Lionel Boyce

EO

I want to start with your acceptance speech at the 2024 Golden Globes for The Bear. It was that night that you and Ayo Edebiri both thanked working people who serve the community and assist in Hollywood. I saw on Reddit that people were freaking out and referring to you as “L-Boy,” from your Odd Future days.

LB

Yeah. Which is funny because there were a few memes circulating where people were like, “This person’s from Odd Future?” [Laughs.] It’s the kind of thing where people have seen you around in different things, but then can finally place you. I watched it happen with Ebon Moss-Bachrach who plays Richie on the show. He’s been working since he was like 18, but when the show got more notoriety people were like, “Yo, you’ve been in my life forever.” I think it’s such a cool thing. It’s a testament. Everyone works in the vacuum for so long and then you become known for one thing and then people grow an interest in you as an individual. And then they start to ask, “What else has this person done?” And then work their way backwards.

EO

Did you know in advance that you would be speaking?

LB

Chris Storer and a few other producers hit me up a day or two before. It was either Friday or Saturday. They were like, “We have this idea. If we win, we want you to give the acceptance speech for the show on our behalf.” And I immediately was like, “Oh, well. Shit.” [Laughs.] They said, “Obviously, we will work together on the speech, especially since there are specific people you need to thank.” And then Sunday comes, and then we’re there at the Golden Globes the entire day.

EO

You were also there last year?

LB

Yes, we went to the Golden Globes last year. So it was my second time there, but before, it was more low stakes. This time, in the best case scenario we win and we’re like “hooray!” And worst case scenario, I just remain in the seat where I don’t have to do anything. But knowing that you have to speak changes the way that you sit and experience the show. You look around the room and you’re like, “Oh, everyone in this room is up for something.” [Laughs.] It’s the only thing that’s on anyone’s mind the whole time. And for me it’s weird because I wasn’t nominated for an individual award. I needed to make sure I remembered all these names. It’s pretty much a countdown until then. So then you’re just like, “Alright, seven more, six more or whatever.” [Laughs.] They award all of the individuals first, then present the shows.

Ayo won. Then Jeremy [Allen White] won. And then you’re like, “Well, are we all going to win?” [Laughs.] It wasn’t a guarantee because there were a lot of amazing shows last season. When they said, 'The Bear,' it felt like jumping off of a cliff because all of the words left me. There’s nothing else to think about–then you walk on stage. I felt so relieved after I said all of the names. To me, it was cool that people responded to the speech, but I was just happy that we could thank the restaurant community–it was a no-brainer. It wasn’t about saying the right thing, it was about thanking the real community who serves us.

EO

I heard that Chris Storer had been trying to make the show for 15 years.

LB

I don’t even know how long he was working on the show, but there were two different iterations. I heard at one point it could’ve been a movie. It’s an interesting process to witness from being in front of and behind the camera. Acting is a funny profession. You come on board a project when it’s already through the door. Someone has spent five years of their life trying to make something and then you come along like, “Alright, sick, got the greenlight. I’m down!” [Laughs.] There are some actors who are able to help get things off the ground but it’s not the case for everyone. Having Chris hit me up about The Bear was surprising because I’ve known him personally for a bit and didn’t know he was working on this project.

EO

How did you know him?

LB

I knew him through mutual friends, it’s from moonlighting in LA. He’s a person who has worked every job, which is why he’s so good at what he does, because he knows how every part of the machine works. I knew that he directed and produced, but I didn't know he wrote, so when I got sent the part I was like, “Oh, I wonder what he’s writing about,” and then everything landed for me. You can feel the pace of the show when you’re reading the pilot script. It’s always cool when you can feel someone’s tone or pace when you’re reading. To get an understanding of how things work, I would read a lot of scripts when I was younger. When you read a certain script, and it’s double the length of a movie, you can feel the shift in pace in the writing. If you read The Social Network, it’s super long but you can feel the musicality to it. So I read the pilot and thought, “Damn, this is sick.” And then you read the part, and I think this happens with a lot of auditions, where you’re like, “Well, this kind of feels like me, but 150 other people probably feel this way too.” [Laughs.]

EO

How did you interpret that character?

