Like his character on “The Bear,” Lionel Boyce has an aversion to making a lot of noise. “I am a person who doesn’t like talking about himself,” he says.
(David Urbanke / For The Times)
“The Bear,” FX’s cultural touchstone of a culinary dark comedy, provides the sensation of watching high-strung individuals running around with their hair on fire (plus the occasional kitchen fire) in the Chicago eatery where much of the action takes place. But there’s one rock of relative serenity. He can usually be found quietly making pastries as his surroundings crumble around him. Marcus, played by Lionel Boyce, has a knack for keeping calm and carrying on.
“Marcus is the release of all the tension,” Boyce said in a recent video interview. “That’s what a lot of people tell me: ‘Everyone’s arguing. Then they cut to Marcus over in the bakery, and I feel like I can breathe for a second.’”
Boyce, 33, has a similar aversion to making a lot of noise. He’s speaking from New Jersey, taking a break from shooting the crime movie “Motor City.” What’s it about? “I’m always so bad at describing these things because I am a person who doesn’t like talking about himself,” he said.
Others, however, are talking about him plenty.
He recently picked up one of “The Bear’s” record 23 Emmy nominations for its second season, for supporting actor in a comedy. He was also the focus of one of the season’s most praised episodes, “Honeydew,” which finds Marcus studying his craft with a chef in Denmark and, during his off time, saving a stranger’s life. The guy is busy.
“Honeydew” is one of those episodes of “The Bear” that zooms in on a specific character and lets the viewer relax a little outside the hothouse confines of kitchen chaos. Carmy (lead actor nominee Jeremy Allen White) has sent Marcus to Copenhagen to intern with Chef Luca (Will Poulter, who was nominated in the guest actor category).
Lionel Boyce stars with Will Poulter in the “Honeydew” episode of Season 2 of “The Bear.”
(Chuck Hodes)
Nervous and tentative at first — Marcus hasn’t traveled a lot, and this hot-shot British chef is kind of a big deal — he gradually loosens up. The two chefs share their life stories (Marcus played football in college, and his first food job was at a McDonald’s). Marcus stays on a houseboat, where he takes care of a cat that may or may not actually exist. Walking home one night (or early one morning), he finds a bicyclist whose throat has been pinned under a fence. Marcus lifts the fence, and the man, still bleeding, gives him a long hug of gratitude before pedaling off into the darkness.
The episode, for which director Ramy Youssef also earned an Emmy nomination, is among the most hopeful and peaceful of the series so far (just two episodes later came the epic Christmas dinner anxiety attack, “Fishes”). And for Boyce, it marked a major step in the development of Marcus as a character.
(David Urbanke / For The Times)
“It’s the first time he’s gotten comfortable,” Boyce said. “And by the end of it, he’s respected by Luca because Luca sees his passion and the fire in him. To get someone who has no stake in you to believe in you, I think that’s big for anybody doing anything. External validation or belief from someone who’s not your family or friends can mean a lot.”
Like Marcus, Boyce played outside linebacker, for El Camino College in Torrance. When he realized he probably wasn’t going to make the NFL, he gravitated toward hip-hop, as a member of the L.A.-based collective Odd Future, and sketch comedy, in the Odd Future series “Loiter Squad” on Adult Swim. This was his primary entryway to acting, which, he soon realized, he enjoyed more than tackling running backs.
“I would play football and other sports, but I never cared to watch it that much,” he said. “Now, I always watch movies. I go to movies alone. I just am so interested in this world. I can ingest it at any given time.”
Boyce was trying to figure out what was next when he got the script for the “Bear” pilot. He got the part, and the next thing he knew he was staging (basically an unpaid kitchen internship) at the Copenhagen restaurant Hart Bageri — yes, Boyce made it to Denmark even before his Season 2 episode — as he prepared to play Marcus.
“This was before the show came out, so people don’t know who I was,” he said. “They assume you’re just some guy who came from another kitchen and they’re like, ‘Wow, he’s really bad.’”
Appropriately, “The Bear,” which has been widely lauded for the authenticity of its restaurant depictions, has expanded Boyce’s palate. Take, for example, mushrooms. “I thought I just didn’t like mushrooms, across the board,” he said. “Then you have a different kind of mushroom and you learn the different ways they’re prepared. It was more the texture than the taste that I didn’t like. I’m not just out here wheeling and dealing, getting mushrooms on my food, but I can eat them. I’m not like a child about it anymore.”
Like Marcus, Boyce is learning. One dish at a time.
