‘The Bear’ Star Lionel Boyce Talks Marcus’ Growth As A Character And His Emotional Journey: “He Has Grief Turning Into Inspiration”
On FX’s hit comedy-drama series The Bear, Lionel Boyce plays Marcus Brooks, a humble pastry chef trying to balance the hardships within his life with the hectic environment of the restaurant. While Season 2 maintains the fast-paced, high-adrenaline storylines that the series is known for, the first few episodes take the opportunity to dig deeper into the lives of the other characters throwing down in the kitchen, but namely, Boyce’s Marcus.
Episode 4’s Emmy-nominated episode, “Honeydew,” directed by Ramy Youssef, follows Marcus’s life outside the kitchen, as he serves as caretaker for his ill mother, who is unconscious in a hospital bed. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arrives via Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), who offer him a moment of reprieve as they send him to Copenhagen to learn from chef Luca (Will Poulter) and return with dessert ideas for the menu at The Bear. Throughout the episode, Marcus’ confidence in his kitchen skills grows, and once he returns to Chicago, he impresses his colleagues with all the delicious treats he’s developed along the way.
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Here, the actor spoke with Deadline about his inspirations, working with his cast members and bringing levity to his tender role as Marcus.
DEADLINE: The discourse around whether or not the show is a comedy continues to be interesting. There’s definitely a dark comedic edge to some of the scenarios and a lot of broad comedy from the Faks. But Marcus’ story is very dramatic. How have you been processing the genres and themes of the show yourself these last three seasons?
LIONEL BOYCE: It’s interesting because, in the pilot, there are moments where Marcus has a little bit of banter with some of the guys in the kitchen, but I remember as we did Season 1, I was like, “Wow, yeah, he’s not really getting any of the comedic moments or any of the comedy.” He’s not dramatic, but he’s just more quiet. And I think for him, it’s always just about the story and how everything connects to him. It’s just this journey of discovery and falling in love with his work. He doesn’t necessarily need to throw jokes in there as much. It makes sense for him to just keep exploring and getting better with his craft. We have Richie throwing things around, the Faks and maybe one line to riff at the end. I think that’s how I’ve been processing it though, where I don’t think too much about [genre categorization] because the stories on the show are so good that I feel there’s no need to do that. It’s not lacking in any way.
DEADLINE: Marcus is so lucky that he not only got upgraded from bread maker to pastry chef but also in the sense that much of the chaos of the restaurant happens around him, so he gets to remain calm most of the time. I wouldn’t call him passive, but he has this gentle quality. How have you grown to see Marcus?
BOYCE: I don’t think of him as gentle or passive. I honestly just think about him as a person who just minds his business. If you speak to him, he responds. And it’s not that he won’t have a confrontation within situations; it’s just there’s no reason to because he’s off in his world. None of the friction that comes from the other side of the kitchen around the hot food is coming to him except for when he’s falling behind. And I think, at this point, by Season 3, he’s matured to a place where he’s striving for greatness.
When Carmy’s yelling out, “Where are these things?” It’s not about a fight; it’s about him. He wants to live up to Carmy’s expectations and those kinds of things, but I don’t think it’s because of a lack of confrontation from being gentle. It’s just simply, “Yeah, I don’t need to engage when I don’t need to. There’s no reason.” I think he just understands there’s a path of life where you can get worked up and fight and bump heads with everybody, or you can just not, and he just chooses not to.
DEADLINE: What kind of real-life inspirations and influences go into making Marcus who he is?
BOYCE: It’s the people around me that I look at that are very creative in the way they approach things. I’ve been fortunate to grow up around a lot of highly creative people, and their approach and their openness to their passions have been very influential to me. As I’ve been learning more about the culinary world, I think Courtney Storer, who I’ve mentioned a lot in other interviews, our culinary producer, she approaches food making in the same way with so much artistry. Malcolm Livingston II, Richard Hart and everybody else that I’ve been fortunate enough to stage, or any restaurant, where I was able to talk to chefs and see how they’re curious and open and have so much passion for anything they do. I see the way they keep going and how they try to find new ways to do things and push themselves. I think it just all folds in and goes hand in hand with this journey that I think Marcus is on.
DEADLINE: The episode you’re nominated for is Season 2’s “Honeydew,” which garnered a lot of attention. You and Will Poulter have such great chemistry in that episode. How did you go about building that relationship?
BOYCE: The cool thing is that everyone genuinely has respect and loves one another. And then there’s this natural chemistry that comes about from when you do a scene together because it’s like, yeah, you’re pairing with this person, and you can work with them to see how the chemistry starts at one place and goes to another. I’m thinking about Will, which I didn’t know what to expect chemistry-wise. And then I remember we met and hung out before. Me, him and Ramy spent the day together, kind of walking around, hanging out, getting to know one another. Through that I got a sense of him as a person, and then I was able to build a rapport between me and him. And then, when we did the scene, it was a little different because they are also characters. This adds a different partnership and working relationship trajectory because the intentions are different within a scene. But it has, I think at the basis, this level of humanity that comes from me and him. So, at the core, you get pretty deep with a person and talk about life, and you get a real sense of them, but this is all really hard to explain [laughs].