LB

I understood and knew who this guy was, because it’s not that far away from me. The way I read him in the script was that he felt like someone’s brother or cousin. Like someone in your family that everyone gets along with, that you’re always happy to see. He’s like the guy who has a personal relationship with everybody in the kitchen. [Laughs.] In the pilot, Richie is this guy who’s bumping heads with everyone, but he gets along with Marcus. So I just thought, hm, he gets on with Marcus and Tina. He’s cracking jokes with everyone. He’s the first one that Carmen converts. So, he’s the most open one. He’s cool-adjacent. Cool yet nonsensical. [Laughs.] I know this dude, and in some ways, probably am this dude. He’s just working a job, hanging out, and this is just his life. He’s thinking, “This is just where my life’s currently at.” He’s not thinking too much, and then he finds a purpose. And I think that’s the journey he’s going through during season two. The pilot is really the start of his life, where he’s like, “Oh, I never thought…” I think it parallels me a bit, where I thought I would play sports coming out of high school which didn’t happen. [Laughs.] Life’s a trip.

EO

[Laughs.] Oh right. Tell me more.

LB

I think it happens to a lot of people who don’t know what they’re going to do next. It’s not like I was born thinking, “Oh, I’m going to be in movies. I’m going to make movies or do any of this stuff.” I like them. I’ve always liked them but I never thought this would be something I’d do. And it’s the funny thing about LA. I grew up in Inglewood and hung out in South Bay. I never went to Hollywood. I didn’t know anyone in Hollywood. It just never crossed my mind until an opportunity came to go this route. And so I think that’s the same thing he’s navigating but in the kitchen. He’s just like, “Yeah, this is the job. I’m just working in the kitchen.” And then Carmy comes along and opens his eyes, and he gets curious about this opportunity, and then it becomes his passion.

EO

How did you come into this career?

LB

It started with my friend Tyler, the Creator who I’ve known since our senior year of high school. [Laughs.] We met in drama class and then had a lot of mutual friends.

EO

What was the culture around drama class? Did everybody take it? Was it a popular thing? Was it hard to get into?

LB

It was an elective. I don’t know if it was hard to get into, but a lot of people didn’t really take it. And I’d never taken anything creative in school. I think maybe when I was five or six at summer camp, I remember being in that drama production that was put on, you know the play, at the end of summer camp, and that was about it. And taking the class was really out of interest, like, “Ah, I’ve never taken anything creative. I’m going to take this class and see what it’s about.”

EO

Did you have a history of watching movies? If so, what kind?

LB

My dad loved movies. Funny thing is, my mom didn’t really watch movies, but he would watch everything. He loved sci-fi, comedy. He put me onto Chappelle’s Show as a kid. I remember he was watching the show one day, as I walked by the living room. I saw a skit and I was like, “What is this?” And then a week later he bought the DVD of season one. And then I watched it religiously and became obsessed with it.

My dad was big on any sci-fi movies that came out. We always went to the movies. Star Wars and Minority Report were big ones. It’s funny, all Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg stuff. Starship Troopers. And then I remember when I was in fifth grade, he started ordering DVDs from the catalog that you’d receive in the mail, and we built a collection. I remember seeing The Warriors when I was in the fourth grade which I watched with him. And then it became one of my favorites movies of all time because I was just like, “What, this is possible? You can do this in the filmic universe.” As you get older and you examine everything, you start to revisit previous things you watched. I don’t think your favorites change, if you’re honest. You just start to understand things more quickly and then streamline your taste. “What did I like about this specific movie?” The more I learn, I revert back to my favorites. It all starts there.

EO

But what did you understand about these movies?

LB

I understood they were all about building and being in different worlds. With those movies, it’s about inhabiting the specific worlds that you want to live in. When I was growing up, I had a very vivid imagination, and would daydream. In elementary school I also remember seeing The Wizard of Oz for the first time. But then I saw The Wiz. And we watched it every day in second grade, before school, because my parents had to get up at five in the morning and go to work at six. I’d be the first kid at daycare and, I don’t know why, but for whatever reason at this school, most days, they would screen The Wiz. But I loved that movie. As I get older, I think I watched it again last year. I was just like, “Why did I love this movie so much?” It’s as if Salvador Dalí painted New York. [Laughs.]

EO

[Laughs.] It’s simple. Michael Jackson. Diana Ross. The costuming? Quincy Jones. I’d follow the yellow brick road!

LB

Again, it’s this world that you’re just transported to. I think to me that’s what it was, early movies where you wonder what else is there beyond what you’re watching. I think that’s what drew me in earlier, in those movies. I remember as I got older, then characters started to come into play. Oh, Blade was a big one for me when I was a kid, too. My dad loved that movie and I thought it was cool. And I personally think that that’s every black dad’s hero. He saw that with my brother. Then he took me the next day and then he would always just quote it. I have an older brother and a younger sister, but my sister’s in high school, 15 years younger and my brother is three years older. But Blade is another one where it’s Marvel before Marvel was even a thing. It’s the original and is dynamic.

