The Bear actress Liza Colón-Zayas on learning to play a chef and dealing with fame
Colón-Zayas, who plays Tina Marrero in the Disney+ series, talks about her character’s development and the impact the show has had on her
When viewers first meet Tina Marrero, Liza Colón-Zayas’ character on The Bear, she has an icy front – reluctant to adapt to the ways of head chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who is trying to breathe new, more organised life into his family’s restaurant, The Original Beef of Chicagoland. It is mayhem, exacerbated by some of the long-time staff’s unwillingness to see their own potential.
But soon, Tina starts paying attention to the good that can come from being open to change.
“I was learning who she was in real time, so I trusted enough that Tina would be imbued with the humanity, with the rationale – it was a matter of me trusting what’s on the page,” says Colón-Zayas.
“I try not to judge the characters – and in this world where it’s so easy to want to shut down because it’s dangerous, the changes that are coming with making people expendable are real in so many communities.
“So I’m glad [Tina] wasn’t sanitised and sugar-coated and that we could see like … if we just invest in the people that we traditionally overlook, it could be beneficial for all of us.”
Colón-Zayas understands Tina personally, having had similar experiences of “feeling unwanted” throughout her decades-long acting career. Like Tina, Colón-Zayas has also experienced a reinvention of sorts.