Of all of the electronic ink being spilled about The Bear — with the FX show’s fifth and final season dropping this Thursday, June 25 — over the years, only a small amount has been devoted to how addicted creator Christopher Storer is to getting the camera right in the faces of the actors on the show. We haven’t seen so many closeups on a TV show since the 1980s, when it was SOP to shoot scenes tightly to compensate for small screens. Storer instructs his directors and DPs to get so close to the actors that we can see the pores on their skin.
It stands to reason, then, that most of the cast is good at “face acting,” but Ayo Edebiri, who plays Syd, surpasses everyone in the cast. In fact, she might be the best “face actor” on TV right now.
What is “face acting,” you might ask? It’s literally acting with your face; being able to convey emotion through expression, whether it’s accompanied by dialogue or not. It’s the arch of an eyebrow, or the crinkle of a nose, or the ability to ugly cry on command. These expressions are generally outcroppings of how the actor naturally reacts to things, and through training, natural ability or both, those reactions come out in very visual ways.
You would think that facial expressions would be something that comes naturally to every actor at the top of their game, but you’d be wrong. Just look at any of the myriad of shows that Nicole Kidman is on and see an example of that.
The more we watched Edebiri during The Bear‘s fourth season last summer, the more we realized that she’s one of the best at it that we’ve seen. She stands out in a cast that’s full of actors who use their faces to their advantage, to Jeremy Allen White‘s dolefulness to Ebon Moss-Bacharach‘s scowls to Jamie Lee Curtis‘s frowns, smiles, and eye bulges.
A perfect example of what Edebiri is capable of is in The Bear Season 4 Episode 6, “Sophie.” After Syd rushes to the hospital after finding out her father Emmanuel (Robert Townsend) had a heart attack, she opens up to Claire (Molly Gordon, whose big, caring eyes could draw anyone in) about how important he is to her. As she’s doing that, tears are streaming down her face, and snot bubbles start forming out of her nose. She’s doing a textbook ugly cry, one that would make even Claire Danes jealous.
In Episode 4, “Worms,” Syd talks to TJ (Arion King), the 11-year-old daughter of her hairdresser cousin Chantel (Danielle Deadwyler), about the choice she needs to make about two different sleepover locations. Of course, she’s referring to The Bear vs. the restaurant Adam Shapiro (Adam Shapiro) is opening. As she explains the differences during her monologue, she does an eye roll, and then twists her face into an expression of disbelief that she even has to make this decision.
That speech was full of Edebiri facial gymnastics…
In the epic “Bears” episode (Episode 7) Syd twists her mouth and does a few face crinkles as she describes to Donna (Curtis) what she thinks of the idea of her work family being as or more important than her actual family. She also has a smile plastered on her face that seems to be sincere but also might just be saying, “Wow, Carmen’s mom is exactly how he described her.”
In Episode 8, “Green,” Syd dreams that she’s hosting a Food Network-style cooking show, and the pasted look of determination to finish the segment that she’s on as a literal hurricane swirls around her pretty much sums up how she feels about working at The Bear as it circles the financial drain.
In Episode 8, “Green,” Syd and Richie have a moment as they look at the clock Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) put in the kitchen, as it counts down the last hours the restaurant has before Jimmy’s money runs out. Edebiri’s twisty smirk basically says all that needs to be said about how melancholy that moment is.
Finally, in Episode 9, “Tonnato,” Syd has a brief heart-to-heart with Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), and when he tells her that her late mother would be proud of the way she turned out, the “aw, shucks” look on her face is unmistakable.
If there were a “Face Acting Hall Of Fame,” Edebiri wouldn’t even need to wait for the five-year eligibility period to be inducted; she’d be a shoo-in right now, even with The Bear coming back for a fifth season this week. Who would be in there with her? We’re glad you asked. Let’s take a quick look at just a few of the inductees from the previous half-century of TV (and, yes, all of our inductees are women. Sure, men can be expressive, too, but not as many spring to mind as quickly as the ones on this list):
1970s: Jean Stapleton
Stapleton, who played Edith Bunker on All In The Family, is the only person who could disarm her husband Archie (Carroll O’Connor) with a warm smile, but it’s when Edith would come to a sudden realization and go “Ohhhh…” that always made us laugh the most.
1980s: Kirstie Alley
While it’s tempting to put Gary Coleman here, he was essentially known for only one expression on Diff’rent Strokes, the “What you talkin’ about, Willis?” move. But we’ll give this to Alley, because as Rebecca Howe on Cheers, she went from stone serious to a blubbering mess within her first two seasons on the show. Once the show’s writers realized how versatile Alley was, Rebecca’s personality was rife with scoffs, raised eyebrows and more.
1990s: Julia Louis-Dreyfus
What has always drawn us to JLD is the fact that she could make us laugh with just a look or by exasperatedly blowing air out of her mouth. We all first noticed this ability when she played Elaine Benes on Seinfeld, where she could follow a bright look of hope with a downtrodden look of crushing disappointment in the span of a finger snap.
2000s: Edie Falco
In both The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie, Falco could show surprise and disgust just by frowning and widening her eyes. But she also had a warm smile that made both Carmela Soprano and Jackie Peyton into more sympathetic figures than they seemed to be on the written page.
2010s: Claire Danes
You could actually put Danes in the 1990s category for My So-Called Life, but she perfected her looks of anger, disdain, and downright mania as Carrie Mathison in Homeland. She is also the queen of the ugly cry. Another person who would fit in this category is Bob Odenkirk, whose ability to show slyness just by talking out of the side of his mouth stood out as he played Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
2020s: Ayo Edebiri
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