EO

What were you observing from these things?

LB

I was thinking about how characters emerged through these worlds. It was about coming up with characters that felt like the worlds they were from. I also was into Greek mythology, so I was thinking about characters building out this singular world more and more, which is why I was drawn to these different worlds. Sometimes it’s the main characters, but a lot of the time it was just a place, not even one where I necessarily wanted to live but I had a lot of questions about how it was made. I’m just attracted to different structures. Maybe that comes from having a really strict mom? [Laughs.] It’s why Yorgos Lanthimos is my favorite current director because he’s always removing what isn’t necessary. It’s about honoring the characters and rules within crafting these singular worlds.

EO

[Laughs.] It’s like a game. These are the rules of the game. This is the world of the game. And in this world, you can’t say pink or wiggle your nose.

LB

Yeah, exactly. There’s other structures for people to live within or rebel against. It’s usually the main character who rebels against the world, which is why The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies as well. But Peter Weir does that a lot where all his movies, to me, are kind of about autonomy. Because he did this in another movie called Fearless that I love with Jeff Bridges. The movie starts, and it’s about this guy who’s terrified of flying, and the movie starts with a scene of him on a plane. Then the plane crashes and he survives. Basically the biggest, scariest thing that could happen does. And then he’s free from that point. And even Dead Poets Society is like that too.

EO

Dead Poets Society is one of my favorites. And also Good Will Hunting.

LB

Yeah, it's an incredible movie. I almost watched Good Will Hunting on a flight the other day, but then I didn’t.

EO

I know, it’s not a movie that you can passively watch. It’s funny because it’s not too long but there is very serious character development, which requires focused attention. Everyone’s simultaneously developing and it’s not really the most obvious plot line.

LB

If it was a regular world, the characters I respond to would be extremely rebellious. My mom would say I was hard-headed growing up. I wasn’t bad. I just felt like I had to do things my own way. Like a rebel. A good kid who rebelled is probably how she would describe me. Because The Mask was an early movie that I loved. And I like Jim Carrey. All the Wayans brothers are an early influence. Like Keenen Ivory Wayans. He’s a North Star for me. What he’s done behind the camera, creating things with friends, but also making and developing his own work and specific humor. To me, he’s the original Judd Apatow. Everyone who came from In Living Color are the biggest stars.

EO

Recently, I was watching Jim Carrey’s documentary and learned that in 1980 he failed to progress in auditions at Saturday Night Live. And it was on In Living Color that he was able to blossom his career.

LB

Well, he was a stand-up comic. He got on that show and it was the right vehicle. He understood how to use it.

EO

Comedy seems like a really big point of reference for you.

LB

That’s why The Bear is funny because it’s even more nerve-wracking to do that show because it has comedic moments, but none of them come from my character. [Laughs.] So I’m just playing everything straightforward. Which is even funnier. Like, Ayo and I always talk about it. She’s probably the funniest person on the show, but doesn’t really get to use her comedic skills. It’s funny. We’ll always be like, “I wonder if we can ad-lib or improv a bit.” And she’ll go like, “It’ll get cut, but let’s just try…” [Laughs.] But yeah, comedy and sci-fi was from my dad’s side of the family. They all have a great sense of humor. So comedy was what I just grew up loving. Don’t Be A Menace and Scary Movie. Those Wayans brothers movies were just hilarious. Honestly, when Tyler and I met in senior high school, we bonded because he had the same reference points. We both loved the Wayans brothers and Chappelle. So we clicked immediately.

EO

What year was this?

LB

2008. Because we graduated in 2009. Funny thing is, we also went to elementary school together and met in the first or second grade. But we didn't know each other, and he just remembered my face. [Laughs.] I also remember when Napoleon Dynamite came out when I was in seventh grade. Kids hated that movie and I was like, “How could you hate this?” I was watching everything and knew that it was singular and hilarious. That really told me who my friends were in middle school.

EO

Napoleon Dynamite is definitely a litmus test. [Laughs.]

LB

Tyler and I were on the same page, same wavelength. In drama class you had to do creative writing assignments and he’s a planner. It shows why he’s made it as far into his career because he always has a plan. He knows where he’s going and trusts that he’s going to get there. He’s got the “I don’t know how I’ll get there, but I’ll make it there.” mentality. I remember he’d say, “Dude, if I ever do a show, I’m going to do it with you.” And I was like, “Yeah, okay, sure, dude.” [Laughs.] We graduated high school and stayed close friends. I kept playing football and he was focused on making music.

EO

Where was his music career at that point?

