Molly Gordon on The Bear Season 4 and Her Comedy Oh, Hi!

Molly Gordon sitting across three red chairs outside on a ferry boat. She is wearing an "I Love NY" t-shirt with a black skirt and red heels. On the image, it says "Molly Gordon" with an exclamation point.

(Image credit: Zackery Michael; Styling: Coach T-shirt; Bally skirt; Manolo Blahnik heels)

published 18 June 2025

About halfway through our lunch at Cafe Cluny, Molly Gordon leans over the table, eyes wide, and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial tone. "Reese Witherspoon just walked in, by the way," she says.

The presence of the superstar actress, blonde hair tucked under a baseball cap, is briefly distracting as she settles in across the room from us. (Actually, it's an A-lister-packed day at the West Village hot spot: Glenn Close and Andrew Garfield are also at tables in the other dining room.) As we settle back into our interview, I can't help but note what a handy metaphor it is to have them in the same room like this considering that Gordon is on the cusp of creating a career just like Witherspoon's—a young, super-talented actress carving out her own path instead of taking whatever Hollywood is willing to hand her.

"I don't want to wait around for people to tell me that I can be creative. I have to be creative every day," Gordon says. "I'm at an interesting age in the industry where I'm not a mother, but I'm not 25 anymore, and there just aren't that many roles for people my age. We're in this nebulous, not-fuckable moment of 'Who are you?'"

(My reaction to this bordered on unpublishable, so you're not alone in feeling appalled by the concept that this could be true of a 30-year-old woman as skilled as Gordon.)

Molly Gordon sitting on a ferry boat. In the top image, she has her legs up on a bench and is listening to a vintage headset. She is wearing a striped Miu Miu shirt and white skirt. In the bottom image, she is sitting by herself looking off camera.

So Gordon is taking matters into her own hands. First, there was 2023's hilarious Theater Camp, which Gordon wrote, produced, directed, and starred in alongside Ben Platt. This summer, she's following it up with Oh, Hi!, which will hit theaters in July after making the rounds at prestigious film festivals like Sundance and Tribeca. Gordon cowrote the film with her friend Sophie Brooks, and to call Oh, Hi! a romantic comedy is technically correct, in that there is romance and there is comedy—they just don't come together the way you'd expect. Gordon plays Iris, a woman who snaps after discovering Isaac, the man she thought she was dating (played by Logan Lerman), isn't actually after anything serious. In a desperate attempt to change his mind, Iris handcuffs Isaac to the bed and… Well, you'll have to see Oh, Hi! to find out how that goes.

The seeds for Oh, Hi! were sown during the pandemic when Gordon and Brooks were both going through nightmare breakups. "Our partners couldn't communicate and work through it to end on good terms. It was this communication breakdown, and it made us go a little crazy," Gordon says with a laugh. "It's like that thing: Are women crazy, or are they driven mad? We both just wanted to have a fucking conversation and have some closure, and we weren't able to have it."

Dating isn't quite Iris-level maddening for Gordon, but talking to her about the dating scene reminds me of every conversation I've had with my friends over the past several years—with the notable exception that my friends have never been romantically linked to Jeremy Allen White in the tabloids. While she doesn't address those rumors specifically (the way she seamlessly works in a cheerful "I don't like to talk about my personal life" is an example of boundary-setting that would make any therapist proud), she's in the same dating trenches as the rest of us, and if she can turn her war stories into art like Oh, Hi!, it's all the better.

Molly Gordon sitting in a sea of empty chairs on a ferry boat. She has her arms crossed and her feet perched up on the chair in front of her. She is wearing a striped Miu Miu shirt and white skirt.

"I do feel like it's the worst time to be dating ever, even though it's always been hard," she says. "But dating is also really fun! I feel lucky, as Nora Ephron said, that I can turn my pain or weird things that happen into funny movies, and people might feel seen by that, and I might feel less alone."

Gordon isn't immune to the impossible beauty standards we impose on women, either. (See: the aforementioned "unfuckable" era.) She's been revisiting media like the HBO series Girls and the 2015 movie Trainwreck and finds it disturbing how we talked about Lena Dunham's and Amy Schumer's bodies, and her social media feeds are interspersed with the insecurity-inducing "photos of women with no stomachs." When she was about to shoot Oh, Hi!, Gordon had nerves about doing the nude scenes, and she was able to get advice from, arguably, one of the most iconic sources: Emma Thompson, her costar on the film Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie.

