10 Things The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach Can't Live Without

Hello, hello, GQ.

I'm Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

These are my essentials.

[mellow electronic music]

[electronics chirping]

These are quite essential to me.

They don't make these anymore.

I'm sad.

I called Speedo.

I tried to get them to keep making 'em.

I didn't get through to anybody.

I started swimming seriously maybe 10 years ago.

Cured my back pains.

My favorite place to swim is in the ocean.

You know, they're revealing.

My little daughter begged me not to take these in

and do this.

I really don't like most men's swim shorts.

They're big and baggy.

There's a lot of extra fabric.

It drags in the water.

It doesn't feel good.

What I like about this is that it's high up on the leg.

It doesn't get into a kind of banana hammocky

kind of silhouette.

These might've been fairly form-fitting when I got 'em,

but they've seen so much sun and salt

that they kind of loosened up and bagged out.

That's my ideal fit is like a slightly baggy Speedo.

These are actually probably retired.

I think you could probably see my ass if the sun was right.

I got these nice TYR goggles.

These are my current goggles of choice.

These are nice 'cause they're navy, little navy,

matching this colorway with the shorts.

Good field of vision, comfortable goggle.

[upbeat rock music]

[electronics chirping]

Here, we have a nice, big Dutch oven.

I like to cook a lot.

This is a pretty essential item, I think, for any kitchen.

It's nice, and big, and heavy.

The heavier, the better.

This is enamel around cast iron.

Great for braising.

Great for slow cooking.

I also like to bake a lot.

[Producer] Of your castmates on The Bear,

and besides Matty, who is the best chef?

Matty excluded, 'cause he's like head

and shoulders above everybody, Jeremy's good.

To be fair, we haven't tried too much of...

I probably cook more for Ayo, and Lionel, and those guys.

And I think Lionel's a pretty good pastry chef.

[mellow pop music]

[electronics chirping]

This is a very beautiful bike that I have.

I have a couple bikes.

The frame and fork,

it's made by a little outfit down, I think,

in Virginia called Crust.

This particular model's called a Bombora.

There's some mermaids on it.

I was building this up a lot over the last few years

when we were sort of isolating and couldn't go out too much,

and it was sort of a fantasy to work on this bike

and think about I could load this bike up

and go out for a few days camping or just...

But mostly, I just sort of spin

around the neighborhood with it, go some long rides.

Classic Brooks seat.

I have these really comfy bars.

Uncle Ron's Orthopedic Bars, they're called.

Got really nice brakes from folks at Paul Components.

Great tires.

Panaracer GravelKings, my favorite tires.

I think it just looks really, really nice,

and I just like looking at it,

and I like riding it even more.

I got this really ugly bag on it

that reminds me of Western Mass,

which often eschews fashion for something.

[Ebon and producer laughing]

I love to bike from the time I was little

and I always rode a lot of bikes.

I grew up out in the countryside.

I never had a car.

It was kinda my freedom, my first way to sort of feel

like I could get out of my town, get out from my house,

and I'd go with friends for long rides.

And then I started mountain biking.

I spent a lot of time in the woods.

And then the best way to get around New York, I find.

[funky jazz music] [electronics chirping]

I don't always use this size,

but what's special to me about this

and what's important to me about this is this paper.

[paper rustling]

Brown kraft paper, it's like thick.

The bite of it kind of,

it sorta pulls back against you as you draw.

I like to draw a lot, or if I'm working on something,

taking notes, think ideas that occur to me

about the character, about the story.

I got a bunch of drawings in here

that I'm gonna keep to myself.

They make 'em in different sizes.

I like big ones, too.

They have a really great one that's like really long,

like that, kind of rectangly like this,

which almost you can get like a comic book kind of effect.

This picture looks like Christopher Plummer

in Brokeback Mountain.

Gruff, Western Christopher Plummer that we never got to see.

[jazzy hip-hop music] [electronics chirping]

NOTO Rooted Oil.

I'm a bit of a minimalist.

I wouldn't say I'm like a stoic,

but I do like to have few things

that smells really nice. [bottle tapping]

But it can go on your hands, body, and then hair, too.

