Jeremy Allen White Transcript

Jeremy Allen White Transcript

Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. And I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene. Today's guest is actor Jeremy Allen White. A lot of you know Jeremy from the show Shameless, but he is joining us today to talk about the FX show, The Bear, which is currently streaming on Hulu. Jeremy plays a rising-star chef named Carmy, who returns to Chicago to run his family's struggling restaurant.

Carmy:
What's Up?

Sydney:
Can I just ask you a question maybe?

Carmy:
Of course, yeah.

Sydney:
I know who you are.

Carmy:
Oh, yeah?

Sydney:
Yeah. I mean, you're the most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant in the entire United States of America. What are you doing here, I guess?

Carmy:
Making sandwiches.

Kerry Diamond:
If you know the restaurant world, and I know a lot of you do, you'll be amazed at how they nail elements of restaurant culture, from the comradery, to the stress and pressure, and by how they get so many little details right.

Carmy:
Chef, no! Please. Please do not touch that. If this is the one time you listen to me, please do not touch that. That's been going for 12 hours, okay?

Chef:
That's my pot, Jeff. Everybody knows that's my pot.

Chef:
That's her pot. Bye.

Carmy:
Use another pot, please, Chef. All right?

Carmy:
Corner!

Kerry Diamond:
I found myself sobbing, actually sobbing, two and a half episodes in. And episode seven so captured the chaos that can ensue when things go wrong in a restaurant, that I felt like I was going to pass out. But I swear, The Bear is uplifting. Not only is Jeremy tremendous, but so is the whole cast, especially Ayo Edebiri, who plays the young sous chef, Sydney, and Liza Colon-Zayas, who plays the kitchen veteran, Tina. If you watch The Bear, let me know what you think, DM me, or leave a comment on our show page. Jeremy will be joining us in just a minute.

This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by Kerrygold, the makers of beautiful butter and cheese made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows. You know that quality ingredients make a big difference when cooking, baking, and putting together a meal. With Kerrygold, you can truly taste the difference. I know countless bakers and chefs who swear by Kerrygold butter for their bake goods. And I'm a huge fan of their cheeses, for cheese boards, for salads, and for including in recipes, like quiche, and my all time favorite, macaroni and cheese. For those of you who think Kerrygold just makes cheddar cheese, you have a whole world of deliciousness to discover, from Kerrygold's nutty and complex Dubliner cheese, to their Gouda-style Blarney style and their Cashel Blue farmhouse cheese, a soft, special blue that I absolutely love. To learn more about Kerrygold and to find a store near you, head to kerrygoldgoldusa.com.

This episode is also supported by Brightland, a modern pantry essentials company that we love here at Cherry Bombe. Brightland was founded by Aishwarya Iyer, and she and her small-but-mighty team have built a beautiful company, with consciously crafted products, from their original product in extra-virgin olive oil, to Brightland's fruit-forward vinegars and floral honey. Everything is sourced from family-run US farms, is super fresh, and is truly delicious. A great introduction to the brand is the Mini Essentials set, which features four of Brightland's best sellers, two extra-virgin olive oils, plus a raw, double-fermented, berry balsamic vinegar, and a raw, double-fermented, citrus champagne vinegar, all made in California, in small batches. You can order the Mini Essentials set direct from their website, brightland.co. There is a lot to discover and love on their site, including recipes. So be sure to visit. You also can find Brightland at your favorite specialty food shops. Now, let's check in with today's guest.

Jeremy Allen White, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.

Jeremy Allen White:
Thank you. So happy to be here.

Kerry Diamond:
I have to tell you, The Bear absolutely killed me. You and the team really nailed restaurant life and culture. I told you this earlier, but I used to own some restaurants, and I was sobbing. I don't even think I made it through episode three. I think I had to shut it off halfway through, and I was just sobbing.

Jeremy Allen White:
Oh, wow.

Kerry Diamond:
And then I really thought I was going to have an aneurysm during episode seven.

Jeremy Allen White:
Yeah. Seven is something. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
The editing and cinematography and the acting and everything on seven... Seven's going to be the tough one for a lot of the restaurant folks to watch.

Jeremy Allen White:
Sure. I'm sure. Our goal the whole time was just to make it as true to back of house as we possibly could. But I don't think I put that much thought into how much PTSD that might give people that have worked in back of house or still work in back of house. But I'm so happy. I'm so happy it rang true to you because that was really the goal.

Kerry Diamond:
Every time I saw one of those invoices stamped overdue, and then the Sharpie meltdown, I was like, "Damn."