"She was like, 'Don't change a thing about yourself. Every actress, when they find out they're gonna be naked, they're like, "Great, I'll lose 15 pounds"—no. If you're playing a normal person, look like yourself, and do the fucking nude scene. You're carrying all the insecure women on your back. Reflect them in the projects that you're doing, and be yourself,'" Gordon says. "Now, I feel like I have that voice in me constantly, which is helpful."

Pull quote from Molly Gordon's June cover story that says, "I feel lucky, as Nora Ephron said, that I can turn my pain or weird things that happen into funny movies, and people might feel seen by that, and I might feel less alone."

If you've paid any attention to Hollywood over the last decade or so, then you've heard how hard it is to get movies made that aren't either existing IP or packed with stars who collectively have millions of social media followers—or, ideally, both. As a producer, Gordon has been privy to those conversations not just about herself but also about other actresses. "I hear the studios being like, 'She doesn't have any foreign value,' and they have a huge career. And I'm like, 'Well, if she doesn't have any foreign value, I'm probably a loser,'" she says, laughing at the absurdity. Getting Oh, Hi! across the finish line was far from a given. "People are just scared," she says with a shrug. "I also understand it because people are not showing up to see movies."

That Gordon and her team were ultimately able to get Oh, Hi! financed is nothing short of a tiny miracle by today's industry standards, but there was one other hurdle to jump: finding a male lead who would be comfortable spending most of the movie tied up. They would get bites from actors who said they would be cool with it if Iris was the one tied up, "which was really disappointing," according to Gordon. That wasn't remotely a concern to Lerman.

"The script was so good," he says. "Rarely do I read something that's a comedy that actually makes me laugh out loud while I'm reading it, and I had a few moments where that happened, and I knew I wanted to be a part of this."

His instinct was correct. Oh, Hi! is absurdly funny, in part because of a brilliant script but also because of the environment Gordon created on set that enabled everyone to experiment and have fun.

"One of the great talents that a filmmaker can have is to inspire your crew and your actors and everybody involved, to make them excited for what they're working on any given day. Molly brings that energy, and it's so infectious that it elevates everyone else's work," Lerman says. "She elevated every moment, every scene and made it even better than what was on the page, and that was already really good. She's a massive talent."

Molly Gordon standing outside on a ferry boat. In the top image, she is standing in front of railing with large ropes hanging over it. She is wearing a polka dot coat off the shoulders with a red one-piece bathing suit and red heels. In the bottom image, she is leaning over the railing with the ropes looking off camera.

I tell Gordon one of my favorite lines from the movie (mid-argument, Iris angrily says, "Why would you eat me out in broad daylight? That's boyfriend shit."), and she proudly shares that it was ad-libbed.

"I love that line. I'm really proud of that scene in general," she says. "We had just shot the scene where he went down on me, and I was thinking to myself, 'This is insane. It's so bright in this room. I'm so exposed. I was also just in a car all day sweating, and he's gonna eat my pussy and then tell me we're not in a relationship? What the fuck is going on?'"

One of Lerman's favorite moments was also an ad-lib of Gordon's, a "blink and you'll miss it" clip in a montage where she comes into the room where he's tied up with a pillow shoved up under her shirt to show him what she would look like pregnant. It's unquestionably unhinged behavior, but Gordon grounds the character with so much love and comedy that she becomes relatable again. Lerman says watching her act "made [him] a little better at what [he does], a little more comfortable to do stuff like [ad-libbing]."

Molly Gordon standing on the outside of a ferry boat. She is looking over her shoulder wearing a red one-piece Tory Burch bathing suit with a black and white polka dot Renaissance Renaissance jacket hanging off her shoulders.

That ability to ad-lib also makes Gordon an asset on the set of The Bear, according to the show's creator Christopher Storer. "She is somebody that can turn on a dime, whether it's comedically or dramatically," he says, calling her a "spark plug."

Both Storer and Gordon are extremely tight-lipped about what we can expect from her character Claire in this upcoming season of The Bear, promising only that it's a real season of change for everyone on the show. But what Gordon will tell me is that she spent much of the last season on set watching Storer work, taking notes on how he runs things from behind the camera. Storer says that Gordon's skills as an actor also make her a great filmmaker. "She's an incredible listener, and she's hyperaware of what everyone's doing in a scene," he says. "The more I get to know her, I'm like, 'Oh, you're going to be a fantastic director.'"

