‘The Bear’ Stars Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott Break Down That Emotional Sibling Flashback | Video
“The Bear” is back and just as stressful as ever. But, in a deviation from the typical intensity associated with the FX show, the Season 3 premiere was actually very calm, largely playing out in flashbacks — including a pivotal sequence between Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy and his on-screen sister, Abby Elliott’s Nat.
The episode, titled “Tomorrow,” has very little dialogue, with the meat of it coming in a conversation between Carmy and Nat as he prepares to leave for New York. The moment is a flashback to a time before Season 1, even before Mikey (Jon Bernthal) died.
Carmy and Nat are waiting for the train that’ll take him to New York City to begin his training as a high-end chef. As they wait, Nat makes her concerns for her little brother obvious, knowing where he’s at mentally. It’s a deeply personal moment, and one White and Elliott took very seriously.
“A really important scene in the show, and between Nat and Carm, was sort of like, the scene in the pilot, where I get Mikey’s jacket from Sugar,” White recalled to TheWrap. “There’s so much that exists within that scene, but there’s so much that’s unsaid. I feel like this scene was another version of that one.”
He continued, “So often and so frequently, Sugar does this beautiful thing where she’s really reaching out to Carmy. And he feels incapable of reaching back or being like, accepting in some kind of way. I think for that scene, for Carm, he just felt like he had to go, there was nothing left for him in this place anymore.”
For Elliott, the key to this particular flashback was harnessing her character’s desperation.
“She’s like, ‘Please don’t leave me here with our family,'” she told TheWrap. “‘You know, I’m desperate for you to stay, you’re my brother, I love you. Please don’t go down a path of spiraling and, you know, being Carmy.'”
But, seeing that imminent spiral does lend to the rest of Season 3, in which Nat has become vital part of holding The Bear’s operation. In Episode 2, she spots her brother’s tells immediately and checks in on him regularly, even if he brushes her off.
“Now she’s kind of seeing his patterns. And ‘Oh, no, is he spinning out again?’ And ‘What does that mean for the future of The Bear?'” Elliott said. “And how do I protect him? How do I take care of him? How do I take care of the restaurant?”
Of course, the fact that Sugar is pregnant adds a whole additional layer of stress, as she works through “all of the familial trauma that has come with that.” For what it’s worth though, White has been thinking about the events that play out for Carmy in Episode 1 since Season 1.
“I think a lot of it was fleshed out in conversations with me and [creator Christopher Storer],” he said. “I was aware of, you know, where he’s been to work, all that stuff was established. And a lot of really important moments around [Mikey’s] funeral and the news of Mikey and everything like that, I had talked to Chris about it at length in Season 1.”
He continued, “These were all moments that I had been thinking about for a while.”
You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the video above.
“The Bear” Season 3 is now streaming on Hulu.
The post ‘The Bear’ Stars Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott Break Down That Emotional Sibling Flashback | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
