featured-image

The Bear is basically Seinfeld in a kitchen, and Beef is a Trojan horse, say the creators of two of Hollywood’s most successful streaming hits of recent years, who are in Australia to share the secrets of making “elevated drama” for the global market. “ The Bear is like a workplace comedy,” says Joanna Calo, co-writer/producer/director of the Disney+ hit . Towering talents: Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo at the Sofitel in Melbourne.

Credit: Penny Stephens “It really is,” agrees Beef creator Lee Sung Jin, known to all as Sunny. “There are archetypes you revisit every episode, you know exactly how each character is going to be. You know Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) is gonna be really upset and anxious, and then Neil (Matty Matheson) is gonna come in and say something funny.



“There is a sort of Seinfeldian construct to it,” he observes. “But it feels new because of the themes you’re talking about – alcoholism, familial trauma, and all of that. So it is taking the old and remixing it.

“We’re not doing that on Beef ,” he adds, “but we probably should”. The first episode of his show used road rage as a “Trojan horse that allows everyone to enter because everyone’s had road rage,” he says. But after that, each episode became “a little more narrow, a little more grounded, a little more pathos-driven, all trying to guide an audience towards that very out-there finale”.

Jeremy Allen White (Carmy) and Ayo Edebiri (Syd) in The Bear. Credit: Disne.

Back to Entertainment Page