LB

In high school, he’d been making music and put it on MySpace. He was known amongst kids at school. I think it was right after I met him this one kid I knew came up to me and was like, “That’s your friend?” And I was like, “What?” He said, “Yeah, no, he has music on MySpace.” I went home and looked him up and learned that day he made music. [Laughs.] Then shortly after, I met Travis Bennett, and everyone else from Odd Future through him, going over to the house. But I knew Domo Genesis because he lived down the street from me. And then Tyler and I were connected from going to Westchester High School together.

His music started to pick up and he was getting on blogs and all these things started happening in the year and a half after school. He told me he was going to try to make the television thing happen. While his music thing was taking off, I was playing football at the community college trying to transfer to another school. It came to a crossroads where his music career got very serious quickly. He was talking to this guy Nick Weidenfeld, who was at Adult Swim at the time. He was a fan of his music, and was like, “Yo, let’s do a show.” So Tyler called me and was like, “Yo, I got an opportunity to do a show. Let’s rock.”

EO

How old were you?

LB

I was nineteen. And he asked if I wanted to make the show and I was like, “Sure, yeah.” It still didn’t seem real because growing up in LA, everyone is adjacent to that kind of opportunity. Also, he wasn’t giving me much information so I didn’t really know what to make of it. I was in the middle of talking to these schools I wanted to transfer to, like Oregon and Oregon State. I just thought, if they offer me a position, I’ll probably take it and go. And then they didn’t end up offering me a scholarship. A smaller school, a D3 school in North Carolina, did. But I ended up trying my hand at the television work instead.

EO

What did that feel like to trust the process?

LB

[Laughs.] I always rely on instincts. But maybe I was also young enough to not question it. But then after, we immediately started writing the sketches and getting into the whole process.

EO

So what happened next?

LB

I think the show deal was in development. Then we hit the ground running. We didn’t understand how anything worked, so I just jumped in. He told them, “Oh yeah, my friend is coming along too. He’ll be jumping into these meetings.” [Laughs.] So there I was, and it was a real thing. This was the real world. After the meeting they told us to go write some sketches. I remember the first time I went off and I wrote a bunch of sketches, not knowing how to. I just wrote down ideas and a paragraph for seven, eight sketches. I sent them to Tyler and he wrote back, “This is so stupid.” And I thought he hated them. And then I was like, “Oh, damn, my bad, man. I can think of more.” He was like, “No, no, no, I mean this in the best way.” And then we immediately started working on the pilot. As I was doing that, I realized that I never cared about playing sports. I didn’t care as much as I loved making television and watching films. It was fully the feeling of, “I found the thing that I want to do.” From there I just decided I was going to learn everything that I could, and we did. We worked together in the writing room for the first season.

EO

What year was that?

LB

We shot the pilot for Loiter Squad in the summer of 2011, in June. Kelly Clancy and Christian Clancy managed Tyler, they were just so helpful in guiding us, helping us navigate all of these things. But Kelly would drive Tyler and me to the production office everyday. We would all hang out at her house, they lived in Mid-City at the time and the office was at Sunset and Vine. I remember this time vividly because I think Beyoncé’s 4 album had just come out. So everyday on the way there we’d be blasting “Party.” We shot the pilot for a week.

EO

How did it feel throwing yourself in that process?

LB

It’s weird. When you’re young, like eighteen, nineteen, or in your early twenties with not much thought or understanding of what you’re doing, you’re just moving through things and you’re not necessarily thinking about what they mean. You’re just doing it. I just knew that I liked the way everything I was doing felt. We fully embraced our authentic selves. I think that’s what made it special because our creative process hasn’t really changed. If all of us get together, we’ll joke like, “Man, if Loiter Squad wasn’t canceled, it’d be canceled now because the sketches would get so dumb and insular.” It’d be like four people who found the sketches funny and we’d think it’s the funniest thing of all time. But that’s just how we worked. We’d just hangout, set up a scenario, and spitball. I think that’s how all friends work. I think that’s what makes for good comedy work–things made by actual friends.

You can tell the difference when someone’s like, “I respect you in a professional setting. Let’s make something.” But if you’re not actually friends it doesn’t work because you don’t share the same humor. You need to work with friends in order for there to be the air of stupidity that’s necessary to create real comedy. At that point, we’d been in school most of our lives and now we were making a show together and got paid to make it. I had no money and then we started making money and the first thing we did after the pilot, which any dumb kid would do, is get seasonal passes at Six Flags. We went four times a week. [Laughs.]

