As the combustible Richie on FX's "The Bear," Ebon Moss-Bachrach is a constantly moving force of nervous energy. In real life, the actor is calm, assured and thoughtful. And for a guy whose defining roles, on shows like "Girls" and "Andor," have often been lumped together, Moss-Bachrach has showed remarkable versatility, going from investigate reporter in "The Dropout" to jilted boyfriend in "No Hard Feelings."
"You want to play somebody complicated," Moss-Bachrach told me on "Salon Talks," "somebody who's striving in some way, who has some work to do, or someone in some kind of crisis . . . You want a big mountain to climb. " In the second season of "The Bear," Moss-Bachrach has kept climbing, showing sides of the man at the heart of Chicago's favorite "Original Berf" audiences couldn't have seen coming in those early episodes.
