Liza Colón-Zayas portrays Bettina “Tina” Marrero on FX’s The Bear. All episodes of the third season are currently streaming, exclusively on Hulu.

Season three of FX’s The Bear follows Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) and Richard “Richie” Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they do what it takes to elevate The Bear, their beef stand turned fine dining establishment, to the highest level, all while doing their best just to stay in business. It’s a losing battle every single day in the restaurant business. Carmy pushes himself harder than ever, and demands excellence from his crew, who do their best to match his intensity.

I caught up with the actress over Zoom after the new season dropped to talk about what episode 6 represents to her personally, reading the script for the first time, what message she wants viewers to take away from Tina’s story, why her character is so dedicated to the restaurant, and more. Keep reading for everything she shared!

I don’t know if you’re on social media that much, but there is so much praise and love for you and your episode from fans. What has that been like for you to see and how did it feel to put the episode out into the world after what I imagine was a lot of work and love poured into it? 
Liza Colón-Zayas: It feels like a giant trophy was handed to me for some kind of long marathon I’ve been running. You know, the symbolic trophy of staying in the race, not giving up, and how much, for me, personally, that’s been, but also how it mirrors Tinas being seen, given this space with Tina. It just feels amazing and I can’t believe it, I flew in and got in last night, so I haven’t really had a chance to go deep. 

Everyone is talking about your work and it is so well-deserved. Obviously, this is a huge ensemble cast, but when I spoke with you at the junket, we talked about the importance of character-centered episodes, because I think that it’s so important to highlight an individual character’s story. When you found out you’d be getting a Tina-focused episode, how did you feel while reading the script for the first time? What were your thoughts on it being a flashback episode as well? 
The first time I read it, I cried hard. Then I told my husband and my agents and then, cried some more. I didn’t feel like I was really playing a character. I’m like, ‘I know this, I know this struggle, I just know it.’ I also know what it feels like to be entrusted with something special artistically, and that’s what it feels like, I felt like I was entrusted but I also feel like the Tinas of the world deserve their own episodes. 

Yes, they do. We’ve been waiting.
There’s a lot of Tinas, we deserve a lot more episodes and stories. 

I love what you were just saying about understanding the struggle — I loved that her journey in this episode was finding a job because so many people go through that. It is so hard to find your place and make a living. I mean, so many people who watch this episode will be going through something similar. I think that’s why it moved me so much. What message are you hoping that Tina’s story in this gives to viewers? She does find her home at the end.
Yeah, it turned out to be a mixed blessing but, you know, she has an actual entire paper resume. The paper resume, guys — see you gatekeepers don’t know what that is and I feel like on top of everything, she’s invisible for no good reason. It’s not her fault, it’s not their fault. It’s been embedded in their zeitgeist because that’s how history rolls and so, I hope that viewers re-examine. Take a little more time.

The scenes in The Beef were what really got me, specifically, the moments with Richie giving her the free coffee and sandwich and then, that conversation with Mikey. I mean, I felt like he was really listening to her and there was important dialogue that you don’t really get anymore. Can you talk to me about filming those moments and what you think they represented or meant to Tina, who was finally letting her emotions kind of spill over? Someone was there and showed her a little bit of kindness, which I feel like people don’t realize the value of anymore.
Yeah, hopefully, that is another thing. You don’t know what somebody is going through on this particular day, so would this conversation have happened on any other day? Probably not. But for her to have these gestures of kindness, here’s a free coffee, here’s a free sandwich in the middle of this chaos and then, her sitting down to take that bite and what that exploded inside of her to not be able to be that strong woman that she is, that the armor just kind of collapsed. Somebody who seems very strong, they need that too.

And so, it also represents, you know, it’s good to see why she is so dedicated to this place, to this family that she works with. The grief of losing Mikey, who else are we gonna lose? So it’s more than just the job. This is a family. While places like this, like The Beef are shutting down left and right, I think that we, hopefully, can really understand her armor, how she survives, and why she’s willing to do crazy hours and everything it takes to make this place work.

Tina is someone that I feel like we view as such a strong woman and that is important to present on screen, but even the strongest person has emotional moments where they break. It’s not a weakness and it’s not portrayed as a weakness here, and I love that. Props to you, the writing, and everyone involved because that is an important thing to show, especially for a character like Tina. 
Yeah, you don’t see too many of them. I didn’t grow up seeing this and things are changing a little bit, but I didn’t grow up seeing this. Hopefully, that drives home that people who are typically just a general wash in the background are vital to running everything.

Ayo directing was just such an amazing touch. To have these two strong WOC doing this episode was an incredible thing to see as a Latina. Can you talk about sharing this experience with her? Between her directing her first episode and you leading this beautiful female-centered story, everything about it, I felt like just elevates it more and more.
Yeah, me too, and I feel like, can we just make that the norm? It really can be good for everyone, but Ayo is so smart. She’s so curious, she so prepares, she’s so meticulous, she’s so energetic and bubbly and open that two years of witnessing that when they brought up her name, I was like, “Yeah, she’s ready.” Then, we collaborated and it was so easy. She was so easy, but knew exactly and we also have the best crew. We have the best crew.