Through the process of making season one, I got into every aspect of it. I was like, “How do you make this? How do you write? How do you do all of these things?” And then this woman Amanda gave me the software for Final Draft, who was an assistant at the time. She’s now a screenwriter and producer, but she gave it to me and taught me the basics of using it.

EO

I hate the word mentor, but is that something you sought out or did it happen naturally?

LB

It happened naturally. I think my learning mostly happened in conversations with other people. I always ask people what’s their favorite thing to watch because if it makes you feel something, it’s worth watching. But books, I would just come across a book organically and then slowly build from there. I learned a lot in the editing room of season one of Loiter Squad because Jeff Tremaine, co-creator of Jackass, was also producing our show, acting as showrunner with us, and was very hands-on. I think he saw that I cared. So I would sit in the editing bay with him and edit skits, and I learned a lot from him and his editing partner, Shanna Newton.

They’ve always occupied a mentor role for me, a place where I can go and get information. He’s really good at understanding comedy, and I think he’s honest and artistic. So it’s the spirit of when he knows that something’s working, or when it’s not, and when to give up.

EO

Just from listening to the way you process the rhythm of storytelling and information, you sound like a good editor.

LB

Cool. [Laughs.] When I was learning and starting to read more about the craft, I thought I should go to film school. But then I read Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers: The Next Generation, which is essentially the filmmaker’s handbook. It’s like Robert Altman, David Lynch, Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich, Nora Ephron, Sydney Pollack, François Truffaut, and George Lucas, because I specifically remember reading his. [Laughs.] It was cool because I understood how to create structure and laws for worldbuilding. And I learned to break down the mechanics of Star Wars, where you’re like, oh, this is just an old knight’s tale set in the future with the air of a Western and these three parts put together made something new. It just allowed me to break things apart and understand how they worked. And then in any of the interviews I read, everyone either dropped out of film school, went to film school for a year or two, then dropped out. I had already learned the basics so I decided to go to Barnes & Noble and buy any books on filmmaking, and then I would watch two movies a day.

EO

For how long?

LB

Every day for a few years. I’ve watched a lot of movies. I still go to the movies two or three times a week. I watched anything at the time. I probably watch most movies that come out. That’s why I knew the difference because when I played sports, I hated watching sports. I just liked playing sports. It’s fun. It’s like playing a game. That’s what I like. But I never watch it. Have you heard about LeBron watching sports? He watches every level of basketball, even down to high school and tournaments. Because he cares that much. When he’s not doing it, he’s just ingesting it. Kobe was like this as well. That’s the difference between having passion for things that you care about versus something you do for work.

EO

I hear about that with musicians. Drake listens to anything, like high schooler kids’ music is reaching his ears. Why is Drake also at ground zero with them? You can tell he lives in music.

LB

I think the Japanese word for it is ‘otaku,’ which means like anything you have ‘otaku’ for, it’s feverish, like pandemonium. Like when you’re a huge fan of something. Or a stan. [Laughs.] I think that those people have 'otaku' for their craft, and they’re also highly skilled at what they do. They deeply care about it and ingest it. But I knew I didn’t have that with sports. [Laughs.]

So then season two of Loiter Squad comes along and we have more of an understanding through editing how to make it feel more like our own. Season one was fun, it’s in our DNA, but it was with Jeff and them’s guidance. Season two is the mixture of both and we wrote more sketches. It felt more like Jackass and we wanted to be more like Chappelle's Show, where there was more of a balance to it. Season three, we put in more stupid sketches. This was just from learning more, where we felt like we had the tools and understanding of how to make this show, executing what we want, and shaping it. Season one was like you have clay and you made something and people kind of like it. Season two was like, “Let’s try to make a dolphin.” And season three was like, “No, we want it to be a bird.” So it was learning in real time with everyone diving in head first.

EO

So then, what next?

LB

After that, Tyler and I were like, “We should make a movie.” [Laughs.] We were writing down ideas and we kept going back to one stupid joke, and then eventually it felt more like a funny cartoon than anything. So we abandoned the movie idea, started writing it as a cartoon, which ended up being The Jellies!, that we made for Adult Swim.

EO

How did you come up with The Jellies!?

LB

It was a character unrelated to the show, a character never existed in the show. He was the first character who we kept saying was, “Tiger Nurse.” I don’t even remember how we jumped from that to a family. Tyler literally was just making jokes about this character which led to us to come up with a character who was adopted by a family of jellyfish. Like literal anthropomorphic characters, and we were like, let’s just make it a cartoon. We love cartoons! [Laughs.] We were ripe for that.

EO

Saturday morning cartoons were a ritual for me. I’d watch everything.

