The Bear left MCU’s Will Poulter changed for good — and he explains why
MCU’s Will Poulter says landing The Bear wasn’t luck — he asked to be let in — and the result left him seeing food and cooking in a new light.
If you've been keeping tabs on The Bear, you'll have spotted Will Poulter turning up as the rather elegant Chef Luca. And while Brits might remember Poulter from awkward teen roles or The Revenant, it turns out even he was a bit desperate to get in on the kitchen chaos. He spilled the beans about the whole experience on The Big Picture podcast, and honestly, it's a bit more heartfelt than you'd expect from a man who once faked a tarantula bite for a laugh in We're the Millers.
‘Let me in, I'll chop onions!’
Right, so Poulter really did have to chase his way into The Bear. Forget waiting for a call from his agent—he apparently went straight to show creator Christopher Storer, lobbying to do anything just to be around the set. Here's how he described his pitch on the podcast with host Sean Fennessey:
I will peel a carrot in the background for two minutes. Please let me in.
Eventually Storer took him up on it, but instead of sticking him at the veg prep station, Poulter landed the actually substantial role of Luca. Not a bad upgrade.
Life-changing, but not for the obvious reasons
Poulter is quick to clarify—this wasn't one of those career-breakthrough moments. What The Bear changed, apparently, was his relationship with food. After working on the show, Poulter reckons cooking is about as high art as it gets. Acting, he says, might play with sight and sound, but only food gets to tease all five senses at once. He even went as far as calling cooking ‘the most complete human art form’ because of how it can stir up so many sensory and emotional responses at the same time.
On the podcast, Poulter went a bit further about why food—and by extension, the series—mattered so much to him:
You can have all of those sensory experiences in, in one moment. Just as you can watch a film and TV show and be moved because it represents your experience, you know, food can do exactly the same thing. The Bear really helped me realize that.
Where you've seen him before
Since you might be struggling to place Poulter if you haven't been following his entire career trajectory, here's a handy refresher:
- Made his big-screen splash as Eustace Scrubb in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- Went far more mainstream (and a bit meme-able) with We're the Millers, which scored him the BAFTA Rising Star Award the year after
- Dabbled in dystopia as Gally across The Maze Runner franchise
- Survived both The Revenant and Detroit, and gave horror a go in Midsommar
- Popped up in prestige drama Dopesick (netting a Primetime Emmy nomination), and now for The Bear, he's got another
- Recently suited up for the MCU as Adam Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- Done guest stints and projects like Black Mirror, Warfare, Death of a Unicorn, I Love Boosters, and Union County
Poulter's career has swung everywhere from fantasy epic to full-tilt Marvel. Nice to see one stint in a shouty Chicago kitchen can still make a working actor rethink life a bit.