[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in December 2024, and has been updated to reflect the episode earning Edebiri an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.]
When Ayo Edebiri came upon she could be directing an episode of “The Bear,” she remembers showrunner Christopher Storer telling her: “You actually get to play right here, so be happy to do this.”
Her first cease was the Administrators Guild of America, the place she enrolled herself in a category for first-time tv administrators led by Paris Barclay, Keith Powell, and Dr. Valerie Weiss (“Three legends extremely giving and useful,” Edebiri informed IndieWire). In a gaggle that included writers, actors, producers, and editors, the category was walked by every step of manufacturing and what may come up alongside the best way. How do the actors reply to route? How does the editor reply to notes? How will the showrunner deal with all of it?
“That class might be one of many coolest, best issues I’ve ever finished,” Edebiri stated. “The factor that I walked away with essentially the most was that the one flawed approach to direct — properly, there’s most likely a whole lot of flawed methods, however past not speaking and never being open — isn’t discovering your means. In case you attempt to do any individual else’s means, or work any individual else’s means, it’s not going to work. Our instructors have been so useful with actually illustrating their variations — and that they have been profitable with their variations — and so encouraging us to seek out our our methods of speaking, stressing the truth that you all the time should be speaking.”
Directing Season 3, Episode 6, “Napkins” acquired Edebiri speaking greater than ever. Her first assembly was with cinematographer Andrew Wehde, to speak about how their episode would slot in with the present’s current visible palette, with Edebiri functioning as “a visitor in any individual else’s home, principally.” She spent extra time with manufacturing designer Merje Veski than she ever did as an actor, and labored carefully with location supervisor Maria C. Roxas.
The episode focuses on Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), and the sudden firing which leads her to job hunt throughout Chicago and find yourself at The Bear — a transparent earlier than and after in her life. Edebiri and Veski acquired as detailed because the contents of Tina’s fridge, placement of all the things in it, and why it will be there within the first place.
“Tina’s fridge now at this second in her life, versus when she’s a couple of years later in her profession, and the way she’s pondering of the kitchen and the way she’s pondering of meals…” Edebiri stated. “Meals continues to be part of her life, and it’s part of so lots of ours. As a mother, when she does meal prep, that’s actually totally different from how she’s fascinated by meals in our current at The Bear, however it’s nonetheless part of her each day life.”
For the primary piece of the episode, Edebiri and Wehde opted for as a lot static digicam as attainable, “making an attempt to keep up a very managed and tight feeling” earlier than Tina loses her job and the hand-held digicam depicts how unstable she feels. Edebiri needed Chicago to all of a sudden “really feel like a special world… juxtaposing how small [Colón-Zayas] is with how small Tina feels.”
“Once we lastly, on the finish of the episode, get again to The Bear, we actually needed it to really feel like an early Season 1 episode, utilizing these robust and intentional zooms, swings of the lenses, and embracing the chaos and the noise and having each shot really feel actually full of knowledge,” Edebiri defined.
Then she took an enormous swing, asking Colón-Zayas and visitor star Jon Bernthal to remain pretty nonetheless throughout their dialog that kinds the third-act setpiece. The digicam follows Tina from the restaurant counter by to the seating space, the place it gently reveals her future coworkers Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Neil (Matty Matheson), and Mikey (Bernthal). After Tina begins to cry, Mikey comes over to strike up a dialog.
“Within the preliminary scripting of it, there was a bit extra motion with the 2 of them… with the napkins and with all the things that he was doing,” Edebiri stated. “As an actor— I relate to this too — you all the time need to have a little bit of enterprise! You all the time need to type of be doing one thing, only for texture. I used to be like, ‘Please, please, belief me. The much less that you simply do, the extra that it’s going to hit.’” She credit her actors for being “sport and prepared and giving and trusting” to yield the ultimate outcome.
Near a 12 months after filming the episode (Edebiri remembers it was near St. Patrick’s Day as a result of chocolate manufacturing facility location’s restricted number of seasonal snacks), Edebiri mirrored on “simply how a lot goes into all the things, into each second, and the way many individuals are so good at their jobs.” Nobody is God, she famous, however there’s a particular cocktail of confidence and collaboration revealed to the particular person within the director’s chair.
“It’s a must to have a certain quantity of ego and a certain quantity of assuredness in your selections, however there must be area for collaboration, and to even be flawed, or to not have the reply, and to essentially have the ability to let another person have the information and the attention,” she stated. “It’s this actually miraculous quantity of collaboration with everyone, everyone having a motive for his or her query or for his or her thought, due to their vantage level and the place they’re at.”
Edebiri didn’t go into “Napkins” pondering any of it was simple, however she’s extra in awe than ever on the intricacy of creating TV.
“It’s like making a Venn diagram, however out of a thousand circles. That’s why these moments if you get one thing, otherwise you get it proper, it does really feel so particular — as a result of it’s like, that’s insane. That’s insane that there’s a thousand circles however discovered the one overlapping level.”
“The Bear” Season 3 is streaming on Hulu.