LB

When I watched, I watched everything. Every cartoon that came on TV except Jonny Quest. I hated Jonny Quest. [Laughs.]

EO

I couldn’t get into Jonny Quest either.

LB

I always hated it. We also love Family Guy. It also goes into our DNA, overlapping with all the things that meant the world to us at that time. We finished the show after three seasons with Adult Swim and decided to move on and make a sketch. This guy who runs Adult Swim, Michael Lazzo, was a big fan of this one sketch we did and suggested we turn it into a TV show. We didn’t love the sketch but decided to give it a try. It was a “Po-Po”/Cop sketch, we shot a pilot for it and it didn’t work. So nothing worked out and we pursued other ideas. Then in 2014, we were approached by Lloyd Braun of Whalerock Industries who had this idea of making this subscription-based app with channels for celebrities. He told us that app-lead television was the future and that television was booming.

We met with them and they were like, “Oh, we can turn this into a cartoon, and then put it on an app.” That gave us the incentive to be able to create The Jellies! We wrote like four 15-minute episodes. Our learning process with the animation for that was unique because we didn’t know anything about creating animation. We just studied it. We had an idea for the characters and wrote a bunch of material. Then we wrote a template and descriptions of the characters and sent it around for a couple of meetings with animation studios, and we ended up working with Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn, New York, based on the work they made. We did a couple of episodes for the app and then we had a proof of concept, and ran into one of the guys from Adult Swim, who asked what we were up to. We ended up sending it to them and they signed off and gave us the means to make the show. [Laughs.]

EO

So what happened with that?

LB

We wrapped after two seasons. What’s cool is that we got to work with Carl Jones on the show. He was an instrumental person in writing and producing for The Boondocks, and he became a mentor for us in that space in terms of understanding how animation works. He also created Black Dynamite. He’s very thorough and understands it from top to bottom in the way that Jeff Tremaine was in helping us understand sketch comedy.

EO

What are the secrets to animation?

LB

[Laughs.] I don't know the secrets to the trade. I just learned the mechanics of executing a joke and that when something isn’t working, you can alter one small thing, be it timing, and then everything can change. Carl was a genius in terms of his understanding of how culture was working at the time. When we were making the first season of The Jellies! I didn’t know how to draw. So a lot of time we would give notes and then would film each other making different movements and send videos in with notes. Then someone told me, that’s how Walt Disney did it. I guess he couldn’t draw either. [Laughs.] They said Walt Disney would film his entire movie on a soundstage and then give it to animators for reference. You can look this up online, this was his process. There’s only so much you can describe before you have to show people. Filming it himself also saved so much time.

EO

Yes, it’s basically like a map or another version of a shot list.

LB

And by the way, I’d rather do that, because you don’t draw the thumbnails. When we were making The Jellies! we were able to really zone in. I learned a lot about comedy with that show because I think in season one we had anxiety and knew we had a weird sense of humor. We thought we needed to make it more accessible. And then season two we decided, no, that’s stupid. I realized the more specific you are in your craft, the more universal the work is. I started thinking about the difference between stand-up comics. The ones that cut through are the ones who deliver something singular. It’s like flipping through channels. You want to see a specific brand of movie. Season two allowed us the freedom to make this a reality as much as possible. It’s a show that I don’t know how many people watched. [Laughs.]

EO

It doesn’t even matter. Because it’s not about that.

LB

No, but that’s what I’m saying. We still love it and it’s so deeply us. And it felt like the perfect overlap of this void that we wanted to fill. Like World Star Hip Hop meets Family Guy, where no one’s touching on these cultural reference points. We showed a friend of ours an episode maybe last year and we were cracking up because our friend was looking so confused, like, “What the fuck am I watching?” It made us laugh even harder because it’s us all the way through. It’s something I’ve learned from Tyler, because he’s always innately made things that feel like him.

EO

Can you speak to how you started working more with studios?

LB

Yes, with Sony, it’s been about learning how to pitch an idea, the process of putting things together, and working with producers. It’s been nice learning about the politics of navigating these places especially because I’m a fan of certain writers but we couldn’t collaborate with them because they worked for a different studio. It’s been helpful because I learned a lot on the producer side of things. With the language they speak, what makes them comfortable, but also then learning that you can pitch an idea “the right way,” but if they say yes but then don’t fully understand your idea and you start working on it and they’re like, “Can you make it more like this?” And then you’re like, “What? That’s not even what I was thinking.” [Laughs.] But because of the way they initially interpreted your project you just need to make sure they’re receiving the actual idea that is yours. I think there’s also a difference in how people view artists versus someone who is a producer. When you’re a director or actor, they view you as an artist, but when you’re a producer, you’re on their level.

