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For most actors, playing a real person in a biopic comes with an unrealistic amount of pressure.
But because Matt Johnson decided to focus on just one summer in 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain’s life — long before the famed
chef-turned-writer ever wrote “Kitchen Confidential” or became a household name — “Tony” star Dominic Sessa had a wide-open canvas.
“I personally find it more interesting when you can reveal to the audience something that is not really known or hasn’t been focused on at all. Even for the biggest fans of Bourdain, they feel like they’re seeing something new here,” Sessa tells Variety. “It is fascinating and impressive, to an extent, to see actors and set designers recreate really iconic moments in history to an uncanny level. It’s something that people admire, I think it’s cool and can appreciate that. But I was grateful that we had the freedom to [instead] put a lot of our own stories into this.”
Set in 1975, “Tony” is more coming-of-age hangout movie than traditional biopic. It follows Anthony Bourdain, who simply goes by Tony at the time, as he follows his older school crush, Nancy (Emilia Jones) to Provincetown, Mass., lying about winning a writing fellowship. He spends his summer there and, in a desperate effort to find a roof over his head, stumbles into the local kitchen of a seasoned seafood chef (Antonio Banderas). It’s a summer that changes Tony’s life forever as he meets the erratic Sal (Leo Woodwall) and other folks in the kitchen.
Aside from the 2021 documentary “Roadrunner,” Bourdain’s life has been recounted largely through his own books like “Kitchen Confidential” and “Medium Raw,” making “Tony” the first fictional biopic about the Emmy-winning host. And the film gave Sessa, who had his breakout turn in Alexander Payne’s 2023 film “The Holdovers,” the opportunity to step into his first lead role.
“I was skeptical of it at first when it was presented to me,” Sessa admits. “I thought in my mind it was going to be a whole biography of his life as he’s older, working as a chef and I’m like, ‘This is ridiculous. I can never do this.'”
Meeting with Johnson, the Canadian filmmaker and writer behind “BlackBerry” and “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie,” was what allowed Sessa to “get comfortable” about taking on the role.
“I felt I actually had a way to understand the character that was relatable to me and true to the things that I’ve experienced,” he says of Johnson’s approach.
Below, Sessa breaks down how being a “liar” helped him portray the famed writer and cook, working with mentor figures like Banderas and how the film foreshadows Bourdain’s later struggles in life with mental health and drugs.
What’s so notable about this movie is that it’s so laser focused on this one moment in Bourdain’s life. That’s not what we typically see from biopics these days.
I think it’s how biopics are most effective. We’re actually able to tell a story and we had a lot of freedom in that there’s not a ton of information about him at this time, footage or audio recordings of him or anything. There’s the specific details that you get from the people that remember him at the time, his own personal accounts, and that is all we had to work off of, really. And beyond that, we had so much freedom in crafting a sort of fictionalized version of what we could only imagine it might have been like from what he describes [in “Kitchen Confidential”] and the way he describes the people and the mentors around him. That just gave us so much creative space.
As somebody who’s just a few years older than Bourdain during this time period, what specific experiences did you find the most relatable?
The character in the script, he’s not honest. He’s a liar and I think in my whole life, as a young guy, especially in high school and college, I would lie to people and over-inflate things and try to make myself seem more capable or intelligent than I actually am. I would go on dates with girls and use big words so that I would seem smart, you know? That sort of thing is something that a lot of young guys do. For me, the core of understanding and playing the character was thinking about the times in my life where I was kind of putting it on or being an imposter. Especially my high school environment, a lot of my friends came from very wealthy or famous families and grew up with a very specific lifestyle and I did not have that experience growing up. I felt embarrassed about that, you know? I felt I needed to present myself in a way or just not even talk about my family or home life at all just to protect my own ego. But that’s what you do when you’re young!
How did reading “Kitchen Confidential,” which the film takes a direct quote from at the beginning, inform your portrayal?
For the audience and me, it justifies playing the character in a way that’s not necessarily super likable, at least not at first. At times I would feel like, “Oh, am I representing this person in a good way or in the best way?” I just reminded myself that I was doing it honestly. I was being the person that he described himself as.
You guys shot in Provincetown. Did you come across any locals that knew Bourdain way back when?
There were tons of people; the owners of The Lobster Pot, a very famous restaurant; and the family that owns Spiritus Pizza, where we filmed at, all knew him and had a relationship with him at some point. We ate at this restaurant called Ciro & Sal’s very often, owned by the Luster Brothers who worked with Bourdain at that restaurant in the ’70s. I know Matt, when he was living in Provincetown for a bit, spent a lot of time talking to them specifically and getting their personal accounts of what happened — even remembering things differently than how Bourdain described it.
What struck you about the stories they told you?
There was one instance where, in the movie, he grabs this hot iron pan and burns his hand. Larry Luster was explaining how that is not exactly how it happened. Bourdain had a tendency to make stories sound more interesting. Lies! It was a cool insight to learn.
