‘The Bear’s Gillian Jacobs on Making Every Second Count

Among the many guest stars that appear in The Bear and meld into character without creating any distraction to the show, Gillian Jacobs as Richie’s (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) ex-wife is one of the most important. Despite appearing sparingly in the show, Tiffany’s presence hangs over nearly every decision (good or bad) that Rickie makes. That would not be the case were it not for the outstanding work of Jacobs, who makes the most of her every opportunity on screen.

Jacobs has proven in shows like Community, Love, Winning Time, Girls, and in the film Choke (a personal favorite of mine) her versatility in comedy, drama, and the in-between. In our conversation, Jacobs and I discuss the significance of her character, the importance of making every scene count, and what it was like to sit at a table with all those heavy-hitters in “Fishes,” as well as her wonderful scene with Moss-Bachrach on a park bench in The Bear Part III.

Awards Daily: You’ve only appeared in a handful of episodes of the show, but I think the presence of Tiffany hangs over Richie in almost every single scene. How has that been for you to not have a lot of screen time, but to know that your part is so important because it informs a main character’s part so much?

Gillian Jacobs: Well, that’s a testament to Ebon. That truly is the power of his performance. And I feel honored to be a small part of this show. And, I feel very lucky that he’s my scene partner for so much of my presence on this show. I feel such an ease working with him and it’s so fun and exhilarating, anytime I get to appear on the show. But really, I think if she feels like she looms large, it’s because of Ebon’s performance. 

Awards Daily: I was talking to Chris Messina about making Air and how many of his scenes were spent on the phone. He actually watched Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon because of how often Al Pacino was on the phone in the film. One of your most significant scenes is telling Richie that you’re getting engaged, which is shot in splitscreen. How did that play out for you so that you could provide what was necessary to that sequence? 

Gillian Jacobs: Well, I was very lucky because Ebon was on the other side of the phone for me. So I did get to do the scene with him. That helped enormously. A lot of times when you’re doing those scenes, the other person isn’t on the other end of the phone and the script supervisor or the director or or the first AD is reading it with you. That can make it more challenging because you don’t have the actual performance to respond to and feel like you’re in the scene with the person, but I was very lucky that Ebon was on the other side of the phone call. So, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as it could have been because I got to act with him. 

Awards Daily: There’s the moment where you break the news to him. That’s right after he asks you if you want to go along to the Taylor Swift concert. And your body just kind of cringes up. Then you get to the moment where you tell him at the end of the call that you love him. You have this look on your face like, is that the right thing to say? How can I comfort somebody and hurt them at the same time? The way you mastered that moment was just really beautiful because you’re showing a person whose brain is in two places at once. How did you work yourself up to that?

Gillian Jacobs: I think that there is a lot of love between them, and I think that you see that in the episode that immediately precedes that one in the flashback, where they’re in a much more hopeful, happy state. She’s pregnant, they’re excited about that, and you can tell that they really do love each other. I think that this is a couple that although it didn’t work out, I don’t think that they now hate each other or despise each other or can’t communicate with each other. I think, for her, maybe there’s also some guilt because she’s moved on and he hasn’t. She worries for him because she loves him as a person. And I think maybe there’s still love there between them as a couple, but she clearly also has fallen in love with somebody else. It’s wonderfully complex. I think I was really helped by having shot scenes of us being in love previous to that. So that’s kind of just there. Ebon’s a very lovable person and Richie is a very lovable character, despite the journey that he’s on, you really feel for him. It’s making me kind of emotional even talking about it. You feel for him and they both clearly love their daughter so much. They’re very still connected as parents through that. I guess it’s just the writing and him as a scene partner and having had the benefit of getting to shoot that flashback episode previously.

Awards Daily: Obviously you’re connected by your daughter. But it’s not just that. You still really love him, and he still really loves you. But Richie’s a person who gets in his own way a lot. I think that is probably the crux of the failure of the relationship.

Gillian Jacobs: I think she loves him and that their lives are very intertwined. That’s the wonderful world of this show, that everyone knows each other, there’s all these connections and deep history. I think you kind of get little hints at it when they’re talking in “Fishes” that she doesn’t have the greatest relationship maybe with her parents. I think she and Richie both kind of felt taken in by the Berzattos and this bigger friend family, this “cousin” world. I think she’s a part of that too, where she felt a sense of belonging in this group as well. That’s hard to let go of, or does she have to let go of it? You sort of see that in her really wanting him to come to the wedding. That’s a really interesting dynamic between two divorced people that she really wants him to come to her wedding. 

