The Bear’s Matty Matheson on John Cena Playing His Brother: ‘Legend’

The Bear is known for surprise cameos with Jamie Lee Curtis, John Mulaney, Olivia Colman and more major actors making appearances, but still, John Cena’s casting as a new Fak brother in season 3 of the hit FX show shocked viewers in the best way.

“That was a big thing,” Matty Matheson — who executive produces the show and plays Neil Fak, one of three of the brothers who are family friends of the Berzattos — told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting his partnership with Pacific Foods. “We were thinking about who could be our brother and we were floating around names. Then Cena’s name [came up].”

Matheson, 42, continued: “We were all like, ‘For sure.’ And then the fact that he was down was crazy. He was a legend. He showed up prepared and didn’t even have to look at his script. Fully memorized, fully ready, so professional, so nice. It was a beautiful experience.”

Cena, 47, is introduced as Neil and Ted’s (played by Ricky Staffieri) older brother, Sammy Fak, in the fifth episode of The Bear season 3. Cena plays a major role in the “haunting” storyline between the Faks, in which the brothers aim to scare each other when they least expect it. Sammy ends up playing a more pivotal role in the restaurant’s success when the team learns the restaurant is being photographed following a secret review, and he is tasked with buffing the floor and securing a duck to cook.

“I loved working with him,” Matheson added. “He was only there for two days, but he was fun to play with, that’s for sure.”

As an executive producer and bona fide professional chef in real life, Matheson contributes to the realism portrayed in The Bear, which has garnered praise from the restaurant industry for its faithful, and often brutal, representation of their world.

“Restaurants are very uncompromising. It’s a very uncompromising business,” Matheson told Us. “We wanted [the show] to feel real. So everyone cooked. If we’re cooking, they’re cooking. There’s no hand doubles, there’s no nothing.”

Not everyone has access to a professional chef like Matheson to teach them how to cook at home, so the Canadian restaurateur is working to make cooking more accessible through his cookbooks — like his most recent release, Soups, Salads, Sandwiches, which comes out next month — and his new campaign with Pacific Foods.

“The reality is, we’re all very scared on Sundays, and the world is scary out there and we get in our heads,” Matheson told Us of the new #TGISunday series. “Working with Pacific, we want to bring awareness toward the Sunday scaries and help people cook and get themselves to a place where they can achieve just a little bit better of a week.”

With easy, comforting recipes curated by Matheson and other food lovers, the partnership aims to flip the script on Sundays and help individuals reclaim the day through cooking.

“Cooking is one of the things that always allows me to find time and brings me to a place of joy and happiness,” Matheson told Us. “We just wanted to help people get to a place where one meal is a little bit easier for them, and Pacific is there for the Sunday Scaries.”