughts and fantasies and ideas that I will never share.
Yeah.
Understood.
I think one thing that makes viewers love Richie is the way that he is with his daughter.
Even though he's divorced.
He's so devoted to her and doing the right thing by her and trying to be a good dad.
You have two daughters and I think that being a parent of girls can be a very specific parenting experience.
What did you want to make sure that you brought to Richie as a father?
I mean some of the things that are challenging for him and making it difficult for him to navigate his way through the world, like loyalty, honesty in a way.
You know, these things, I think, are sometimes hindrances, and sometimes you know they're really great qualities.
And I wanted...
I wanted to see the kind of converse of some of these things in his relationship with his daughter.
Obviously, he's a dad that would do anything for his daughter, like so many parents, like most parents, I would say.
And then he's really into her world.
And where he doesn't listen as well on the outside with her.
His time with her is so limited that it's so valuable.
And I think each minute is something that he really invests himself and tries to be present in a way that he's not when he's at the restaurant.
I also, I don't know, I just enjoy doing scenes with that little actress so much.
I think she's so great.
And I don't know, she's so fascinating.
She's such an eccentric young girl.
There's a scene later in that episode where Richie has completely won everyone over at the fancy restaurant.
He's really getting it and getting the value of his work.
And he's driving home singing along to the Taylor Swift song Love Story.
And it's this great triumphant moment for Richie.
How did that moment come about?
Like, was that always the song?
I read you weren't necessarily a Swifty before you shot this.
It's just such a great moment.
Yeah, it is a great moment.
I'm not going to comment about my swiftiness or non-swiftiness, but that's a minefield.
Either way, it's just... I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, I can't believe I did that to you.
Yeah, please, please.
Come on.
But I think that scene is a great scene.
And it's so nice to spend just a few minutes singing something loudly and celebrating and having exuberance and driving and singing along with a song that you love loudly.
I mean, that's such a... visceral, great kind of release.
Something that we don't see that much.
I think in movies and TV shows or certainly certain stuff that I'm not being asked to do all that much.
So yeah, I really enjoyed that evening.
I love those speed bumps, i love the squeaks, the squeak of the suspension in the car, but that was always written with that scene.
I'm sure it was a process finding her, tracking her down, getting permission to use the song, but i don't really know about the the details of that process.
Well, there's something perfect about that song because it's like a triumphant young love story which seems like an echo to Richie's story.
And then also just that he got her Taylor Swift tickets.
That's like, I mean, that's like dad of the year material.
So I feel like it just wraps it all together.
And then also as you're driving, you're still cursing as you're driving.
The character Richie is still cursing at other drivers, which I think is also pretty Richie.
Yeah, and what you couldn't see is all these Arby's, these empty Arby's cups in the back seat just jumping up with every kind of speed bump, the chaos within the car.
Eben Moss-Backrack, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me.
Eben Moss-Backrack spoke to Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado.
The Bear season four is now streaming on Hulu.
Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Sam Bricker.
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