'The Bear' Star Sarah Ramos Knows That Chef Jess’ Season 4 Commands Will Haunt You

Note to reader: Season 4 spoilers ahead.

Sarah Ramos first appeared on The Bear during the FX show’s second season. But with Wednesday's Season 4 release, she can now officially say that she works at The Bear itself. Her expeditor character, Chef Jess, was introduced in Season 2's memorable “Forks” episode, where we saw her managing the flow of orders at Ever, the now-shuttered fine-dining restaurant where Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) staged. She was the one who taught everyone's favorite hard-headed "cousin" how to properly run a Michelin-starred restaurant, and her guidance is what finally led Richie to take his job seriously. Fans immediately clocked the chemistry between the pair, and when Ever closed its doors at the end of Season 3, speculation that Jess would take her talents to TV’s hottest kitchen continued to ramp up.

In Season 4, now streaming in full on Hulu, we get confirmation that Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) has hired Jess in the hopes of making his dysfunctional restaurant... well, functional. Her main goal? To get things running smoothly following the chaos-fueled eatery's negative review in the Chicago Tribune. “Would it be an exaggeration to say that Jess comes in to save The Bear? I don't know,” Ramos, 34, tells L’OFFICIEL. “As a viewer, maybe that's something you might say.” As Ramos reprised her role, she leaned on advice from the show’s culinary producer, chef Coco Storer (sister of series creator Chris Storer). “Coco has worked everywhere and been through it all, and she told me, This is no big deal for Jess,” says Ramos. “So while everyone else is freaking out, Jess is kind of like, Yeah, I've seen some shit. This is nothing.” 

Ramos jumped at the opportunity to portray Jess as being fully in control, rather than in a stressed-out state of panic, like her coworkers. “It was really fun to realize that Jess isn’t sweating it as she’s coming into The Bear,” she says. “It's a bit of a mess. There's some dissonance, as you might say, and she's locking it down. But I do feel like after watching the show, people might hear my voice ordering them around in their nightmares, saying, You're dragging! You're dragging!"

When it came to nailing the intensity that the role required, Ramos was such a natural that she even fooled her co-star Oliver Platt, who plays The Bear’s financial backer, Uncle Jimmy, on the show (and who also stars alongside Ramos on Chicago Med, another Windy City-set series that she joined in 2024). “He thought I was actually a restaurant worker who Chris discovered in a Chicago kitchen and just decided to put on camera,” Ramos laughs. “That was a huge compliment—but it’s also funny, because it couldn't be further from the truth.”

Ahead, Ramos opens up to L’OFFICIEL about all things The Bear, from Reddit threads devoted to shipping Jess and Richie to the ongoing debate as to whether the series is a comedy or drama.

L’OFFICIEL: What has the journey been like since joining The Bear?

SARAH RAMOS: It’s been a major gift. I was not expecting it. I’ve known Chris Storer, the show’s creator, for like 10 years—we met at a meeting for a movie that didn't end up getting made. It was a good meeting; I think we talked about Taylor Swift. We didn’t chat much after that, but then I wrote a short story that was published in an Australian zine—you had to pay, like, $25 just for shipping. Most of my friends didn't even read it, but I ran into Chris at an event and he was like, Hey, I loved your short story. I was like, I'm sorry, what? I clocked him as being a unique specimen in Hollywood—one who's not only reading short stories, but ordering them from Australia. He's always been supportive of me as a writer and director, too. I was stoked for him to have a smash hit when The Bear came out, and for him to invite me to join that…I was beyond touched. He could have had literally anybody in Hollywood play this part. And he asked me. 

L’O: What was the short story about?

SR: It was one of my first, and it was called Me, Melanie Gross. It was about a child actress in Hollywood going out on auditions.

L’O: You’ve worked in the industry since joining the series American Dreams in 2002, when you were 11 years old. Is it safe to assume that you were writing from experience? 

SR: Yes, yes. That was when I was in my Columbia University era, processing my Hollywood childhood. [laughs]

L’O: Has it been hard to keep the details of your expanded role on the show under wraps? 

SR: Definitely. My character worked at Ever, so she wasn't at The Bear itself. Some people don't remember I was in the show at all. But people who work in restaurants are like, You're the expediter—you were like a main character to me, because they know how important that role is in a kitchen. And then there's people who just are obsessed with “Forks” [Season 2, Episode 7] and who are shipping Richie and Jess. To have told them that I was coming back onto the show at all would have been a bit of a spoiler, because Ever closed last season. Where else would I be going other than to work at the eponymous restaurant?

L’O: Was your filming experience different this season since you were siloed off from the main cast in the past? 

SR: Yes, there's a huge change. I mean, I'm working at The Bear! That's insane. My first scene that I shot on The Bear set was a huge group scene with everybody—Jeremy, Ebon, Will Poulter, Ayo [Edibiri], the whole gang. And I was like, This is crazy. I've seen this on TV and now I'm here. I don't know how to put it into words beyond emphatically saying, I'm working at The Bear restaurant. 

L’O: Has being on the show changed your perception of the restaurant industry at all?

SR: I know about expediting, and I feel like that separates the novices from the people in the know. There's a storyline this season where The Bear doesn't have the money to buy all these ingredients for dishes and they're like, We’ve got to shrink it down to two ingredients. Let's do one poached carrots dish. I said to [co-star and real-life chef] Matty Matheson, Dude, what? If I went to The Bear and was paying so much and got a thing of plain poached carrots, am I going to be like, "It's the greatest thing I've ever had…?" And he was like, Well, yeah. It's not just about the amount of ingredients. It's about how you cook it and where you source it from, like going to a great farm instead of a mass supermarket. I was humbled. And I have learned that a two-ingredient carrot dish can blow your mind.