Awards Daily: It says something that Tiffany and Richie’s own family life was so not spectacular that the Berzattos are a come up. (Laughs).

Gillian Jacobs: I’m an only child and I kind of relate to it in that way that there’s three siblings and the mom’s always cooking food and there’s things going on at that house. As an only child it can be very kind of quiet and lonely in your house and so maybe for her, even though it was chaos and dysfunction, it also felt full of life and full of people 

Awards Daily: Getting to “Fishes,” one of the interesting things to me about it is that at that point, I think Mikey had been talked about far more than seen, and in “Fishes” he’s there with everybody. The same way that Tiffany is a presence over Richie, he’s been that presence over Carmy. Then you’re suddenly in the room with him, and what a room by the way. Was it interesting to you as an actor to have spent all this time in conversation, in a thought process, about an actor who you’re not actually spending time with, and then there you are with them? 

Gillian Jacobs: I have such admiration for Jon Bernthal as an actor. and I found that cameo, that look at the end of season one, to be so devastating and I just knew he was going to deliver. What a perfect meld of character and actor. Charismatic, complicated, dangerous, hilarious: he just has all of that in spades and you get why Richie’s so obsessed with him. You get why he seems to be the center of their family, that Donna is so focused on him, why his loss is so devastating for Natalie and for Carmy and for Oliver Platt’s character. You just see this ripple effect of the loss of this person. I was just mainly excited because who knew Jon Bernthal versus Bob Odenkirk was the thing that I’d been missing in my life. (Laughs).

I’ve worked with Bob a teeny bit. We were in this really weird Tim and Eric anthology show, Bedtime Stories, together where Bob cut off all my toes and ate them. (Laughs). So I knew Bob a little bit and I knew how incredible he was. It was just so much fun as an actor to be in those scenes. That’s what you think acting is going to be like: the writing, the cast, the shooting style. I remember one of my big formative memories of falling in love with acting in a different way was when I watched the Altman movie, Nashville. I was in high school and I’d never really seen any Robert Altman movies. I watched Nashville and I just remember being like what? You can do this? Being in that episode, this style of overlapping dialogue and just this incredible ensemble of characters and story that was so profound and compelling, and unexpected performances from people like John Mulaney giving this beautiful monologue and really just becoming such an indelible character on the show as well. He and Sarah Paulson, which is not a combo I would have thought of before, worked so beautifully together. The whole thing was just kind of a dream come true. 

Awards Daily: Oliver actually said to me that he felt anxiety himself sitting at that table when Jon and Bob were going at it. And I also told him that I found it very amusing that the episode “Fishes” where Jon is throwing forks at Bob Odenkirk is followed by an episode called “Forks.”

Gillian Jacobs: Also in that season, they haven’t ordered enough forks for the restaurant. So there’s a lack of forks. It’s a whole theme. It’s really beautifully done. Platt and I were sitting next to each other, quaking in our boots at that dinner table scene.

Awards Daily: There’s that wonderful quiet moment where you and Richie sneak off and Richie’s talked to Cicero (Oliver Platt) about the possibility of getting a job and he gives you the impression that it’s a done deal when it’s not really a done deal. It’s like you can see the roots of what is going to end this for them even though there’s so much affection between them. Is that how you felt about it? 

Gillian Jacobs: I did, that and his kind of codependent, all consuming relationship to Michael, too. I think that’s just so beautiful in Ebon’s performance too, how much Michael means to him, how much this family means to him, because when you meet Richie, it’s post Michael’s death. So to see the way he lights up around him in these flashbacks, you also have such an understanding of the devastation for Richie, the character. I think that his inability to get a job, maybe his inability to be honest and truthful with his wife about what’s going on, all of it, you sort of see. You can understand why it didn’t work out between them, but there is so much love between them. 