It used to say hair, body, and face,

and then they took face off, but I still put it on my face.

I'm making a concerted effort to hydrate more,

both with water and with moisturizer on my face.

I never really thought about it too much,

but these days, I'm trying to remember before I go to bed

to put something kind on my face.

[funky pop music] [electronics chirping]

Jump ropes.

They're called Crossrope is the company that makes them.

This is 1/4-pound rope, and then you can detach this,

and then there's another rope, different color,

1/2-pound rope, pound rope,

and then there's the two-pound rope.

The kingslayer, we call that one.

That one will really fuck up your shoulder.

Jump rope is a great exercise.

I find it really helpful.

Wake up quickly.

Gets a lot of energy going quickly.

Get the blood circulating.

You can really do it in like two minutes.

It's helpful sometimes for scenes in The Bear,

before crazy scene if you're like five in the morning,

first thing up, just kinda get everything moving.

The people at Crossrope were really kind

and they sent us all a bunch of ropes this year,

so now everybody has some on our set, which is sweet.

[Producer] It was announced recently

that you're going to be playing the Thing

in the new Fantastic Four.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a long shoot.

I wanna stay injury-free.

I'm gonna work on my core.

Some Pilates maybe, some yoga.

I'm trying to figure that out right now.

[upbeat jazz music] [electronics chirping]

Fitness essential alert, Saucony, Saucony.

I don't know how you say 'em.

Running is important to me.

These are nice, and big, and squishy.

I would like probably a more colorful colorway.

Here in New York, I got different paths that I go.

I kind of like to just sort of head out,

and turn my brain off,

and sort of space out and go for a while.

My ideal time running

is maybe between 45 minutes to an hour.

I find that that really can clear my head that way.

Chicago, the runs out there,

obviously, there's the lakefront, and that's really great.

But I've been there,

we're just getting out of winter now there,

and it's really cold in the winter on the lake,

so I've just kinda been running through the city.

[upbeat electronic music] [electronics chirping]

These are a pair of sunglasses

that I procured at my favorite shop, eBay.

Vuarnet wraparound sunglasses.

I don't know when they were made.

They definitely got some ears on them,

but they're not like deep, deep vintage or anything.

I really enjoy a wraparound sunglass.

Sun protection, I got light eyes,

they're really sensitive to the sun,

and these just feel really nice.

They also are like, they're kind of like an embrace.

This goes hand in hand with one of my other essentials,

which is a hoodie.

[electronics chirping]

Right now, I'm wearing my proud listener

and longtime supporter of Democracy Now!

They give you the straight dope.

Thank you, Amy Goodman.

I like hoodies.

I'm a longtime meditator, and I find that if you do this,

you can be on a park bench in the middle of a busy city.

You can sit down

and kind of feel like you're on your own little,

private little cocoon.

[mellow jazz music] [electronics chirping]

My library card.

This is kind of a fun Maurice Sendak,

who's one of my heroes.

They did a limited edition.

I had to get in on that.

I love the Brooklyn Public Library.

Growing up in Amherst, we had the Jones Library.

Great libraries.

I spent lots and lots of time inside of libraries.

And even now when I'm off and gone,

I'm on the road away from home,

the digital catalog from the Brooklyn Public Library,

you can always access that,

read books on Kindles or on whatever.

Thank you, librarians.

Thank you for your hard work.

Cool movie selections at libraries.

Streaming app called Kanopy with a K

that you can sometimes hook up with your library thing.

That opens up a whole world of movies.

Yeah, the best things in life are free.

[mellow jazz music] [electronics chirping]

There is an app, a music app, called Radiooooo,

R-A-D-I-O-O-O-O-O, five Os.

This app is a map of the world,

and then on the bottom is a timeline by decades.

You punch in a country, a region, you punch in a year,

and then it has these three great kind of classifications,

slow, fast, and my favorite, weird.

1940s Argentina.

[lighthearted world music]

Italy for like '60s.

[mellow music]

I mean, you can just spend hours with this thing.

I mean, this is like such a gift to the world,

these developers who made this.

[lighthearted pop music]

Thank you so much for indulging me

and I hope you liked my essentials.