Jeremy Allen White:
But shit, I mean, that was something I talked to a lot of cooks and chefs about, is just that sound. They said they would have dreams of the tickets coming in and just hearing that sound. We had to use it all.

Kerry Diamond:
So how would you describe your character, Carmy?

Jeremy Allen White:
He's gone through this incredible trauma, the loss of his brother. His identity is so wrapped up in being a chef and in being incredibly successful, and he's had so much success. But if you finish the whole season of the show, Carmy speaks a lot in the eighth episode about the history. They didn't overwrite anything. There's not that much exposition in the show. And then things are more well understood in the eighth episode. And you realize that Carmy's been chasing this forever. He loved his brother. His brother was good at this thing. He's had a chip on his shoulder his whole life. He's gotten very successful at this. His identity is completely wrapped up in this, and everything seems so life and death. It's like death or glory for him. He's put everything into this. If he can't succeed, his life is over. If he can't succeed, he won't have glory. Or will he? What is success when you're that hungry for success? He's a very young, talented chef that's coming home and then trying fix this restaurant, family restaurant.

Kerry Diamond:
Have you ever worked in a restaurant before?

Jeremy Allen White:
I've never worked in a restaurant, no.

Kerry Diamond:
You didn't even wait tables?

Jeremy Allen White:
I got into acting when I was pretty young, 14 or 15. I didn't have super-early success or anything. I'd get a commercial, or this or that, and I never had to do another job while I was acting. But I've spent an incredible amount of time now learning in restaurants, in the last... I mean, it'll be almost a year that I've been really spending time in restaurants and staging in different places. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
And how about cooking? Is it true you didn't know how to cook before this?

Jeremy Allen White:
I could do a couple things, but really my interest level was low. I appreciated good food. I wasn't skilled in the kitchen at all.

Kerry Diamond:
Who did the cooking when you were growing up?

Jeremy Allen White:
I would say my dad cooked a little bit more. Breakfast was really important for him. He made us a big breakfast every day. It was never cereal and oatmeal. He made a big deal out of breakfast. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
Oh, tell us what he made.

Jeremy Allen White:
It was always really heavy. It was always cheese, eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, lots of toast, a really classic, American-style breakfast. But he would do it consistently, pancakes and waffles. It was really nice. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
My breakfast was a bowl of Sugar Smacks, and I think on the weekend, Entenmann's donuts.

Jeremy Allen White:
Sure, sure.

Kerry Diamond:
Jeremy, where did you grow up?

Jeremy Allen White:
I grew up not far from where I am now. I'm in Williamsburg now, and I grew up in an area called Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn.

Kerry Diamond:
Where I live right now. What was it like when you were growing up?

Jeremy Allen White:
I loved it. I lived on Sackett Street, really close to Bond. And at the time, Bond Street was pretty empty. It was right by the Gowanus Canal and just not a lot going on. And then I loved Smith Street and Court Street. They're really wonderful. Even then, there were some really good restaurants and nice cafe. I had a church on my corner. The bells would ring. Yeah, it was a really nice place to grow up.

Kerry Diamond:
I heard you went to culinary school for two weeks to prepare for the role. What was culinary school like?

Jeremy Allen White:
I was so uncertain of myself, stepping into this project in general, because I knew it was so important to get all this stuff right. But they were supportive. I went with Ayo, Ayo who plays Sydney on the show. That was how I got to know her. The first time we met was in school, and us spending time together was really just in there for two weeks, until we started shooting. It was interesting to get to know somebody through that process of learning, and also get to know somebody through the language of cooking when so much of how Sydney and Carmy communicate is also through cooking. So that was really, really wonderful. We had some great teachers there, but I remember telling them, "I just need to feel comfortable. I'll never be as good as Carmy because he's sacrificed so much time and just put in so much effort. That's never going to happen. But if I can look confident, that's all I need."

So it was a lot of repetition, a lot of knife work over and over again. I wanted to get comfortable with frying pans, so they just had me flip eggs for a couple hours to really make it seem like I had a comfort and it was second nature. And then something that was important to me that I didn't learn so much at ICE, but through the process of spending time in other kitchens, was the movement. These kitchens are such small places, and there's so many people in them. These chefs, they have a really graceful way of moving around each other, and that was something that was really important for me to capture. That was something I knew I could fake.

Kerry Diamond:
It's really such a dance in a kitchen. How did the show even originate? Tell us a little bit about Christopher, the creator, why he came up with the idea, why he wanted to do the show.

Jeremy Allen White:
Chris Storer created the show. I think, at one point, he had it written as a film. I think he's had this idea in his head for maybe around 10 years, and for a time, it was a film. And then, in the last couple years, I guess FX took a look at it. Our producers, Nate and Hiro, took a look at it, and they were like, "We think this would be great as a TV show."

