When “The Bear” put out its first Season 2 casting call, casting director Jeanie Bacherach’s phone blew up.
The role was Claire (Molly Gordon), an old crush from Carmy’s (Jeremy Allan White) past who resurfaces and eventually becomes his girlfriend — but all anyone in town knew was that “The Bear” was casting.
“I honestly don’t think my phone or my emails have ever been blowing up that way — for what was a recurring role!,” Bacharach told IndieWire. “People didn’t even know that it was a potential love interest, we kept that quiet. It was just somebody new on ‘The Bear,’ and I mean, agents and managers and actors were losing their minds. It’s such a fortunate, fortunate place to be able to work from.”
Bacharach didn’t mind one bit; the active interest from fellow industry members makes her job easier. The role went to Gordon after extensive searching — but series creator Christopher Storer had his eye on her from the start. As Storer, Bacharach, and executive producer Joanna Calo continued working on Season 2, other roles that were top of mind included Carmy’s mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk), and everyone else in Episode 6’s catastrophic family dinner.
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Everything from personal connections to Chicago ties factored in — and it always helps when an Oscar winner is a big fan. Below, Bacharach talks about the challenges and joys of casting “The Bear” Season 2 and her working relationship with the showrunners.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
IndieWire: How did your job change betweens Seasons 1 and 2?
Jeanie Bacharach: I would say that the difference this season was we had our established cast, so we were adding to it — to use food reference, adding the additional spices to the season. It’s so great when you have your core cast already because you know what you’re working off of and it can help you dial in a little easier because you you know the the characters and and the qualities and all of those things that the actors are bringing. So how do you complement or contrast that with the new people that you’re adding? But what’s great [is] both seasons, Chris and Joanna had scripts, we had almost all the scripts early on and that makes casting so much easier because they have an overall sense of the characters arcs; I get that, it helps me when I’m talking to agents or actors, that’s enormously helpful, and that’s not usually the case on a series.
Was Jeremy your find?
I can’t say it was a find because he was on “Shameless,” but before the show was picked up to pilot I came on board with Chris and Joanna and other producers to put together almost like a look book, a pitch to get it over the line at FX to have them move forward. That was about helping them to sort of see what this ensemble could be and who these characters were, so we put together kind of five ideas for each of the roles with pictures and actors’ resumes and character descriptions. Jeremy was part of that initial group, but we all went into it thinking he’d be incredible but he’s probably not gonna want to go to another series, he’s just finishing a long run, it’s Chicago, maybe too many similarities. So we continued to talk about people with Jeremy always like the little angel right on your shoulder, because we didn’t want to fall in love with Jeremy too soon because we just weren’t sure it was going to work. There were other people talked about and explored, but Jeremy was the one. Can’t imagine otherwise.
Watching the specific fixation on Carmy online has been really, really…
Wild. Well it’s funny because… I’ve been doing this a long time, and you go back through your projects and you’re like, “Man, we were talking about this person,” and you can’t even imagine it with that other person. It just feels like everything aligns when it works. You’re like, “Yep, that was absolutely the right thing.”
Molly is incredible in that role, she has such magnetism. Tell me a little bit more about casting her specifically.
The story for Chris has existed for years because originally they were trying to make it as a movie, so Molly was somebody that [he and Calo] had in their head very early on. We wanted to explore, we wanted to see people, but she sort of was the bar. Is there anyone who who could potentially match or who could go above and beyond what we thought Molly could bring? There were a lot of qualities: believing her as a doctor, believing her most especially in this neighborhood of Chicago, and in Carmy’s world. She had to have empathy and but also be able to give Carmy a little bit of a run for his money. You had to believe he had been holding this torch for her. We wanted someone accessible, attractive, but didn’t want pull you out of the show. In terms of recognition factors, someone who may be audiences might be familiar with, but not someone so recognizable like we have in some of the other roles this season. We actually read a lot a lot of wonderful, wonderful actresses, but we kept coming back to Molly. Chris really just had such a strong sense of her that that’s how it happened. She didn’t end up reading, we ended up offering it to her. It just had become so crystal clear at that point; She was it.
Let’s talk about casting Episode 6. What a task! Where did that conversation even begin? Was it with the script or was it ahead of writing?
It was a little bit ahead of starting the season, but we got pretty heavily into it. Certainly Donna we started talking about earlier on. That episode was is so heightened on the one hand, and yet it has to be so believable. We’ve heard about these characters, especially Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), a little bit about Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk). So it wasn’t about “let’s go and get a lot of famous people,” it just sort of fell into place that way because we just needed these characters to loom so large and to get understanding about who Carmy is, why Carmy is, why Michael is (Jon Bernthal). Jamie Lee was someone again on our initial list, but there were lots of people that we talked about and yeah she’d be incredible, but the woman is about to win an Oscar.
We explored some other people, but it ended up coming back around to her, and then when we spoke to her agent she’s just an enormous, enormous fan of the show — circling back to when a show is successful. The heart of this show is really the people in these characters, and the ideas about love and family and healing and forgiveness and grief have touched people so, so deeply. We explored a bunch of different people, but ultimately came around to Jamie Lee, and then with Bob Odenkirk that was somebody — Chris had been talking to somebody who was a friend to come and do it and didn’t look like it that was working out. So I was like, “Well, what about Bob? Bob is from Chicago; for Chris, having people who really encapsulate that world has been important to him from the beginning. So I threw out Bob’s name and, Chris and Joanna are so crystal clear on who these people are, so when it lands they’re like, “Yep, that’s it, let’s go, done. Has to be.” Episode 6 is very much a mix of ideas and people that Chris knows, that he could call up and say, “Hey, will you come and play with us?”
For that one I imagine you must have had to test people together, right?
No, nobody read. Chris and Joanna, understanding so much of who these people are and who fits… it’s just a sense of people who you know are coming to do the show for the right reasons. This was not a big paycheck for anybody, it was not about money for anybody. It was really about wanting to be a part of this show. So I think you’re just taking a leap of faith knowing what you know about these actors and how they will come and land in this world. Chris, and Joanna were both talking about how on just even the first couple of days of filming on that episode, like, it was just magical, They were there to serve the piece, they were excited to be there and ready to work. It was not about “I need my moment. I need to shine. I need the scene to be about me.” I think it’s just about people with heart coming to tell the story.
This might be an obvious question, but what’s something people don’t realize about your job and about casting on a show like this one?
Oh, boy. The fact that a show becomes popular makes my job much easier, but at the same time you’re feeling that pressure which I know everybody on the show felt coming into Season 2, of like, “How do we maintain the quality and the heart at the center of it? How do we stay true but also branch out?” So I think the fact that that we really got to develop the other characters this season was amazing, but you do feel this pressure of like, “Wow, we really gotta bring it again.” When you’re making offers, you are taking a chance that the chemistry is going to work. But I think at the essence of all the people involved on our show there is love and true joy for for the art. And the art of acting transfers to the art of cooking. The world of this show matches so many other worlds.
It’s a collaborative job. You have to find the balance of how you see things and what you want to bring to the show, while also listening and serving Chris and Joanna’s vision. I feel like we hit it off from the very beginning in terms of that collaboration, of listening to each other, discussing, really thoughtful examination, and then one of us pulling the trigger of “No, I really think this is, this is the right person. And here’s why I think while you feel really passionate about this person, they don’t quite fit.” So real trust and and respect for each other. That’s the greatest place you can be as a casting director, to have that with the creators.
Both seasons of “The Bear” are available to stream on FX via Hulu.