DEADLINE: Marcus loses his mom at the end of Season 2, unbeknownst to him, and then we follow him closely with this storyline at the beginning of Season 3. How do you think Marcus is getting along with his grief in the bridge between the two seasons?
BOYCE: I think it’s two different sides of the coin. I think Season 2 is finding inspiration. He has an existing fear of waiting for a shoe to drop, and it hasn’t, and that’s what’s happening with him. He’s finding passion. He’s finding all these things and getting into them passionately. The situation with his mom, he’s been living with this for a while, so it comes to a head at the end of the season. And now, I think he’s finding a new balance in this season where he’s like, “OK, I can do…” Because in Season 1, he doesn’t know how to balance what’s going on at home with his work life. He’s just excited to show up to work because he has something that he cares about other than his mom and the situation at home.
Season 2 is just him really getting to be like, “I can’t neglect work, and I can’t get caught up in the passions of creation. I’m still working at a restaurant.” And also, I think because the restaurant’s transformed, he has time off just to focus solely on the parts that he loves. He’s just going through that while his mom’s situation is getting worse. And it’s like you can’t let your foot off the gas with that because it’s literally a situation between life and death, and he has support from the nurse. So, Season 3 is all this time, I look at it as a pie chart where, if there was this solid 50% or 60%, however much of his time was dedicated to his mom, you can’t just move that. It’s concrete. So that time is now returned to him after she passes. So, he’s processing the grief through the time that has been returned to him. I think that’s what he’s wrestling with in Season 3, his grief turning into inspiration. It is just like trying to process something that’s happened to you, and what do you do with that leftover grief? How do you get through this tunnel and find a new balance?
DEADLINE: How do you work with Christopher Storer to help create Marcus’ character?
BOYCE: The cool thing about Chris is that he’s very collaborative. So, any ideas that we have, he’s always like, “Let’s try it,” or “Yeah, that’s cool.” It’s always an open conversation. It’s not just like, “This is what I’m thinking, this is all I’m thinking.” He’s very open and collaborative, and he trusts us to play our characters. For the most part, there’s so much within the scripts and stuff that you’re like, “Yeah, I agree with that. This makes sense.” So, I’m not throwing a lot of things in. Here and there, I may have a thought or idea.
There was maybe one thing within the “Honeydew” episode that was a small idea that I had. It came from one place I was staging between the seasons. There was a moment where Luca is showing Marcus how to build one of the desserts, where he’s putting the almond silvers around the dessert, and I remember the guy I was [learning from], and he was like, “Again, again.” And then, on the third try, he’s like, “Oh, that one’s not bad. It’s actually better than mine.” And I was just telling Chris about that moment, and then I was like, “It could be cool, just a small thing of just adding this payoff quip between the two characters of just, ‘that’s good, really good.'” Because I remembered that was a very cool, tiny win that could mean a lot to Marcus, Chris said, “Yeah, I love that.” And then he threw that in. He’s always game to add; even if he isn’t, he always gives a reason.
DEADLINE: There’s a conversation between Luca and Marcus in which Luca tells Marcus to “Just be confident about it. Don’t second guess yourself.” And I’m wondering for you, when did you start to take yourself seriously as an actor? Was there ever another path for you?
BOYCE: I’m not sure. Acting was a thing that I shied away from. All of this writing, acting and stuff came to me in such an unorthodox way. It wasn’t a passion since birth; it was something I found at 19. So, I think also coming in through Adult Swim, I’ve just always kind of had that mentality of like, “Yeah, but I’m doing it with friends.” I’m not classically trained or studied for this. Maybe I started taking it seriously much longer than I admitted. I think it was somewhere along the way of this very small part on this show called Hap and Leonard. It was the first time I was doing things outside of friends. I had to audition and just got this part from auditioning. And, I was just like, “Well, OK, I’ve done it. I’ve booked work as an actor, so I can say that I act now, technically.” [laughs]. It was somewhere around there where I was able to start vocalizing it and not feel bad about trying to say that this is what I do or what I want to do.
DEADLINE: The streets would like to know if you could get Tyler, the Creator a cameo on The Bear, what kind of role do you think he would play? Have you asked Christopher Storer to put him on there yet? Because he’s had all kinds of people on the show, from John Cena, Bob Odenkirk to Josh Hartnett.
BOYCE: I haven’t asked [laughs]. Because I just know Tyler would want to be something that’s not helpful to the show, in the best way, because he would be interested in putting on the most absurd wig he can find. I think what would serve him best is being a customer that comes into the restaurant. That way, he has the freedom to be as weird as he wants. He would love that.
DEADLINE: One more thing people are dying to know, Sydney turned down Marcus at the end of Season 2. In Season 3, they rebuild their good friendship. But where do you fall in the fandom wars? Should Sydney and Marcus give it another go? Or should Sydney be with Carmy, Luca or by herself as a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man?
BOYCE: I stay out of all that [laughs]. I want no part of that because everyone is in a war, and I am not jumping into that. I’m just like, “You guys think whatever you want to think. I got parts in it.” Because it’s actually much more fun just to observe and be like, “Oh, this is what everyone thinks? Huh, OK.” And it’s fun to then read someone’s well-thought-out argument for why it’ll be this, this or this. But I am not jumping into that discourse [laughs]. That’s where I stand.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
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