EO

Yeah, it’s similar in the art world and culture more broadly. “The artist who needs to be handled or guided.”

LB

Yes, they think you’re precious, that this is your thing, because you’re more close to it. But you’re just the liaison. When they would talk to me in the way as an artist it gave me the vocabulary and understanding of how to communicate yourself, of how to speak to how they think. So I learned the things that they wouldn’t tell me when I was creating versus when I was producing. I always go back to Chris Storer because he’s done every single job. He understands how to speak to every person on set. It’s nice to be able to learn intimately about the process while I’m also working on the set of The Bear.

EO

How old were you when you got the script and shot the pilot?

LB

I got cast in March or April of 2021. We shot in June, right before I turned 30. We shot the pilot for a week and then finished. And then in October, Chris called me. He was like, “Yo, we’re full steam ahead. We’re gonna make the show.” I was like, “Hell yeah. Let’s do it.” It’s a cool experience because as I learn more things I have more questions. When we first started filming I was thinking about what it feels like to have a hit show, because everything I had done up until that point was viewed by so few people.

EO

When did you have this thought?

LB

Probably a couple years before joining The Bear. I remember when we did Loiter Squad, it got canceled when it was on the edge of breaking through. So I was just wondering, “What does a hit look like? What’s it feel like? It’s something I didn’t know.

There’s always a topic in my mind that I’m exploring, trying to understand. I think that might have been 2018. I really couldn’t tell you when. [Laughs.] I think it just came out of conversation with friends, you just watch things that make you ask questions of and for yourself. It’s probably a question I gave myself somewhere in the early days of working with Sony, just in terms of thinking about the mechanics of getting television and movies made.

EO

It’s a good question to have.

LB

[Laughs.] But I think everyone wants a hit. Whenever you make anything, I think it’s on everyone’s mind.

EO

[Laughs.] Yes, I think everyone wants a hit, but not everyone wants to know how hits are made.

LB

Well, yes, that’s what I was going to say. No one likes getting into the science of making a hit. I think people don’t know how to study other people, but instead everyone looks at the result versus the hands that created the results. We shot that pilot and then it got picked up by FX in the fall and then we started shooting the show in February 2022. It’s like the traditional process. You write a script. Chris and the producers probably did whatever they needed to do to get the show in front of the studio. Then they said, “We'll order a pilot, go shoot one.” Then they have however many shows shoot pilots every year. Then they make a decision based on all the shows they commissioned pilots from. They shoot, let’s say, 15 pilots and pick three shows to develop each year. [Laughs.] That’s the process of Hollywood.

EO

What was it like meeting everybody for the first time?

LB

That was also interesting. I was used to making things with friends, so it was scary and intimidating, everything I’d done up until this point was for Adult Swim. I didn’t know anyone on the show personally before starting aside from Chris, who was directing, and we weren’t super close so I wasn’t hanging out with him a ton. [Laughs.] Ayo Edebiri and I had a lot of mutual friends but we had never met before. I think she was the first person I met because I went to Chicago two or three days before we started shooting to get a feel for the city. Then, on the way to our first meeting, Ayo and I were paired in a van together, and it was a cool moment because we bonded over having the same humor. And then we just became friends and met everyone else shortly after. It was cool because everyone was down to earth and normal, like very professional because they’re so experienced. Like there was no one leaning into the theatrics of the idea of being an actor. Everyone approached it very much like a blue collar job, I think more than anything.

EO

Because it’s such technical work and you have to perform a technicality, you’re not there to be yourself. You're a literal instrument. Or rather, one should be, if you’re doing it right. [Laughs.]

LB

But beyond that, you never know what to expect with people. You’re there asking yourself before you start, “Is someone going to be like, ‘I’m a thespian, I’m an artist.’” [Laughs.] Thankfully everyone approached the material like it was a matter of fact. None of the furrows around it. We came and did the job. It’s even funnier because we made season one in a vacuum. It was a great time.

EO

How long did it take to shoot?

LB

We shot for two and a half months or so. It went so fast. And I think there’s freedom in that somewhere. [Laughs.] Everyone’s just enjoying making this thing. For me, it was a bit stressful at first because I've taken a few acting classes here and there but I wasn't familiar with the entire process.

EO

Did you do any preparation for the role?

