Hulus series The bear proved there’s no such thing as too many chefs in the kitchen after two seasons of star-studded cameos.
The show, which debuted in June 2022, explores the food industry through the lens of a talented chef named Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), who returns to Chicago to meet his older brother Mikey’s (John Bernthal) restaurant after his death.
Season 1 focused on Carmy’s attempts to prosper the deli while dealing with his own grief. The first episodes served as the starting point for the show’s second season, which followed Carmy, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and other employees of The Beef as they opened their new restaurant on a very tight deadline.
Midway through Season 2, The Bear flipped to a flashback Christmas episode where audiences could see the unstable dynamic between several Berzatto family members, such as Carmy, Natalie, and Mikey’s mother, Donna Berzatto, who was played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Halloween star took to social media in June 2023 to open up about bringing the complicated character to life.
“The secrets are out. We have them all. Every family. Every human being. At the center of the brilliant masterpiece commonly referred to as @thebearfx is the story of family secrets and the concentric circles of anger and trauma and grief and humor that revolve around Carmen, Sugar and Michael Berzatto,” Curtis captioned an Instagram. post at the time. “When I saw the first episode of the first show last summer and Sugar asked Carmen if he had spoken to their mother, I knew in that moment that I was going to play her. Don’t ask me how. I just knew.”
Curtis called Donna the “role of a lifetime” after joining the cast. “There isn’t a person alive who can’t empathize with what it feels like to be around someone like Donna Berzatto. I certainly have my own experiences. That’s what makes the show so great,” she continued. “We can relate, commiserate and celebrate all our common survival in this thing called…. to live. Thank you Chris @chrisstor and the FULL BEAR family of creative people and scene partners for allowing me to let loose!”
While Curtis was manifesting her role on the show, Bernthal’s journey was very different when it came to his pivotal performance as Mikey. Bernthal joined the cast in Season 1 after his previous one punisher Co-star Ebon Moss Bachrachwho plays Richie in the series recommended him.
“They had been trying to cast that part of Michael for a while. And they asked us, “Does anyone have any ideas?” And they asked me and I thought, ‘I don’t think we should ever see him.’ Because when you talk about someone and hype them up like that, it’s always a letdown,” Moss-Bachrach told Cinema mix in June 2023. “And then it occurred to me one day, and I thought, ‘Well, I really think Jon is such a charismatic and hilarious guy.’ I was like, ‘He would be really great.’”
Moss-Bachrach noted that it was easy to film Richie and Mikey’s moments, adding: “We really enjoy working with each other. So he liked to come. Even without reading the script, he was like, ‘Yeah, sure. I’m coming, I can. If we can make it work. We’ll do it.’ It was very cool. It was amazing.”
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Scroll down to see every star-studded cameo The bear so far: