[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 can be directing an episode of “The Bear,” she recollects showrunner Christopher Storer telling her: “You actually get to play right here, so be at liberty 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 advised IndieWire). In a gaggle that included writers, actors, producers, and editors, the category was walked via every step of manufacturing and what would possibly come up alongside the way in which. 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, biggest issues I’ve ever performed,” Edebiri stated. “The factor that I walked away with essentially the most was that the one incorrect technique to direct — effectively, there’s most likely a number of incorrect methods, however past not speaking and never being open — just isn’t discovering your approach. If you happen to attempt to do any individual else’s approach, or work any individual else’s approach, it’s not going to work. Our instructors had been so useful with actually illustrating their variations — and that they had been profitable with their variations — and so encouraging us to search out our our methods of speaking, stressing the truth that you at all times need to be speaking.”
Directing Season 3, Episode 6, “Napkins” received 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 present 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 received as detailed because the contents of Tina’s fridge, placement of every thing 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 number 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 remains to be part of her life, and it’s part of so a lot of ours. As a mother, when she does meal prep, that’s actually completely different from how she’s serious about meals in our current at The Bear, however it’s nonetheless part of her day by day life.”
For the primary piece of the episode, Edebiri and Wehde opted for as a lot static digital camera as doable, “making an attempt to take care of a very managed and tight feeling” earlier than Tina loses her job and the hand held digital camera depicts how unstable she feels. Edebiri wished Chicago to instantly “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 wished 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 data,” Edebiri defined.
Then she took an enormous swing, asking Colón-Zayas and visitor star Jon Bernthal to remain pretty nonetheless throughout their dialog that types the third-act setpiece. The digital camera follows Tina from the restaurant counter via 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 every thing that he was doing,” Edebiri stated. “As an actor— I relate to this too — you at all times need to have a little bit of enterprise! You at all times need to form 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 “recreation and prepared and giving and trusting” to yield the ultimate end result.
Near a yr after filming the episode (Edebiri remembers it was near St. Patrick’s Day as a result of chocolate manufacturing unit location’s restricted choice of seasonal snacks), Edebiri mirrored on “simply how a lot goes into every thing, 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.
“You must have a specific amount of ego and a specific amount of assuredness in your selections, however there must be house for collaboration, and to even be incorrect, or to not have the reply, and to actually be capable to let another person have the data and the notice,” she stated. “It’s this actually miraculous quantity of collaboration with everyone, everyone having a cause 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.