Liza Colón-Zayas, from ‘The Bear’: ‘The backbone of the United States has always been Black and Brown people’

After more than 30 years in the industry, Liza Colón-Zayas has learned to make peace with uncertainty and the unknown. Before she rose to fame, she estimates that she was rejected at least a thousand times. Despite this, she managed to keep her career going with small roles in well-known series such as Law & Order: SVU, Sex and the City and Dexter. She also had a busy and renowned career in the New York theater scene: in 2009, she starred in a highly acclaimed production of Othello that put a modern spin on the Shakespearean play, performing alongside the late Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. Ten years later, she won over the independent scene in the Big Apple with her performance in Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven. But it was not until 2022 that success and media recognition knocked on his door.

“I just had to hold on to the fact that I knew deep down that I had something special. I don’t know how I did it,” the actress says via video call. Even with her extensive experience on the New York stage, many agree that Tina Marrero’s role in the acclaimed series The Bear is what has elevated the 51-year-old actress to another level in the industry.

She wasn’t at all sure that the role was for her. Colón-Zayas auditioned during the pandemic with a recording she made herself. She didn’t have the script or a description of who she was meant to address in the scene, and she didn’t know what the show was about. She acted on impulse and magic happened. Two years and three seasons later — the fourth season of The Bear is now being filmed — Colón-Zayas has received her first Emmy nomination. The actress is nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy, and a race that includes legendary actresses she admires and respects, such as Carol Burnett and Meryl Streep, nominated for Palm Royale and Only Murders in The Building, respectively. Including her nomination, The Bear has received 22 nominations from the Television Academy.

The Bear — which won four Golden Globes and six Emmy Awards for its first two seasons — follows Carmy Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White), a young chef trained in fine dining, who returns to Chicago to take over his family’s sandwich shop, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, following the death of his older brother. The show is about his efforts to transform the business into a fine-dining restaurant with the help of his family and his team in a dysfunctional kitchen, while dealing with his own personal traumas.

Colón-Zayas plays Tina, a character whose history and motivations are unknown at the start of the show. But despite her enigmatic past, the actress knew how to bring her to life. Throughout the three seasons, Tina has transformed from a reticent and combative line cook into the sous chef, matriarch and Latin heart of the restaurant. It is not until episode six of season three, titled Napkins, when the story of the 46-year-old character is revealed. After 15 years in a company, Tina is fired from her job as rent rises, her expenses pile up, and she finds that, after a certain age, there are scarce opportunities or none at all in a job market that either dismisses or ignores her.

Colón-Zayas, who knows what it means to struggle and persevere, has found common ground with her character. “I have that connection with my past, with the struggle to live, to get a job and to prove my worth. It’s taken me a long time. So I totally understand what Tina’s struggle was like. I’m not saying that I have the dedication, the commitment and the sacrifices that restaurant workers make. I’m not saying that my life is as hard, but it hasn’t been easy, so I’m very grateful that it has resonated with so many people,” she explains.

The episode — which was directed by her co-star Ayo Edebiri — puts Colón-Zayas center stage, and her remarkable performance drives one of the strongest and most moving episodes of the season. “When I found out that Ayo was directing the episode and I finally got the script, I was emotional and cried a lot. Tears just came out. I didn’t know anything about her story because Tina was introduced to me, like the rest of the world, as this terrifying person. And seeing so much humanity and normality was very moving for me. I think for a lot of other people, too.”

Colón-Zayas believes that Tina has won the hearts of a large part of the public because of what she represents. She is a middle-aged, working-class Latina with the opportunity to pursue a dream without being presented as a stereotype. It is not the typical story of a character transforming into someone attractive so that her value can be seen. The actress, a Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent, believes that the engine of the United States resembles people like Tina; and that they deserve “more credit” for what they have contributed and have to offer.

“The backbone of America has always been Black and Brown people. They are the indigenous people. African slaves built this country. And so we are at a point in our existence where all of that history is being banned or denied. We raise their children. We cook their meals. We farm their fields. We do it all. I think people like Tina are the backbone of this country,” she adds.

In the episode Napkins, Colón-Zayas — who attended culinary school throughout these three seasons — was able to pay tribute to her heritage via a dish that Tina cooks: Puerto Rican sancocho (although it is not specifically mentioned). “It is a Caribbean soup in which you can put everything. And when you get home, it smells like Christmas. It smells like all those good memories. That is one of my favorite things,” she says.

Puerto Rican roots

Despite her 30-plus-year career with LAByrinth Theater Company, which was founded in response to the lack of diversity in mainstream theater, Colón-Zayas still admits to getting nervous, whether on film — where she recently lent her voice to an animated character in the film If, which also stars Phoebe Waller Bridge and Ryan Reynolds — ; on television or even on stage. The actress says this feeling is due to her commitment to art, to the work and the characters in front of her. “I’m always nervous because I care. I want to do the work and give it all the layers of emotion it deserves.”

Theater has been and continues to be everything to her. It is a discipline that has taught her to recognize that she has something important to share and that it is good to take risks. “The theater taught me to be attentive to the people around me, to listen to them. We have a lot of rehearsals, unlike in television or film. It was like a training camp to really hone my craft and learn to work together,” she says.

Colón-Zayas has learned over the years to value and preserve her Puerto Rican roots, even though she has missed out on much of her culture and history because she was born in the United States. “I have learned how much we have contributed to this country historically. I have learned about our rich history, our strength. I love living in a city with a large Puerto Rican, Latino, Caribbean community, which reminds me of and brings me that joy and pride. Especially now that there are some in this country who are trying to take that away from us. So I am grateful that my grandparents, during the short time I had them here in New York, embodied that feeling,” she says.

The actress isn’t one to hold back. She has expressed her political opinion on issues targeted by conservatives, expressing her position on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, and her clear and open support for the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. And in case there are any doubts about where she stands, she does not bite her tongue on Instagram: “I block and delete all pro-Trump trash. No debating.”

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