-Our next guest is a talented actor
you know from his work on" Shameless."
He stars in FX's "The Bear,"
which is streaming exclusively on Hulu.
Let's take a look.
-It's crumbly. The oven's too dry.
You need to fill a baking sheet with water,
put it on the oven floor, throw in another batch, okay?
-Don't tell me how to do my job. -Just do it!
♪♪
Yo! Somebody come try this, cousin!
-Yeah, right!
-How you doing, Chef?
-Chef. What's going on? What do you think?
-It's redundant and white, just like you.
-Heard, heard, heard.
-Salt. Heat. It's tender. -Mmm! Mmm!
-It's nice? We happy? -[Bleep]
-Please welcome to the show Jeremy Allen White, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome to the show! I'm so happy you're here.
-I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
-I feel like this is the show of the summer.
This is the show I talk to people about the most.
Everybody's enjoying it.
I know you filmed it in Chicago in the winter, so a bit of time.
-Yes. How does it feel, though,
the response? -Man, it's so nice.
Like, we were trying to make a show, I think,
where, like, back-of-house and the kitchen industry
would kind of, like, give us a head nod,
and I hope maybe we'd have, like, a niche audience
that would enjoy it enough that we could keep doing more.
But I'm incredibly overwhelmed by how it's really connected
with so many people, and it feels good.
-You play sort of a renowned chef
who returns to a family business making sandwiches.
It is so -- The kitchen scenes are so chaotic.
And -- But I feel like
one of the reasons people are so energized
by watching it is everybody loves eating food.
And the idea of getting to watch, like, what actually
goes through -- even just to make a beef sandwich.
-Absolutely. Every restaurant now
that I look at is a miracle.
Like, especially in cities like New York, Chicago, L.A.
I had no idea just how much went into it.
And, yeah, it's incredible. I have a lot of respect.
I've spent a lot of time now with chefs, cooks,
and the sacrifice of time, the commitment,
loss of, like, personal life.
It's really -- It's astounding, and it's commendable.
-I know you did some training in working kitchens
while you were preparing. -Oh, yeah.
-Did the chefs appreciate you're an actor
but also hate you a little bit when you were slow?
-Yeah, I walked into every kitchen apologizing
just like, "I'm sorry I'm here, too.
But, like, please be patient with me."
And, yeah, it was really nice.
Like, I think everybody kind of knew the deal, but --
but there was one time I was working at this
restaurant called Pasjoli.
It's in Santa Monica.
If you guys are ever out there, go.
It's excellent.
Chef Dave Beran is chef there.
He was really generous with his time.
Everybody kind of knew the deal.
But one day I was in there, I was prepping,
and there was a new line cook, and I hadn't met her before,
and she was telling me what to do.
She told me to do, like, a three-quarter dice
on some vegetables.
I started cutting. They weren't great.
And I told her, "You know what? I'm an actor.
I'm not a chef."
And she just goes, "No, I know."
She could just tell by how I was cutting.
Like, there's no -- no way.
-I like that it was more likely that an actor
had come in to research a role...
-Than I was actually a chef? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
-And then you went to --
You took some classes at the Culinary Institute.
-Yeah, yeah. -Do you feel like,
based on how quickly you pick things up,
you would have been good at this?
-No. Honestly. -Thank you for the honesty.
-I mean, I got it.
You know, I got really good at the knife work.
It's all repetition, really. It's just time.
But no. Like, it wasn't --
It wasn't natural for me, I'll say, yeah.
-So, these Italian beef sandwiches --
they look so good on the show. -Yeah.
-I would imagine that you had to eat
your fair share of them.
-I ate a lot of them on set. I'm also a big fan.
I've spent a lot of time in Chicago over the years,
and I love the sandwich.
Like, it is what like the Philly cheesesteak is for Philly.
It's really important to the culture there in Chicago.
And I ate a lot.
A lot of hot dogs, a lot of Italian beefs. Dozens.
-We have a -- We had an intern run out.
There's a place in Brooklyn called Dog Day Afternoon.
-Oh, whoa. -And so these are their --
These are their Italian beef sandwiches.
-Oh, wow. -We've heard good things.
I mostly just want to -- Here's what I really want to do.
'Cause I heard they're good.
I want to take a bite of an Italian beef sandwich
next to you and make the face that the people on the show
make every time they eat one of your sandwiches.
That's my favorite part of the show, is --
-Sure, sure. Here. Cheers.
-Cheers. -Cheers. Here we go.
-This is a Chicago custom. You cheers your sandwich.
-That's what you do.
-Mmm!
Mmm! -Mmm.
And then they never take another bi--
It's like it's so good that they're like, "That's fine."
-"I'm not going to let you have another bite."
I'm gonna take them home with me.
Um, on the show,
your character calls everybody "Chef,"
and everybody calls you "Chef."
And you explain it. It's like the sign of respect
of everybody in the profession.
Have people started yelling out to you, "Hey, Chef," yet?