Molly Gordon on a ferry boat. She is kneeling down holding onto a railing wearing a matching yellow Gucci set comprised of a hat, jacket, skirt, and mules. Below the image is a pull quote from Gordon that says, "Once every 20 years, a show has an experience where the cast really likes each other and the show is successful. This is my experience, and I can look back on my life and be like, 'Wow, I got one of those.'"

Being on The Bear has been a blessing for Gordon. She calls it "the best thing that's ever happened to [her]," but it hasn't come without its challenges. By the time Claire showed up in season two, The Bear was a certified hit show with a cult following, and not all of its fans were happy for White's Carmy to have a love interest. There's a subset of fans online who strongly believe Carmy is destined to end up with Ayo Edebiri's character Sydney ("I don't know if Sydney would want to put up with that shit," Gordon quips); others complained that Claire wasn't a three-dimensional character, slapping the dreaded "manic pixie dream girl" label onto her. It's not that Gordon doesn't understand those complaints, per se, but she thinks that maybe those fans are missing the point of her character's role in the show.

"It would be really weird if suddenly we went home and started learning about Claire's family. That's not what the show is about. Carmy and Claire's storyline is about Carmy working through his trauma and seeing if he can actually be close to another person," she says. "This is Chris's vision and this story he wants to tell. Some fans want a different story, and they want a different outcome, but this is what he wants to share."

"With Claire, and because of what Molly brought to her, you get to see Carmy fumbling and uncomfortable in a sort of different way, in a way where he might be enjoying himself and enjoying her," White adds. "Molly is so funny and charismatic. It can be really disarming, and I think it's nice to see Carmy charmed by her and transported back to this sort of teenage love."

Molly Gordon standing out on a ferry boat. In the top image, she is holding a pair of binoculars and wearing a matching Gucci hat, jacket, skirt, and shoes. In the bottom image, she is kneeling down next to a railing.

We end up chatting for a bit about how our current moment in pop culture leans toward ironic detachment, how social media tends to reject sincerity in all forms, and how fans develop parasocial relationships to characters and actors alike. It's not exactly an environment that rewards an actor whose entire purpose is to serve as the main character's love interest.

"People don't like sweet things right now; we've become so allergic to joy and maybe even romance. I almost felt sometimes that people were annoyed by having two characters just look at each other," Gordon says. "We used to watch romantic comedies, people falling in love! It's been interesting, some of that criticism, and that's just what romance is on-screen. Maybe you just don't want to see that."

Her debut on The Bear marked the first time that Gordon was on the receiving end of negative comments on social media. "I hadn't ever been in anything that anyone watched, so it was just a totally new experience for me on every level," she says with a big laugh. (Shout-out to early adopters who started following Gordon after scene-stealing appearances in movies such as Shiva Baby and Booksmart and FX's excellent series Ramy.) She doesn't engage with it, but the nature of social media means that it finds her anyway. "It's weird to be able to see all this stuff. You just open your phone, and I'm looking at Rachel [Sennott] posting a sweet photo of herself, but then it immediately shows me something mean about me," she adds.

Molly Gordon posing with a captain on a ferry boat. In the top image, she is leaning against the captain, holding onto his arm. She is wearing a Dior striped bodysuit. In the bottom image, Gordon and the captain are both leaning on the railing looking out at the water.

All of that considered, though, Gordon makes clear that being on The Bear has been a net positive for her: "Once every 20 years, a show has an experience where the cast really likes each other and the show is successful. This is my experience, and I can look back on my life and be like, 'Wow, I got one of those.'"

Of course, being on a hit show means that fans have begun to develop a parasocial relationship with Gordon too. Her private life has become a matter of public interest: There were those rumors about her relationship with White after they were papped together, and after eagle-eyed fans noted that Gordon wasn't spotted in any photos from Platt's wedding, their friendship became a matter of much speculation online. It reached peak absurdity for Gordon when her dad sent her a post he'd seen linking her with the actor Pierce Brosnan after they were spotted together at a Bruce Springsteen concert. "This is my dream, obviously, that people would think that, but I had just met him an hour before," she says. While she accepts that this kind of speculation is the cost of success in her field, it's also made her rethink her own relationship to celebrity gossip.