So that's how that started. But the story, I think, is really close to Chris. He grew up in Chicago. A lot of these characters, I think, are loosely based on some people he grew up with. I don't know how much he worked in kitchens, but he's a really wonderful chef. He is very talented, and his sister, Courtney Storer, is a really wonderful, professional chef. She most recently was head chef at Jon & Vinny's in Los Angeles. She's really wonderful. So he always had interest in the world. In the last, I guess, year, year and a half, things started coming together, and we made it happen. But it's very much Chris's... It's Chris's story he's been holding onto, I think, for a long time. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
And Courtney was, essentially, the culinary director on the show, right, and head food stylist, would you say?

Jeremy Allen White:
Her and Matty, yeah. Her and Matty Matheson were all over that. We had hot plates and stuff set up on another stage so they'd all be cooking as we were cooking on stage. Everything worked, the kitchen they built on stage. So we could cook on everything, and it was actually great, and we did often for camera. But yes, they were food stylists, but also... I mean, for me, I just told them both, "If you see me doing something in a scene that looks crazy or that doesn't ring true to you, just stop. Stop. Please say, "Cut," and come in, and let's figure it out." Because they're both so capable, I knew they could do that. And they did, which was so helpful.

Kerry Diamond:
So that was a set? I really thought you shot in a restaurant.

Jeremy Allen White:
For the pilot, we shot in a restaurant. That's the other thing... I mean, that's the sad thing. We shot the pilot in July, last year. There were so many spaces available because so many restaurants had closed, obviously. So we found an empty kitchen that we could shoot in for the pilot. And then we shot our exteriors at The Beef, which is a real Mr. Beef, which is a real restaurant in Chicago. And then we pretty much built the exact kitchen, though, from the pilot on stage for the rest of the series, but it was all functional. And it was still quite tight, but we gave ourselves just a little bit more room for camera and stuff like that.

Kerry Diamond:
You also staged at some restaurants, in addition to culinary school. Can you say which restaurants and what some of the highlights were?

Jeremy Allen White:
My first day, I went to Republique. And I can't even really call it staging. I was really just standing in a corner that day. I'd never been to a kitchen at that level. I felt very overwhelmed. It's such a big restaurant. The staff is so large. It was really, really overwhelming. They were all lovely. Chris Storer and Cooper Wehde, who's a producer on the show as well, they had gone to a restaurant called Pasjoli in Santa Monica. The chef there, Chef Dave Beran, was a Chicago chef, and he worked at Alinea for a long time. And so, they were like, "Okay, this guy lived in Chicago for a long time. He understands food in Chicago. Why don't you go meet with him?" So I went to Pasjoli, which is a really wonderful French restaurant, which recently got a Michelin star.

I loved it there. It was a lot more intimate. The crew there was a little bit smaller. Chef Dave was really, really lovely and patient with me. My first days there, I was doing prep. You can mess up here and there, it's not that big a deal. But then, by the end, I was on the line and I was preparing food for guests. I was surprised. They kind of sprung it on me. I felt like I wasn't given much of a choice. I had to be pushed a little bit, and it felt great. I had to trust myself, and it all worked out. Nobody got sick or anything.

Kerry Diamond:
And sometimes that really happens in a restaurant. I mean, you're short staffed-

Jeremy Allen White:
Of course.

Kerry Diamond:
... and you just have to throw somebody right in, sink or swim, right?

Jeremy Allen White:
Totally. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
Jeremy, what did you learn about chefs that you didn't know?

Jeremy Allen White:
I think I was aware of this with chefs. I didn't fully understand the sacrifice and commitment of time, the amount of time you have to work, the repetition. From my perspective, if you don't fully love this, why would you do it? So those guys stick it out and they get to the next level and they have this success. I just have a tremendous amount of respect for the time, I think, was really a surprise to me.

Kerry Diamond:
Knowing what you now know, has it changed your relationship with restaurants and how you dine?

Jeremy Allen White:
While we were shooting the show, I've eaten in some really great places, and I've tried to understand service in a different way. I'm a bit more of a tough critic than I was a year ago, walking into a restaurant, depending on what the restaurant is, of course. But yeah, I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about how back of house works, and just from Maddy too. I mean, Maddy's a restaurateur. He has so many restaurants in Toronto. So I've learned a lot about just the service industry as well. That was something that was really interesting to me. I feel like I can be a little bit of a punk sometimes walking into a restaurant now.

Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about some of the other homework that you did. I know you read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential to prep for the role. Just curious what you thought about that book and what you kind of brought or borrowed from Bourdain.

Jeremy Allen White:
I really enjoyed the book. I had read some of it before the show. What struck me, and I think what strikes everybody about him, passion, not only for kitchens and food, but for life. And I knew that Carmy needed that passion, he needed that drive. I needed to find something that he wanted so badly because nobody just wants to watch a guy who's angry, shouting at everybody all the time. There needs to be something there. I think what I really appreciated about the book, and what I kind of took away from it is, it's just so nice to listen to somebody talk about how much they love this thing. And then I could try to just make Carmy love it.

Kerry Diamond:
I want to ask you about Chicago. I've been to Chicago a bunch of times. I'm not super-well versed in all things Chicago. But it's your second show based in Chicago, as all your fans know. First, I need you to bring me up to speed on this whole Chicago sandwich and Italian beef thing because I don't know anything about that. So what can you tell me?

Jeremy Allen White:
I don't know how long it's been going on, but it's having a bit of a Renaissance now. Everybody's trying different things. But the classic beef is thinly sliced beef on a roll. You can do sweet or hot peppers, and you can dip it or have it not dipped in the jus. And that's it. It's pretty simple. Different neighborhoods have different sandwich shops. It's almost, where you eat your Italian beef in Chicago is like, "Are you for the Cubs or for the White Sox?" And people take a lot of pride in which one they like and where they like it from and stuff like that.

Kerry Diamond:
The show was a love letter to so many things, like chefs, restaurants, but it was definitely a love letter to Chicago. I mean, the scenes of Chicago were beautiful, the sense of community and family that the show taps into. How did you feel when you found out your second show would be based in Chicago?

Jeremy Allen White:
I was excited. I think I had a moment of hesitation thinking, "My next thing right after Shameless, do I want to go right back to Chicago?" But the story was too good to pass up. That environment became not as important to me. And then, also, Chicago's a lovely city. If I'm going to spend more time somewhere, why not? Why not Chicago? And you're right. Chicago does play such a big role in the show, and it's beautiful city. I've spent... not a tremendous amount of time there. I mean, the longest extended period I had been there was for The Bear because, for Shameless, we would only go there for about a week or so at a time. And it was so great. I feel like I had my experience with Shameless, and I understood that Chicago, or what that Chicago was for me. And then I feel like I experienced a whole new one with this group of people and staying there for a longer time. It really feels like a different world now, like two different Chicagos.

Kerry Diamond:
Jeremy, I want to ask you about the other cast members because this is such a tremendous ensemble piece. Had you and any of those folks ever worked together before?

Jeremy Allen White:
Chris Storer produced a movie I did a couple years, the creator of the show, so I knew him a little bit. I'd met Ebon who plays Richie, briefly. We have a couple mutual friends, but I'd never worked with him. And everybody else was pretty much brand new to me. We had a really wonderful casting director, Jeanie Bacharach. I just thank her because we had about a week of rehearsal before the pilot, which isn't a lot of time, but you usually don't get any time. So it was really nice to have. And things fell into place pretty quickly. And also, when you're in that environment, it really drops you in. When you're in a functioning kitchen, it feels real, and everybody felt real so quickly. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
I'm rooting for you to get a second season for so many reasons, but especially because I want to know the back stories of all those characters in the kitchen.

Jeremy Allen White:
Totally. I think the plan, if we do get to some more, is to also do some standalone episodes, maybe, where there could be a entire episode that's from Marcus's perspective, and we're just living in his world for an episode kind of thing. I hope that's something we get to do because I think all the characters are so rich and interesting, nothing's two dimensional. Even the characters that didn't have a lot of time this season, the actors are so good that you still get it.

Kerry Diamond:
I was very happy to see the guys in the dish pit represented. And you know who I just absolutely loved? I mean, Sydney was fantastic. But the actor who plays Tina.

Jeremy Allen White:
Yes. Liza. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
Her journey through those eight episodes.

Jeremy Allen White:
She has a theater company here. She's been doing theater forever. Her husband's a really wonderful actor. She's been doing this for a very long time, and I'm really excited. I'm hoping this is the beginning of some more stuff for her. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
No, she was fantastic. And you have some fun cameos in this show too. And these might be spoiler alerts, they might not be spoiler alerts because... If you haven't watched it, you might want to tune out for a minute or two. But I loved seeing Oliver Platt in the show. I wasn't even entirely sure that was him until the credits. And I was like, "That was Oliver." Was that an in joke, that he was in there, because his brother is one of the most prominent restaurant critics in the country?

