Warning: Minor spoilers for The Bear season 2!The Bear follows a young chef from the fine dining world that comes home to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop after a heartbreaking death in his family. At the end of the first season, Carmy makes the decision to upgrade their small shop to more of a hot spot dining experience. The Bear season 2 picks up almost exactly where it left off, showcasing the team as they must tear down and rebuild, learning a lot about themselves in the process.
Liza Colón-Zayas plays Tina, who was there from the start but has had a fear of ageism and misogyny in her workplace. She has changed a lot along the way, starting the new season by heading to culinary school to hone her craft. The Bear season 2 premiered on June 22 with all ten episodes available to binge now on Hulu.
Screen Rant spoke with Liza Colón-Zayas about how far her The Bear character has come since the beginning of the first season. She also discussed tasting the delicious food on set, what she was most excited for fans to see in season 2, and how the show has bled (no pun intended) into her real life. Liza confessed how she felt after the first season of The Bear received such a positive response, as well.
Liza Colón-Zayas on The Bear Season 2
Screen Rant: I love this show. What did it feel like to get such a positive response to the first season from viewers?
Liza Colón-Zayas: It is a gift from the universe because we are having so much fun. There is so much love on that set, behind the scenes, and in the writing. I thought this is so specific when we were shooting the pilot. Like, "This is great and weird," but I'm weird, so I don't know how it's going to translate to others. It's so specific. Then it got picked up. And then the love from people in hospitality and the respect is mind-blowing. It's almost too good to be true. I'm still pinching myself.
Screen Rant: In the beginning of this season Sydney asks Tina to become her sous chef and go to culinary school. How did you feel when you first read that in the script?
Liza Colón-Zayas: Man, I feel validated. I have watched cooking shows for years. I binge them. To be given something like this... look, I cut off the tip of my finger last week, trying to be cute. I's not bad. Thankfully it wasn't a gusher. I felt validated, and even more included into this family, my The Bear family, than I already did.
Screen Rant: What was it like having your character going to culinary school? Did you really do some training?
Liza Colón-Zayas: I was sent to prepare for the second season. I had a week intensive with a David Waltuck, who ran this restaurant, Chanterelle. My first day I had so many slices because the knives are so sharp that you don't feel them slicing you. He was so patient and hilarious, and then he'd be like, "It would be good if you don't get blood all over the potatoes." We did that really intently.
Then Courtney Storer, our co-showrunner Christopher Storer's sister, is a phenomenal chef. I love her so much. She was staying upstairs, so we're in the same building, slicing and dicing, and making stocks, just to help me be functional. Hopefully I'll be able to do more of that which I was trying to do when I cut up my finger.
Screen Rant: What do you hope for Tina in the future?
Liza Colón-Zayas: To stay employed. No, but seriously that people continue to respect and believe the job that I'm doing and to carry that respect into the workspaces. To not be dismissive to people who look like me in the kitchen. For them to be treated with less disrespect, humanized, and paid better.
We're all fighting. Everyone's fighting a battle. But these folks, predominantly migrant immigrants, predominantly people who may be living in the shadows, now this becomes your family because you're spending so much more time with them than your own family. None of us would eat another hamburger again without them. Let's get out of this mindset that it's sexy and cool to be a dictator.
Screen Rant: All the food on this show looks so good. Do you get to actually eat any of it?
Liza Colón-Zayas: Not as much as I want to! You want to dig in, but sometimes things have been sitting there for a while. But when we're tasting, we're actually tasting. Jeremy is right in front. He actually created that chicken piccata, and I don't even like capers, and it was so amazing. There's so many things, the risotto, the mashed potatoes. Courtney Storer, Matty Matheson, they got your back. I love them so much. I just want to try to do justice and give respect to what Tina is doing at the level that she's doing it. She's not as Sydney's level, but she continues to surrender to seeing Sydney as her peer.
Screen Rant: Yeah, Sydney believes in her.
Liza Colón-Zayas: Yeah, she does, and she trusts her. I'm excited to see those bonds and that growth deepen.
Screen Rant: What were you most excited about when you got the scripts for The Bear season 2?
Liza Colón-Zayas: It's hard without giving away spoilers, so I am just going to be really generic. I am excited to be entrusted with being able to up my game.
Screen Rant: I can't wait to see the rest of the season.
Liza Colón-Zayas: It's not all hunky-dory, though. What I love about this season is stepping back and having more focus on the individual characters and their struggles and their insecurities and their fears and their dreams and how they find inspiration. How that mirrors what they're going through, and how that mirrors trying to see this restaurant. It's a made family. A chosen family.
Screen Rant: Is that how it feels with these actors in real life?
Liza Colón-Zayas: Yes. It's not like we hang out all the time, but the love, the camaraderie, the respect, is there. The laughs! I can't be around Matty Matheson and Ebon Moss-Bachrach without being a giggling fool. Those two guys, anything they do is pure gold for me. I love them all very much.
Screen Rant: How would you say Tina has grown since we first saw her at the start of season 1?
Liza Colón-Zayas: Her fears are real. Ageism, misogyny, how she had to survive in a male dominated environment. She had to be the way she was. I think that her ability to give over to trust and to learning, it's so important that we see that. It's a luxury because most women my age, in that environment, are not going to be given those opportunities. Gentrification, turnover, all of those fears and insecurities, these are real. That's what I love about that show. That people will see not everyone is dispensable.
About The Bear Season 2
Season 2 of FX’s The Bear, the critically acclaimed original series, follows Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) and Richard “Richie” Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they work to transform their grimy sandwich joint into a next-level spot. As they strip the restaurant down to its bones, the crew undertakes transformational journeys of their own, each forced to confront the past and reckon with who they want to be in the future.
Of course, it turns out the only thing harder than running a restaurant is opening a new one, and the team must juggle the insane bureaucracy of permits and contractors with the beauty and creative agony of menu planning. The transition brings a newfound focus on hospitality as well. As the entire staff is forced to come together in new ways, pushing the boundaries of their abilities and relationships, they also learn what it means to be in service, both to diners and each other.
Check out our other The Bear Season 2 interview here:
- Lionel Boyce
- Ebon Moss-Bachrach
The Bear season 2 is now streaming in its entirety on Hulu.