LOS ANGELES — There is no nail-biting stress for Liza Colón-Zayas in this restaurant. On a balmy June afternoon, she enters the homey, brightly colored space of Mofongos, a family-run North Hollywood Puerto Rican eatery, and instinctively begins moving her hips to the beat of Ángel Canales' "Sabor, los Rumberos Nuevos," which slaps the eardrums upon entering.

In scheduling our meet-up, she had one request: shining a light on a small business akin to the one featured on "The Bear," the hit FX series about the people working in the chaotic kitchen of a Chicago sandwich shop turned fine-dining restaurant. It's less than a week before the third season of the series drops — it's now streaming on Hulu — and the Nuyorican actress, who plays no-nonsense cook Tina Marrero, has never been to this establishment yet quickly offers guidance on the dishes to the rookie in front of her.

"You like pork?" she begins. "There's also arroz con gandules, which is yellow rice, with the sofrito and pigeon peas. Mofongo, as the name suggests, are fried plantains mashed together with crispy pork skin and they fill it in the pilon with whatever you want — shrimp, chicken or pork — and a sauce around it."

At just over 5 feet tall, Colón-Zayas seems smaller seated at this tabletop that's glossed with a photo of Puerto Rican baseball icon Roberto Clemente. Unlike her character, she isn't stingy or curt with her words and is more likely to insist you sample her order of mofongo de carne guisada than try to sabotage the cooking of your stock by turning up the flame to high heat. But much like her character, Colón-Zayas knows what it's like to be in plain sight, putting in the work for years, hoping for the nexus of potential and opportunity.

With a nearly 30-year career, Colón-Zayas is an off-Broadway veteran. She's performed on a string of television shows and films over the years, often in day-player roles but also in roles that tapped her range. Then came "The Bear," FX's critical and audience darling, which has nabbed a slew of awards to back up the hype.

For two seasons, her character has simmered on the back burner — active and essential but not at a full boil just yet. As a new regime takes over at the Original Beef of Chicagoland following the death of its owner, Michael "Mikey" Berzatto (Jon Bernthal), Tina's guard is up, resistant to the orders being slung at her by new, younger bosses. In time, she relaxes enough to see that change could be for the better — last season, she enrolled in culinary school and was promoted to sous chef.

"I get her," Colón-Zayas says. "She's on guard, like, 'You're walking into my territory.' This is not just a job. This is a made family. Restaurants, old-school traditional ones, are shutting down all around us. She doesn't know what the changes Carmy is trying to make will mean. And we've just lost a family member, Mikey."

In the third season, Tina comes into focus. And so does Colón-Zayas.

Episode 6, titled "Napkins," rewinds back five years before the petite and sharp-tongued working mom was stretching her culinary potential. Already stressed about finances after a rent increase, Tina loses her job managing payroll at a confectionery company. Her husband, played by Colón-Zayas' real-life spouse, David Zayas ("Dexter"), is a doorman waiting for a promotion that will never come. With bruised pride, financial anxiety and ample copies of her resume in hand, Tina pounds the pavement each day — smile locked in — seeking work but being met with indifference or outright rejection.

"I am glad to know that she was far more respectable than I thought she'd be," says Colón-Zayas, who didn't create a backstory for the character beyond deciding she was a transplant from New York. "When we're introduced to Tina, she's pretty hardcore, but we know she's a mom. I didn't realize that she had a 9-to-5, and they were working poor, they were stable, and [she and her husband] are in love. There was this whole other peaceful, kind of normal side of her life."

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