(The editor’s note: This article was originally published in December 2024 and has been updated to reflect the section that served Edebiri an Emmy nomination for outstanding director for a comedy series.)
When Available AYO I found out that she would direct a section of “The Bear”, she recalls Showrunner Christopher Stores who tells her: “You really get to play here, so feel free to do it.”
Her first stop was Director Guild of America, where she registered in a class for the first time TV directors under the direction of Paris Barclay, Keith Powell and Dr. Valerie Weiss (“Three legends incredibly give and helpful,” Edebiri told IndieWire). In a group that included writers, actors, producers and editors, the class went through each production step and what can come up on the road. How do the actors respond in direction? How does the editor respond to notes? How will Showrunner handle everything?
“That class is probably one of the coolest, biggest things I’ve ever done,” Edebiri said. “What I went away with the most was that the only wrong way to direct – yes, there are probably many wrong ways, but besides not communicating and not being open – not finding your way. If you try to make someone else’s way or work someone else’s way it won’t work. Our instructors were so helpful in really illustrating their differences – and that they succeeded in their differences – and so that we encouraged our ways to communicate and emphasize the fact that you always have to communicate. ”
Director 3, section 6, “Napkins” got Edebiri to communicate more than ever. Her first meeting was with Kinematographer Andrew Wehde, to talk about how their episode would fit into the show’s existing visual palette, with Edebiri who acts as “a guest in someone else’s house, in principle.” She spent more time with production designer Merje Veski than she ever did as an actor and worked closely with site manager Maria C. Roxas.
The episode focuses on Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), and the sudden shooting that leads her to Job Hunt all over Chicago and ends up at the Björnen clear before and after in her life. Edebiri and Veski got as detailed as the content of Tina’s refrigerator, placement of everything in it and why it would be there in the first place.
“Tina’s refrigerator right now in her life, versus when she is a few years later in her career and how she thinks about the kitchen and how she thinks about food …” said Edebiri. “Food is still part of her life, and it is part of so many of us. As a mother, when she makes meals, it is really different from how she thinks about food in our gift at the bear, but it is still part of her daily life.”
For the first part of the section, Edebiri and Wehde chose as much static camera as possible, “trying to maintain a really controlled and narrow feeling” before Tina loses her job and the handheld camera shows how unstable she feels. Edebiri wanted Chicago to suddenly “feel like another world … which compiles how small (Colón-Zayas) is with how small Tina feels.”
“When we finally, at the end of the episode, return to the bear, we really wanted it to feel like an early season 1 episode, using the strong and deliberate zooms, the turns of the lenses and embrace the chaos and the noise and have each shot feel really full of information,” explained Edebiri.
Then she took a big swing and asked Colón-Zayas and guest star Jon Bernthal to stay quite still during her conversation which is the third actual piece. The camera follows Tina from the restaurant counter to the seat, where it gently reveals her future colleagues Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Neil (Matty Matheson) and Mikey (Bernthal). After Tina starts to cry, Mikey comes over to look up a conversation.
“In the first script of it there was a little more movement with the two … with napkins and with everything he did,” Edebiri said. “As an actor – I also relate to this – you always want some business! You always want to do something, just for texture. I was like,” Please, trust me. The less you do, the more it will hit. “She credits her actors to be“ games and ready and give and trust to give the final result.
Close to a year after filming the episode (Edebiri remembers that it was close to St. Patrick’s Day due to the chocolate factory’s limited selection of seasonal snacks), reflected Edebiri over “how much goes into everything, to every moment and how many people are so good at their jobs.” No one is God, she noted, but there is a specific cocktail of trust and cooperation that was revealed to the person in the director’s chairman.
“You must have a certain amount of ego and a certain amount of safe in your decisions, but there must be room for cooperation and also be wrong, or not to have the answer and really be able to let someone else have knowledge and awareness,” she said. “It is this really miraculous amount of cooperation with everyone, everyone has a reason for their question or for their thought, because of their vantage point and where they are at.”
Edebiri did not go into “napkin” and thought that any of it was simple, but she is more in reverence than ever when it comes to doing TV.
“It’s like making a Venn chart, but of a thousand circles. That’s why they get something when you get something, or if you get it right, it feels so special – because it’s like, it’s crazy that there are a thousand circles but found the overlapping point.”
“The Bear” Season 3 streams at Hulu.