LB

For season one, we did kitchen training, but we didn’t for the pilot. When you’re shooting a pilot you don’t have a lot of money to throw around. I think there was a lot of pressure taken off of us as actors because we trusted Chris and Joanna, like I thought my only job was to trust the writing by honoring what they wrote, by learning my lines, and doing everything I need to do to better understand my character. We had shot the pilot already so we understood an idea of the character and it’s all there on the page. It’s a clear arc for the character. For the first season, it’s more of a question mark in terms of where this person is going because I didn’t have to do the heavy lifting like Ayo and Jeremy Allen White. They had a much bigger workload of carrying everything. And I’m just showing up, making sure I was communicating the physicality of the work.

EO

The reason why I love season two so much is because it’s like a play. I feel like we got so much TV like that recently, a lot of episodes of Succession really had that like one-track camera work, nonstop shooting theatricality. You guys leaned into that this season. It felt so much more live and less camera up, camera down. The camera was moving and the camera was dancing. We met a new rhythm this season. Did you feel the change in the script for season two?

LB

Yes, the pace felt different. I think that’s the coolest thing, because I think that it was the biggest thing they had to figure out. [Laughs.] Season one happens and the show takes off. And then I was like, hm, well this is interesting. I wonder what they’re going to change or incorporate.

EO

What would you say happens in season one?

LB

It’s about establishing the backstory and introducing you to these characters. So we're like, this is cool. Everyone learns the process of things. This is fun, this is great. So many things come out, so many things might not get paid. So this might be it. It was nice knowing you guys. [Laughs.]

EO

How would you classify season one versus season two?

LB

Season one of The Bear was a punk. It was like a punch in the mouth. Season two is an album.

EO

Say more.

LB

Season two is so succinct. I think that’s how I would look at it.

EO

An album of hits.

LB

Album of hits still with a narrative. I'm trying to think of some examples of classic albums. It’s like every song could live on its own. But it’s still as a whole, it has a theme. It’s cohesive and it feels like it belongs together. But the pacing of it has changed.

EO

You have to really own your own lane and do your thing. You have to show up for yourself and give yourself over to the project.

LB

That’s why I was wondering what making a hit felt like recently. Because nothing changed, but peripherals changed, but nothing actually changed. It’s the way that people respond to it that does. People see things the way they want to see it more than anything else. Like Kanye West has always been Kanye West. When you watch the jeen-yuhs documentary on him specifically, dude, he was always himself and then he gets success. He’s like, “I’m a genius.” And people were like, “You are a genius.” [Laughs.] The documentary was fantastic because it showed he didn’t change at all, he was just culturally embraced.

EO

I think that is the singular thing that is so amazing about him, and you can hear it in his music, he understands the structure of a song and he understands what it needs. He’s a structuralist and a formalist.

LB

People always assume genius means highly intelligent. I think genius and intelligence are two different things. I think genius is the ability to recognize patterns, recall, and create things from memory. And so that’s next where he applies to that. I think it takes intelligence to do that but it’s not the same thing. But that’s why people would assume someone who plays sports, like they’re a genius, but it’s not like reading books. They just understand the structure of their craft and how to manipulate it.

EO

What would intelligence be?

LB

I think intelligence is the ability to think critically and articulate. [Laughs.]

EO

[Laughs.] So now here you are.

LB

Here I am.

EO

How does it feel now that you won these awards?

LB

I don’t know. It’s cool because we won as an ensemble which takes a collaborative effort. Maybe I would look at it differently if I personally won, but it’s nice because I get to enjoy and observe it. I’m just generally an observant person and it’s cool that the show means something to people, but then it also receives accolades for it. I think Chris Storer and everyone involved are unsung heroes. Like they’ve been around the industry for a long time, with sleeves rolled up. And so to get recognition and shine, it’s beautiful. Jeremy was on Shameless forever, and now he’s front and center. Then I believe Ayo is someone who wins everyone over no matter which room she walks into, which she’s probably been doing her whole life. She’d tell me stories about working for people, being the PA and assistant. So it’s not like she just came out the back from only doing comedy sets in basements in New York, she’s been putting in this work for awhile. It’s cool to see her front and center as her vehicle takes off too. It’s the same with Ebon, he’s one of the best actors I’ve ever watched. Liza Colón-Zayas, too, she’s acted in theater everywhere.

EO

I think ensemble wins are so much more credible than individual performances. It speaks to the trust that you all have established amongst yourselves that we get to witness. It’s beautiful to see and hear that everyone showed up and weirdly all the pieces aligned.

LB

More than anything I’m just embracing being number one. No one can take that from us. Like the show’s won, which is a special thing. I’m just enjoying and observing right now. I just want to make sure I see it all now and I can reflect on how I feel about it later. [Laughs.]