Awards Daily: Then when you’re at the table, you thank Uncle Jimmy (Cicero), for getting Richie a job. Richie’s like oh God, I didn’t know you were going to say that. And then Oliver Platt plays it like he’s not going to throw Richie under the bus, but he’s also not going to not needle him at this moment and give him a little bit of something. When we think someone’s told us something is certain, we go with it. And then if there’s a moment like that, maybe we let it pass over because you want to believe.

Gillian Jacobs: I think suddenly she’s a little bit more nervous about it than she had been, but I don’t think she has a full awareness that there is no job there. I think it’s somewhere in between, where she also just wants to believe that it’s been sorted out because it’s so scary: this idea of how they are going to support this child and what’s going to happen. But she’s not entirely oblivious. It’s not like one of those scenes where something just goes completely over a character’s head. Maybe there’s a combination of not wanting to know, but also a deep twinge of “oh shit.”

Awards Daily: On to season three. You have this great scene in the park talking to Richie about the wedding RSVP, and it gets back to what you were talking about, that it’s actually really important for him to be there. You say, I don’t really have much family and you’re family. Richie’s started to get better. He’s maintained that professionalism that he was looking for in his work life and that desire to make himself better as a person. And you can see that play out in that moment, but he still needs you to push him. I can see in your expression, that you also feel like am I supposed to be asking this of him?

Gillian Jacobs: Yes. It’s not a normal dynamic. It’s an unusual dynamic between a divorced couple. We haven’t become best friends again after divorce. We’re very connected because of our child and we’re clearly spending time together with each other. But it is also like he symbolizes family and connection and all of these things to her. Going into this new marriage, not feeling like she has a lot of family, it’s like am I bringing anything of my previous life with me, or is it all going to now go away, and I don’t want it to. Just feeling like a part of a larger family is very important to her, not just a person on her own. He specifically is really important to her. I think she also really wants him to be okay. I think she’s heartened by the suits. I think the suit is a good sign. She’s heartened by that and how seriously he’s taking the restaurant. She wants him to be okay. She wants to feel like she still has a place in the greater “cousin,” Berzatto family of The Bear. She wants to bring that along with her. It’s also probably important for their daughter that he be there. 

Awards Daily: There’s a scene that you’re not in, which is when Richie meets Frank, and then apparently you’re about to get married to Josh Hartnett, because why not? (Laughs). Richie would probably rather really dislike Frank. It would be easier, but he doesn’t. And because of that, I think it informs your scene in the park later. 

Gillian Jacobs: I love that scene between the two of them. Oh my God. Ebon is pinned against the wall in that foyer entry space, like he can’t leave. And Josh is being so nice to him that he just wants to Homer Simpson into the hedge. (Laughs). It is such an interesting thing to have the new fiance be a nice guy who wants to do right by Richie, who wants to do right by his soon to be stepdaughter and wants to do right by Tiff. It is really incredible to watch Ebon in that scene. I could watch a whole movie of that. 

Awards Daily: When you ask him about the RSVP, there’s a mixture of sweetness, a mixture of love and family, but there’s also a little bit of selfishness, right?

Gillian Jacobs: Yeah, she’s making an ask of him. She’s saying I don’t care how uncomfortable it makes you and how much you don’t want to do this, I need you to do this for me. She’s telling him he must be there, but that just speaks to how important it is to her, that she’s going to make that demand of him. 

Awards Daily: You do this little thing in that scene: you kick up both your feet at one point and it made me think, is that an energy release? Is that a bit of nerves? Or is it just something sometimes people do when they’re sitting on a bench? (Laughs).

Gillian Jacobs: I’ve never done that before in my life. After we did that take, I was like what was that? I don’t know. That’s what I love about this show, because my favorite moments as an actor are when you feel so in the moment that you do something that surprises yourself. I don’t know why I did that. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before in my life, but I’m glad you noticed that moment. Because when we finished that take, I was certainly like why did I do that?

Awards Daily: I know from talking to other folks involved with the show that there’s a certain amount of improvisation that is allowed. I think Oliver said a lot of “Fishes” was improvised. Have you had the opportunity for yourself to play with your dialogue a little bit?

Gillian Jacobs: Certainly in that scene at the table, the real meat of it was what was scripted, but there are improvised things in that scene as well. Absolutely. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Ebon as a scene partner because it feels so natural between us to improvise. A lot of that scene in the bedroom in “Fishes” as well, we discovered as we were doing it. We’d say something in a take and then they’d tell us to do it again and build on it in this way. It’s a very creatively free environment. That’s why I also think you see people who appeared on the show once wanting to come back. It’s a testament to how fun and free of a creative environment it feels like. 