That adds another layer to the film, perhaps, and what it’s saying about this front Bourdain is constantly putting on.
Exactly! We really are just trying to tell a version of the story in the way that he would want to see it, in the way that he would like to remember it.
What was the energy like filming the restaurant scenes? Were there any memorable dishes?
It was pretty chaotic, we very much felt like we were just working in a kitchen. They threw a bunch of real dirty dishes at me, and Matt was just like, “All right, clean! Antonio’s gonna throw some shit at you, yell at you, and Stavros is gonna make fun of you. Just take it in and receive it, but don’t say anything. Don’t open your mouth. Just be scared!” That’s how we filmed a lot of stuff. It felt very much in his style of filming where we had handheld camera ops with zoom lenses and we could just do whatever we wanted in the space.
Matt and I instantaneously hit it off and had a very similar sense of humor. We really had a good understanding of each other’s personal lives; we talked about a lot of personal things when we first met. I just felt a lot of trust in him. I knew we were gonna be able to work together not only as partners on the movie, but as friends. We actually had a fun time working together. I can’t say that for everybody I’ve worked with.
Did you learn to cook any dishes?
Antonio was a really good cook for sure, he owns eight restaurants in Málaga, Spain. He’s really talented at pretty much everything. Stavros got good at making lobster rolls, like 20 a day. And Leo was impressive with the oyster shucking. In the movie when he’s just flicking those things into the bucket, he’s legitimately doing it.
Antonio’s Chef becomes a crucial mentor character to Bourdain. Did he also become a mentor figure to you as an actor?
I’m still so young. I don’t really feel like I have a method to what I’m doing and a locked-in process when I’m making a movie. Then someone like Antonio comes in and I’m listening to the questions he’s asking and I’m like, “Oh shit. I did not think about that at all!” When a real pro veteran comes in and they start working through the scenes with you, it makes it so much more exciting. I’m selfishly taking in all these insights that they’re able to have about the scene and use it. It makes me better. He’s also just a really nice guy. We had a young cast, for the most part, and he was the oldest one. He had more energy than all of us! He’s got a youthful way about him.
It’s really striking the way that Chef and Nancy choose to show Bourdain kindness after the lies he tells them over and over.
It’s interesting when someone who feels so separate from who you are and where you are in your life, like Antonio’s character, can have a deep impact on you. Ultimately, I think Tony’s decision to do this plan to steal this money was coming from a place of feeling, “These people are going to hate me anyway. There’s no saving me. It’s already over!” The fact that he experiences this moment of graciousness from two people he’s fucked over pretty bad is the reason he feels it’s necessary to do the right thing, for lack of a better term.
And then we see Bourdain look around during that beach scene as it clicks for him how food brings people together. It’s a real community.
It’s realizing that I’ve had this experience in this place and this restaurant that is forever going to connect me to these people. They’re always going to be connected through that summer and that experience. For the rest of his life, he’s constantly searching for moments in time where he’s genuinely connecting with people through food.
There were, of course, many struggles later in his life. In any of your research or prep, did you find it difficult to separate out those things for your performance?
Especially his battles with drug addiction and mental health problems, it wasn’t something that Matt and I really found we could relate to at all. I can’t say we thought too much about it when making it. But there are moments, of course, especially coming from Leo’s character where we see these hints of what we know is gonna come later in his life. That scene with Leo on the beach and even them all doing cocaine and shit in the kitchen, showing up to work hungover — all that stuff is flashes of things that we know are ultimately going to become a part of his life later.
Did Matt write Leo’s character specifically to foreshadow that?
Yeah, Leo’s character was really intentional in that way, everything about him from being covered in tattoos. Matt and I were really specific about all this stuff. The first time that I smoke a cigarette in the movie is because Leo gives me one. That becomes something that’s so iconically Bourdain. Bourdain was open about his struggles with using heroin in his life, and Leo is the one that introduces him to the heroin dealer in Provincetown. He’s so much that chaotic side of him.
This is such an exciting moment in your career. Since your breakout role in “The Holdovers,” how have you been navigating these past few years?
I don’t know. I’m really getting a better sense of what I’m good at, and what I haven’t explored yet that I know I’m capable of. I just did this crazy movie in Spain where I finally get to yell for the first time, like I never get to yell in movies and scream at people! I’m always kind of playing these really brooding, sad young guys. This movie was intentional in the way that it’s been a part of my life for so long. For the past two and a half years, I’ve been thinking about this movie and working with Matt on it. In the time since filming, I just tried to get on sets and be a part of movies with great actors, learning as much as I could. Knowing specifically that this movie was going to be a lot of pressure on me, I just wanted to be as prepared as possible.
Who are some of your dream directors to work with next?
I would really like to work with Zach Cregger! When I was younger, I was a big fan of “Whitest Kids U’Know.” And then obviously “Barbarian” came out, and I was obsessed with that movie. And “Weapons” is probably one of my favorite movies in the last decade.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