L’O: The show is famously intense. What helps you get into Jess’s hyper focused headspace going into those scenes? 

SR: For “Forks,” Chris recommended that we read the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, who's a very successful restaurateur and leader. He applied the idea of unreasonable hospitality towards your guests to your co-workers in the kitchen. Reading that book influenced my entire approach to the show, and I see its themes across The Bear in general. It's about mentorship and guidance and leading people. Really, the show is all about inspiration and the idea that every second counts. Richie asks Jess where her inspiration comes from in “Forks,” and she's like, Well, I surround myself with people who are better than me. Working on The Bear has that vibe. I'm working with the most talented actors, and it's scary. But I'm a part of it, so I'm going to show up and do my best and have fun.

L’O: Is that what you hope people take away from this season?

SR: Yeah. What’s so cool about The Bear and the stories that it takes inspiration from is that it’s not about individual greatness. You see that Carmy is great, but he's a bit of a disaster when he's isolated from everyone else. So, the idea that it's about connection and community and growing together and teaching each other is heartwarming. 

L’O: Jess is the one who inspired Richie to level up, professionally. What did you make of her impact on him, and then the subsequent impact that had on The Bear as a restaurant?

SR: I'm honored. I think it comes back to Unreasonable Hospitality and the idea that you can’t keep it unless you give it away. Jess was trained just like Richie. She was not a savant like Carmy; she wanted it and staged and learned from other people. And because she got the benefit of that, she knows to pass it on. The idea in The Bear, like in life, is that you have to find what you're good at and bring that out. Jess is a leader—she's able to drill shit and she's not fazed by keeping a schedule. Richie is a people person—he has charm even though he’s screaming at people, so they put him in the front of house. He just needed that confidence to be himself. I remember in one of our scenes later in the season, he's worried about something and Jess says, Well honesty is sanity. He goes, And it's scary. And she’s like, Yeah it's terrifying, but that's why it's inspiring. Later, I thought, Did I do a good enough job in the scene today? And then I thought, I did my best. It was scary, but I did it anyway and that's inspiring. It was very meta.

L’O: Fans of the show have been shipping Jess and Richie since the “Forks” episode. What did you make of the speculation about their future?

SR: Andrew Lopez, who plays [chef] Garrett at the Ever Restaurant in “Forks,” was the one who told me about the shipping and sent me the Reddit thread. I did not know about it at first. But it was just nice to feel welcomed into a show and wanted. I have received backlash in the past [laughs], so that was sweet. Some people picked up on sparks from the jump. Was I one of them? I don't know. Was I theoretically writing fanfiction in my head? No comment. But I think The Bear kind of edges people a little bit, you know? Kitchens are high-stress, sexy workplaces. Who's to say if this is a special connection, or just one of those everyday “we’re in the kitchen and everything's so inspiring and hot” dynamics that is common for someone with as much experience as Chef Jess?

L’O: Without giving too many spoilers since the new episodes just dropped, how does their relationship progress this season?

SR: There are more scenes with Richie and Jess this season. I think The Bear is going to leave it a bit up to interpretation as to what's going on. People have come up to me screaming, Just have them kiss! I love that they know what they want.

L’O: Besides the Jess-and-Richie Reddit, do you look at online commentary about the show?

SR: That's dangerous territory. You think you're strong enough, but we're not meant to be reading stuff about ourselves. Chris Storer says we're so lucky anyone is even watching the show at all, whether they love it or hate it. And so I am thrilled to be part of something that people care about. Sometimes I get a little morbidly curious, but that's not a good instinct.

L’O: Arguably, the biggest debate about the show is whether it’s a drama or a comedy [the series famously submits itself for Emmys consideration in the comedy category]. What do you make of that conversation?

SR: I think it's a dramedy. It's genre-bending, you know? It defies categorization and is too challenging of a question [laughs]. When I'm on set, I'm laughing. It’s funny, even though Eban is completely committed to his character and just screaming, Doors! I'm laughing at the Faks [played by Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri]. I'm laughing at Sydney [Edebiri]. There's so much comedy in it. But yes, there's heartbreaking drama, too.

L’O: The show has quite the dedicated fanbase. Are you part of any fandoms yourself?

SR: I'm famously a Swifty and known to quote Taylor Swift songs. Some fans may notice in The Bear this season, they have [Swift’s song] “Style” playing very quietly in one scene with Richie and his daughter. But fandom is at the heart of my origin story. My holy trinity from childhood were the Olsen twins—I went on their cruise—and Kirsten Dunst and Reese Witherspoon. Add in Taylor Swift and I think I know how to pick them. When I root for people, they tend to do well. 

L’O: Who’s your dream co-star?

SR: Jeremy Strong, from Succession. I'm a fan of talent, you know? I voted for Kelly Clarkson on American Idol many times. Talk about longevity! I like people who take swings and commit. So, yeah, I'd love to work with Jeremy Strong.

L’O: What’s been your biggest pinch-me moment to date?

SR: I've had many. It was a dream come true when [actor] Dylan O'Brien took me to the premiere of All Too Well: The Short Film. I definitely felt like a Make-a-Wish kid there. And, of course, just to be invited to be on The Bear and for them to have written this part for me. It means the world. It makes you want to show up and deliver—and memorize three-page scenes with restaurant jargon that you barely understand.