Awards Daily: I imagine that especially in terms of “Fishes,” if you’re in that group, everybody raises everyone else’s game. 

Gillian Jacobs: Yeah. Looking up and down that table, you’re like holy camoly, this is something else. You’re energized by the environment of it. We haven’t even talked about Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s just like wow, and she came ready to play. She was Donna when she walked onto the set. You talk about Michael hanging over the show. Donna also is another presence that has been off screen, but talked about and so clearly felt and so ever present for Natalie and Carmy and Richie. Jamie just gave such an incredible performance that when you see these flashbacks to that episode in season three, you understand the impact and the weight of that and you understand why “Fishes” is such a necessary part of the show. It’s so central for Carmy and for Natalie and for Richie. These are things that they keep coming back to in their mind. That night, that Christmas, was really one of those things in a family that you come back to in your mind over and over again. 

Awards Daily: It’s an insanely brave performance that Jamie Lee gives because it’s big, but it’s big in the right way, because Donna does swallow every room that she enters. I think she had a great understanding of that. It’s also vanity free. The thing I love to say about actors—actors are magicians. You run down a resume of somebody’s career and you sit there and go Jesus, they played a circus performer, a cop, a doctor, a welder, whatever. I think it was an opportunity for a lot of people to see her in a way they never did before.

Gillian Jacobs: I’m not in it, but the ice chips episode of season three with her and Abby, the two of them together, is just so amazing. Because of “Fishes”, you feel the tension and the weight of that between them in such a real way. You feel it on a bone deep level as an audience member, you know the history between these two people. This is the last person that Natalie wants to be stuck in a room with while she’s giving birth at this incredibly vulnerable scary moment. Yet it also is like they’re having breakthroughs and they’re having setbacks, and they’re human beings and they’re connecting and then they’re missing each other, and it feels so real. The wins of this show, the characters’ wins, feel so well earned. But also at the end, they don’t say Donna, get back in here. She does leave alone. And I mean God, you feel that. Oh my God, you feel that. Chris Witaske and I worked on Love together. So, that’s another moment where I’m looking down the table at Chris (in “Fishes”) and thinking we’ve shared scenes together under very different circumstances, like very different people. And here we are again together, in this world. Those are also just lovely moments. 

Awards Daily: I think a lot of this season is about taking things back to the start, because the narrative is a little more fractured, and I don’t mean in a bad way at all, but it moves back and forth in time a little bit more and it’s amazing how you always know where you are. That’s how good the storytelling is that when they drop you someplace, you know this is Carmy from five years ago. When you’re watching it back, as a fan of good television/a fan of good work, do you sit there and think who even tries to do this? 

Gillian Jacobs: It really does feel unlike any episode of television. I mean, I’m not a completist. I haven’t seen all episodes of television. So, this isn’t coming from a place of having seen everything, but in my own personal viewing, I don’t know that I’ve seen an episode of television like that. I felt like what was so astonishing and maybe you get on the second or third viewing is how much storytelling season three: episode one is doing. It is telling us about the past. 

Awards Daily: We were talking earlier about all the great actors who come on the show for maybe just one episode, or perhaps a handful. It seems like a real testament to the show’s quality and the feeling on the set that it draws people like you. 

Gillian Jacobs: I started acting as a kid doing theater and my highest goals and aspiration when I started was to be a part of an ensemble like the episode “Fishes.” That is what I dreamed of as an actor. When you find yourself in a situation in which it’s not only great writing, but it feels like there’s freedom still and they’ve assembled just an all-star cast of people who are all there game and ready to play. I think that maybe Oliver said that to you as well, is that what was also so exciting about that episode was how engaged everyone was, how present everyone was. Everybody was in the scene together and we moved quickly. Sometimes there can be a lot of great elements to something, but it feels like the hours are so incredibly long or there’s something about the process that kind of saps that creative energy, but the show moves so quickly that you never tire of it. It’s kind of over before you even feel like you started. I don’t care how small the part is, I’ll come back for one line. That’s the environment that I want to be in.