Why Natalie From The Bear Looks So Familiar
Since its debut on June 22, FX on Hulu's "The Bear"' has quickly become one of the most interesting and in-demand shows on the streaming service, with Parrot Analytics reporting that audience demand for the show is 1.7 times that of the average TV series in the United States. The show centers around Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), a fine-dining chef who won the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef. In the first episode of the series, Carmy begins to manage The Original Beef of Chicagoland, a restaurant formerly run by his late brother, Michael (Jon Bernthal).
Carmy is determined to improve the restaurant, but he runs into many issues as he discovers how low on cash it is, and how unwilling the staff is to accept the changes he's trying to implement. His 'cousin' Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) keeps undermining him, and Carmy's hiring of Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) as the sous chef and his right hand irks Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) so much that she tries to sabotage Sydney at every turn.
One person that seems most concerned about him is his sister, Natalie "Sugar" Berzatto (Abby Elliott). Although she is not directly involved with the restaurant, she spends considerable amounts of time trying to convince her brother to join her at Al-Anon meetings. If Natalie looks familiar, here are a few places you may have seen her before.
Abby Elliott was on Saturday Night Live
According to her IMDb page, one of Abby Elliott's first on-screen roles came in her father, comedian Chris Elliott's semi-autobiographical 2006 television film "You've Reached the Elliotts." Only two years later, she followed in her father's footsteps by becoming a regular cast member on "Saturday Night Live," where she earned considerable more recognition.
Her impressions of Zooey Deschanel, Meryl Streep, and Rosie Pope were among her best-known on the show. Notably, celebrity impressions were actually what brought her to "SNL" in the first place. "When I first started, kind of, sketch comedy, I didn't really know how to do characters, but I knew how to do impressions," she said in a 2017 interview with BUILD Series. "That's kind of how I got into doing it and doing SNL."
Notably, many fans have felt that Elliott is one of the most underrated "SNL" players, noting that she often wasn't given enough material or screen time to show what she was capable of. On one "SNL" Reddit thread, u/millhowzz wrote, "Underutilized and outshined by later standouts Bayer and McKinnon, she was a gem who didn't get her due. (And I'd take her Zooey schtick over the REAL Zooey any day.)" Ultimately, however, Elliott decided in 2012 that the timing was right to leave, as she wanted to pursue a profession as a comedic actress rather than as a sketch comedian (via Larry King Now).
Elliott played Ted's crazy girlfriend in How I Met Your Mother
From 2013 to 2014, Abby Elliott appears on "How I Met Your Mother" as Jeanette Peterson, the stalker girlfriend of Ted Moseby (Josh Radnor). Although Ted wines and dines with a variety of interesting bachelorettes throughout the series, Jeanette is certainly one of the more eccentric.
She first arrives in the series in Season 8, Episode 15 ("P.S. I Love You"), first meeting Ted on the subway. Although the two miss their first chance at a genuine rendezvous, they miraculously run into each other again when the fire alarm goes off at the college where Ted works as an instructor. Unsurprisingly, Ted, a hopeless romantic, believes that running into her again must be destiny. Unfortunately, Ted's friends come to the conclusion that she is stalking him. However, despite the many red flags, Ted simply refuses to see the truth of what his friends are saying, even after Jeanette admits that she pulled the fire alarm. Even more concerning, Ted doesn't seem worried when his friends point out that there's no actual fire alarm in the lobby of his school, and she would have had to set an actual fire in order to make the alarm go off.
Despite the warning signs, Jeanette recurs in a whole five episodes of the series. "The strange, inexplicable phenomenon is: the crazier [Jeanette] gets, the more attractive one of the gang finds her," executive producer Craig Thomas told Entertainment Weekly in 2012. "It doesn't end well." In her final episode, Ted informs the audience that eventually she was arrested for sending jars of urine to someone, and ends up marrying her court-mandated psychological counselor. Jeanette is also noteworthy in that she is Ted's last girlfriend before he meets Tracy McConnell (aka the Mother) (Cristin Milioti).
Elliott loved playing filthy rich, condescending Brooke in the satire Odd Mom Out
From 2015 to 2017, Abby Elliott starred in Bravo's satirical comedy "Odd Mom Out," a series about a wealthy woman, Jill Weber (Jill Kargman), who feels left out because she's not as rich as the other wealthy moms on New York City's Upper East Side. During her time on the series, Elliott portrays Brooke Von Weber, Jill's uber-rich sister-in-law. While the humor evidently wasn't for everyone, those that got it, loved it, with one fan writing on IMDb that the show is "clever, quirky, mischievous writing." Furthermore, this writer heaped copious praise on the actress leading the series, writing, "Kargman is a genius."
Elliott reveled in her role as Brooke, which makes her performance as the snotty, condescending Brooke even more fun to watch. "In that first meeting, [creator] Jill [Kargman] told me, 'There's a scene where you give birth at home and it's bloody and poopy.' And that's when I knew," Elliott told Bustle in 2017. "I loved that Brooke is this type-A Upper East Side princess, but has these incredibly vulnerable moments. I knew it would be so fun to play." Unfortunately, Bravo decided to cancel the series in 2017, after a mere three seasons (via Hollywood Reporter). Kargman announced the news with a thank you to the cast and crew on her Instagram page.
Indebted was a miss with audiences and canceled after one season
In 2020, Abby Elliott took on the role of Rebecca in the NBC comedy "Indebted". The show centers on Rebecca and her husband Dave (Adam Pally) as the young couple come to grips with the fact that Dave's parents — played by Fran Drescher and Steven Weber — are coming to live with them after they go bankrupt. Elliot plays the straight character, which is very different from the comedic work she's done before. Of course, this change in direction is understandable given the abundant amount of comedic people on the series.
Funnily enough, Elliott also had an interesting connection to Weber prior to their casting in the series. "I was actually Steven Weber's kids' nanny when I first moved to L.A.," she said in an interview with People Now (via Yahoo). "So it's like, came full circle that now he's my father-in-law."
Despite a seasoned cast, "Indebted" clearly struggled to find much of a supportive audience. By the end of the first season, the show's audience and critical ratings on Rotten Tomatoes had both fallen below 40%. Indeed, one viewer on the site even wrote, "Each of these main actors is great in other things, but this show is so poorly written and acted. It's painful to watch." After one season, "Indebted" was canceled (via TVLine).
Elliott played a small role in Cheaper By the Dozen
Besides "The Bear," Abby Elliott's most recent role came in the form of the Disney+ film "Cheaper By The Dozen," a reboot of the classic 1948 story previously told in two prior on-screen iterations respectively starring Clifton Webb and Steve Martin (via Chicago Reader). This time around, the film centers on two parents portrayed by Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union. Elliott plays Tricia, a neighbor who comes over to introduce herself to Zoey (Union) at the community pool.
"We improvised a lot during the pool scene," Union told BuzzFeed in an interview around the time of the film's release. "Me with the ladies — those are some of the most talented comedic actresses around — our riffs! There's no way in heck that they could use a lot of our hot takes." The two become friends, and Tricia becomes a shoulder for Zoey as she gets more frustrated with Paul (Braff) and his habitual absence from the home.
Although the latest film to bear the "Cheaper by the Dozen" name didn't receive a great many positive reviews (via Rotten Tomatoes), it was also the last step before Elliott's casting in "The Bear," a role she has since referred to as her "dream job" (via Popternative).