Jeremy Allen White:
For folks who know that sort thing, yes, I think it was a little bit of a wink. He almost played a version of his brother, I guess, in Chef, which is that Jon Favreau movie too. So yeah, he's very knowledgeable on food and service and stuff like that, just spending time with his brother. And he likes a good meal. But yeah, we were so excited to have him. He's such a wonderful actor. He works on another show in Chicago, one of those Dick Wolf shows. So he spends so much time there, and they let us borrow him for a couple days, and we felt very lucky.

Kerry Diamond:
He was great. The scene at his house, I was dying. I won't say anything more, but oh my God. And then another cameo, Molly Ringwald. And it's so funny that Molly was in there because, I think it was maybe the first or first one and a half episodes, I kept thinking of The Breakfast Cub because they filmed so much of The Breakfast Club right in the characters' faces.

Jeremy Allen White:
Really tight. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. A lot of that claustrophobic feeling that you get from, in a good way, The Breakfast Club, I felt like you really nailed in the first few episodes. And then, all of a sudden, Molly Ringwald pops up, and I was like, "Well, that's strange. I was thinking about The Breakfast Club and here's Molly."

Jeremy Allen White:
Yeah. It was really cool. I might be getting this wrong, so forgive me, anybody who knows. But Ebon, who plays Richie, his manage represents Molly. And Molly's husband, I believe, is a publisher who was friends with Anthony Bourdain. And so there was even a food connection somehow there as well. She read the script and was really supportive of the story and was like, "Yeah, I'll come do this monologue." And she was so wonderful.

Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned the movie Chef. Do you have some favorite food films?

Jeremy Allen White:
The Big Night, I think, is like one of my all times. And then I feel like I have to mention Burnt. John Wells, who was our show runner on Shameless directed this movie, Burnt, with Bradley Cooper. I really enjoyed it, and I thought Bradley Cooper was wonderful. And also found it interesting. It's his second time playing a chef. He played, I guess, a version of Anthony Bourdain on a Fox show called Kitchen Confidential. Knowing that, I was interested in why he wanted to go back to that world.

Kerry Diamond:
Jeremy, what do you ultimately hope viewers take away regarding the world of chefs and small, family-run restaurants.

Jeremy Allen White:
It does take such commitment and passion and time, and the success rate is so slim. I want people to know how much these people are putting into these restaurants. What attracted me to the show was this lonely man, or he seemed very lonely to me, Carmy. And over the course of the show, he really starts to be able to let people in. And all those sorts of stories will always resonate with me more than anything. I think it's so universal, somebody feeling alone and realizing they're not. So I hope that that's something people can take away too.

Kerry Diamond:
And I can't let you leave without asking for a few of your favorite restaurants.

Jeremy Allen White:
Here in New York, I really like Frankies in Carroll gardens. I really like Lucali. I like Pasjoli a lot. I like Jon & Vinny's. I like Pace in LA.

Kerry Diamond:
And what restaurants are on your bucket list?

Jeremy Allen White:
Anglers is a place in LA that every chef, while I was working, that was their favorite place at the time. So I definitely want to go there. That's in Los Angeles. There's a place called Mother Wolf that just opened recently in Los Angeles that I really want to go to, this really wonderful chef from a restaurant called Felix on Abbot Kinney in Venice. Lionel, who plays Marcus on the show, in his preparation, he did a lot of baking in Copenhagen at the bakery that sends all of their bread to Noma. One night, Lionel went with some of the staff from the bakery, and they all ate at Noma. And I think that's something you have to try to do, if you can.

Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's wild. Noma got a lot of love in the series. And last question, if you could have anybody from the restaurant world do a cameo in a future season, who would it be?

Jeremy Allen White:
You know what? I don't know. I'd love to have Pasta Grannies come and be in an actual dream sequence with me, rather than have me fall asleep, watching them on TV. I think that that would be really something. Yeah.

Kerry Diamond:
I love that, fully support that. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much. I mean, again, what a tremendous show. I just hope everybody-

Jeremy Allen White:
Thanks.

Kerry Diamond:
... out there gets to watch it, and I hope we get lots of seasons. So beautifully played. Congratulations.

Jeremy Allen White:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Jeremy Allen White for joining me. Check out his new show, The Bear, now streaming on Hulu. If you enjoyed today's episode, check out our past interviews with other great food and film folks, like the one and only Stanley Tucci and Julie & Julia food stylist, Susan Spungen, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you to Kerrygold and Brightland for supporting today's show. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Sign up for our newsletter at cherrybombe.com. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you, Joseph Hazan, Studio Engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. And thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.