The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach Says He Almost Passed on the Show

Ebon Moss-Bachrach almost said “No, chef.”

Moss-Bachrach—who plays the antagonistic, yet oddly charming Richie on FX’s breakout The Bear—revealed that he came very close to missing out on the project altogether.

“They sent me [scripts] the first two episodes, and to be honest, I was starting to make the Star Wars show [Andor] and I didn’t even read it,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly Aug. 3. “I was so overwhelmed…It was COVID, I was getting my family over to the U.K. [to shoot Andor]. It just sort of slipped through the cracks.”

The Bear without Moss-Bachrach’s Richie is like an Italian beef without giardiniera—it just doesn’t make any sense!

“My agent, to his credit, called me two weeks later,” Moss-Bachrach said. “He’s like, ‘Listen, I really think you’re making a mistake by not reading this.’ I mean, this character of Richie was written so well. It just was so beautifully formed, and there was so much life on the page.”

We owe a debt of gratitude to this agent.