-Yes, chef. Yes. They --
I have this restaurant I love to go to
in my neighborhood here in New York. It's called Rolo's.
Again, if you guys are in the neighborhood, go check it out.
And I go there all the time, so they know me a little bit.
But three days after the show came out, I went there.
Everybody -- "Chef." "Yes, Chef."
And it's so -- it's so nice because like, again,
kind of what I was saying before,
like, we connected, I think,
with the back-of-house and the industry in a way
that I think the show seems real to them,
and I don't know if that's been done yet.
And so, yeah, I feel -- I feel very lucky to be able
to walk into a restaurant and not be booed out,
but to be called, you know. "Yes, Chef."
-I don't know if you've had this happen.
I know people that have worked in restaurants
and worked in kitchens, and I've asked them if they watch it.
And someone said, "Yeah, but I can't keep watching."
I'm like, "Oh, is it not like a restaurant?"
They're like, "No, it's way too much..."
-Too much like a restaurant. Yes. Yeah, I heard that.
There's this wonderful article that came out
in "Bon Appétit," which was so cool
they were even writing about our show.
But, yeah, they talked to a lot of chefs, and, you know,
a lot of people have a --
It's -- It's like -- It's a tough environment.
And that's what we were trying to show.
And so, yes, I think it was a little bit
traumatizing for -- for some chefs to watch.
-You know, watching it, sometimes I was so
in awe of the choreography
that must have been required from all of you,
because much like a kitchen at a restaurant,
especially like that, I mean, I think most kitchens
are way tighter than you expect them to be.
-Of course. Yeah. -But just the level
of the acting, while keeping in mind that you all had to --
You know, you're moving around with --
Whether they're prop knives or not.
Like, it seemed like a dangerous scene to be doing.
-Totally. Yeah. I mean, it was really nice.
So that was something I knew I could fake,
is sort of, like, the movement through a kitchen,
what that looks like.
I was able to, like, study these really
wonderful cooks and chefs and figure out that movement.
But, yeah, it's a tight spot.
There's a lot of people,
and there's a real dance, like, to the movement,
but handling knives and pans and all that stuff,
that kind of helped me as an actor
because you kind of get out of your own way a little bit.
You can't -- You can't be thinking too much
about what you're saying or how you're saying it
because you have, like, another action.
Like, I think a prop is like
a really good friend to an actor, so...
So, yeah, I was happy to have all that stuff to do for sure.
-You have -- You have fantastic hair,
and your act-- your acting in this is wonderful.
Your hair alone. Because it's all over the place.
Like, I feel like the hair -- your hair in a kitchen
is, like, where it was meant to be.
-For sure. For sure. I mean, I agree.
I wanted -- I saw -- I read this book,
Marco Pierre White's book, and there's this photo of him
on the front of the book, and he's got all this long hair.
And so I was like, I really want to grow my hair out
and kind of have a little nod to Marco Pierre White.
And so I did it.
I thought it looked great on the show, but it's weird.
A lot of people are calling out -- and they're not wrong --
that I should have been wearing a cap.
I should have been wearing, like, something
because, like, so much of Carmy's hair
is probably in all those sandwiches.
-Yeah, that's a fair part. That's a fair point.
But yet every time people take a bite, they don't seem to mind.
-Right. And how I can't put a hat on.
-Yeah. It always looks like the hair
that if you needed something from somebody and you asked them
and they had that hair, you'd be like,
"Oh, you're not right. You can't handle this."
-Sure. Yes. -You have the hair of somebody
who's one task past what they can deal with.
-Totally. Yes. The entirety of the show is -- Yes.
-You had some professional chefs, including Matty Matheson,
who's been a guest on this show
who's an incredibly charismatic guy
who's an actor on the show, as well.
-Yeah. [ Applause ]
-So Matty, who was,
you know, incredibly funny and charismatic when he's here.
Wonderful on the show. -Yeah.
-And also was sort of a technical advisor.
-Totally. 100%.
-And I know, also, the show's creator -- his sister.
-Chris Storer's sister, Courtney Storer,
is a wonderful chef at a restaurant.
Or she used to be at a restaurant.
Jon & and Vinny's in Los Angeles.
She's really talented.
And her and Matty were in charge of a lot of stuff.
But for me personally, I told them,
"If you see me doing something goofy,
if you see me doing something
that does not make sense in the kitchen,
please yell, 'Cut.' Stop me."
And Matty would, all the time.
-Matty does not strike me
as a guy who would have any hesitation.
-No, no, no. -Well, that's good.
-But he's excellent. I mean, like, the show --
The show looks the way it does and feels the way it does
because of of Matty and Courtney.
Like, they're real chefs, and they're excellent.
-Well, it's a really special show.
Congratulations to you and everybody who worked on it.
And thanks so much for being here.
I really can't thank you enough. Jeremy Allen White, everybody.
FX's "The Bear" is streaming exclusively on Hulu.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."