"It's been funny to be on the receiving end of that and see how fake everything is, how no one knows what's going on, and how wrong all of these platforms are that put out the information," she says. "I used to jump on this shit and send it to all my friends and be like, 'Oh my god, I can't believe they're cheating on each other, or they’re dating, or they're not friends anymore,' when that's not true, so it's interesting also to think about my own behavior in the past."

Molly Gordon sitting on the ground of a ferry boat. She is wearing a white Chloe dress with lace detailing. Below is a pull quote from Gordon that says, "I'm so uninterested in playing it cool. I want to be the clown. I want love. I want to be brave enough to put myself out there."

It's hard not to be interested in Gordon's personal life when her friend list reads like a who's who of young Hollywood, though. It includes The Bear costars Edebiri and White, Shiva Baby costar Sennott and director Emma Seligman, actor and podcast host Owen Thiele, Oh, Hi! costar Geraldine Viswanathan, and comedian Allie Levitan. "A really fun part of this chapter is that a lot of my friends are having their big moments of success," Gordon says. "Watching how hard they've worked at this moment and knowing how rare it is to get has really been filling my cup."

They inspire her and serve as a sounding board for industry issues, but it's very clear that Gordon is just as appreciated in return. "She's a great friend, very caring, and consistent. Her circles are big. She's loved by many, and it all makes sense," White says. "She takes care of people and brings people together; she's incredibly empathetic." Despite the fact that this interview is about her, she doesn't hesitate to gush about her friends' achievements, bragging about Levitan's new dream writing gig for Saturday Night Live and how she's attending the premiere of Thiele's new show, Overcompensating.

Here's a sampling of the kind of friend Gordon is:

"When Ayo and I met, she was a writer, and I was an actor, and she was like, 'All I want is to have an acting job.' Watching her manifest has been the most incredible thing ever; it's amazing to watch your friend get exactly what they want. Chris [cast] her in this role that is so perfect for her—we get to see all of her colors in such a beautiful way."

"Jeremy is a really incredible leader, and it's completely smashed the jaded vibe that I had that successful actors are assholes. He's just not that way."

"I met Rachel, and she completely rocked my world. Just as a fan, I can't wait to see Rachel's show. I think that we all need it."

Even her stylist, Jared Ellner, is a friendship connection, as he's dating Thiele, her childhood BFF. "That makes all of the fashion stuff way easier," Gordon says. "He's one of my best friends, so he's like, 'Molly, you look horrible. You're not wearing that,' or he's like, 'I think we should take this risk.'" She says she plays it safe with fashion in her real life (when I compliment her perfect white long-sleeve tee, she sheepishly admits it comes from Brandy Melville), but Ellner has helped her have fun with the red carpet part of her job, which still feels surreal to her.

"You have to understand [that] a lot of people still don't know who I am. I get on a red carpet, and I'm next to Doja Cat, and I'm like, 'Take a picture of Doja Cat' and 'I just need to go to sleep,' 100%," she jokes.

Molly Gordon sitting outside on a ferry boat. She is seated in a red plastic chair, her arms perched on the railing behind her. She is wearing an "I Love NY" T-shirt with a black skirt and red heels.

That chapter of her career is likely coming to a close. She's writing and directing Small Parts, a remake of one of her favorite movies, the 1987 Bette Midler comedy Outrageous Fortune. ("I've loved it for so long. I can't believe they're letting me do it," she says sincerely.) A24 acquired her comedy Peaked, which has just started the casting process. As she becomes a triple threat—acting in, writing, and directing her own work—she's stepping into an arena occupied by stars like Witherspoon. "I'm so excited to see all she does," White says. "One day, I hope I'll be working for her on her film or her show if she'll have me. I'd be so lucky."

Molly Gordon on a ferry boat. She is wearing an oversize brown blazer with a tie by Saint Laurent and oversize Chloe sunglasses.

As rewarding as all of that is for Gordon, it's the human connection of it all that really matters at the end of the day.

"What I like about the things I have coming out this summer is [that] Claire is ready for someone to meet her on the bridge and connect, and Iris is also like, 'I am ready,'" she explains. "I'm so uninterested in playing it cool. I want to be the clown. I want love. I want to be brave enough to put myself out there."