Before patrons of The Original Beef of Chicagoland ever get their delicious sandwiches from chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) on FX’s The Bear, they have to go through manager Richie Jerimovich—an irritable clodhopper who’s both aggravating and engaging all at the same time. He’s played with affection and reverence by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, the blue-eyed breakout best known for his stints on Girls (as Marnie’s husband Desi) and The Punisher (as David Linus  ‘Microchip’ Lieberman, the title character’s ally). Here, Moss-Bachrach talks about making it big on the comedy series from executive producer Christopher Storer (Ramy).

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DEADLINE: You grew up in Massachusetts. Do you remember what originally inspired in you the desire to act?

EBON MOSS-BACHRACH: As a kid, I was always very much an escapist. I loved my sci-fi books and Flash Gordon and all that kind of stuff. I don’t know how much that played into my acting. I started to get more into it when I went to college. That’s when it became something I felt like I really wanted to do.

DEADLINE: Did you study acting when you were at Columbia University?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I wasn’t in the theater department. I took an acting class my freshman year. That really opened my eyes to the full art, that it’s really a discipline that I could pursue and study with my heart and my soul until the day I dropped dead.

DEADLINE: You share a last name with your mom, as well as your dad. Are you a feminist ally?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I guess. It wasn’t on me [laughs]. They made that decision for me. I was a prenatal feminist.

DEADLINE: What was your very first job in Hollywood? Was it the TV movie Murder in a Small Town?

MOSS-BACHRACH: Yeah. My first job was with Gene Wilder. I remember going to the casting director on 53rd Street, maybe 54th Street, and there was Gene Wilder with his beautiful eyes glowing and his curly hair. He was like an angel. He gave me the job in the room while we were talking about something else. It was an OK movie, but it was six weeks where I got to spend every day with Gene Wilder, who was like the most wonderful, generous role model. I didn’t realize even at the time what an amazing gift that was.

DEADLINE: When you were starting out, do you remember thinking, OK, this is what I need to do in my career to make it big?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I never wanted to make it big. All I wanted to do was regional theater and plays. I started so young. I was like 20 years old and thought, ‘Well, if I can go and do plays in San Jose or Arizona and make 5,600 bucks a week, it’ll be great.’ I love this kind of itinerant lifestyle where I don’t know what I’m going to do next.

DEADLINE: As your career progressed, did you find that you were getting specific kinds of offers?

MOSS-BACHRACH: For a long time, I was playing the best friend. I was getting a lot of best friends and brothers. And they all seemed to be a little bit nerdy.

DEADLINE: When you joined Girls, which had already captured the zeitgeist, did you think to yourself, ‘Oh man, I’m going to be totally cool now?’

MOSS-BACHRACH: My character didn’t come on until the third season. I was friendly with Jenni Konner and Lena Dunham, so they wrote this part for me. It was supposed to be a couple of episodes at first. And then we were having so much fun, they just kept making the part bigger and bigger. I inherited this kind of cool, zeitgeisty thing. I never felt like I was pivotal in making it. I was just sort of tagging onto the coattails of this thing.

DEADLINE: You participated in a much-talked-about oral sex scene involving Allison Williams’ derriere. Can you recall the funniest thing that was said about it?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I remember meeting Allison’s dad [Brian Williams] not long after that and him being really cool. He came up to shake my hand and I probably turned really red. I was proud of the scene. It’s good to push it and we definitely did on that day.

DEADLINE: What was your initial reaction to The Bear? What made you want to do it?

MOSS-BACHRACH: It just felt so true to me. Richie definitely reminded me of a few people I’ve known over the years, people who I kind of love who were hilarious and tragic and big babies. I never read anything like that before, the writing was just so good. And Chris Storer had such a keen ear for dialogue and behavior. I didn’t really know much about kitchens, and I don’t really know much about Chicago, so I wasn’t even picking up on those things. It was just about relationships and the way people talk to each other and the things that people intimate but don’t say.

DEADLINE: You’ve said before that what Richie brings to the restaurant is fairly unclear and vague. So why the hell is he still there?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I don’t know. It’s like your grandma’s pot. The soup’s gotta be cooked in that pot, you know? Otherwise, it’s not gonna taste the same. At the same time, you’re like, what the hell? What’s going on with this big pot? It’s ugly and it takes up a lot of room in the kitchen. Richie is very much the soul of the restaurant. He’s the front-facing part. He knows everybody’s name. He’s like community relations.

DEADLINE: The way you guys scream at each other is so funny. How do you remain in character and not bust out laughing?

MOSS-BACHRACH: It happens sometimes, but I’m proud of us. Jeremy’s a pro. He doesn’t laugh too much. And then you’ve got people like Matty Matheson [who plays the role of Neil Fak], who is like a complete liability to have to do scenes with. I have to look away from him, pretend he’s somewhere else. Because if I look at him, we’re just gonna start laughing.

DEADLINE: Now that you’ve been in Chicago for a year, what makes it the perfect home for the show?

MOSS-BACHRACH: Chicago is where Chris is from. It’s specific to him and to this story, which is personal in some ways. So it’s appropriate that it’s there. It takes on this identity of Chicago. I mean, it’d be nice to be in New York and sleep in my bed every night and be with my family, but it would feel so disingenuous. The culture of Chicago is so specific that it makes it a lot easier from an acting point of view to be there and to be eating that food and hearing the accents. It informs everything.

DEADLINE: Are you treated like a god there now? Can you walk down the street without being mobbed by fans of the show?

MOSS-BACHRACH: I can walk down the street without being mobbed. I can’t say the same for my young friend Jeremy.

DEADLINE: Does it feel odd to be called out for a breakout performance when you’ve already been doing this for so long?

MOSS-BACHRACH: You don’t have too many options in Hollywood. You either get rich and famous really quickly or you have to find a way. My goal was to never become rich and famous. My goal was to be able to support myself and my family doing what I love to do. And I’ve been able to do that. So I feel totally great about my career, and I think people recognize that. It’s nice to be recognized for this show that I am really proud of. I don’t feel weird about it at all. But I also feel very similar to the way I felt a year ago before it even came out. Does that make any sense?

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