A24 have released the trailer for Tony, the upcoming Anthony Bourdain biopic starring The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa, and you can watch it here.
Directed and co-written by Matt Johnson (Nirvana: the Band – the Show – the Movie), Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe, the film is set in 1976, where a 19-year-old Bourdain travels to Provincetown after losing a writing fellowship. In need of cash, he finds a job in a chaotic restaurant kitchen, which sets off a summer that will shape the course of his life.
Sessa stars alongside Antonio Banderas, a Brazilian-born chef who gives Bourdain a chance and his first insight into the culinary industry. The cast also includes Leo Woodall, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Dominczyk, Rich Sommersa and Stavros Halkias. With the film being produced by Tim White, Trevor White, Miller and Johnson.
After the film was set, Bourdain found fame after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America. As a writer, he had written a piece on the ugly secrets of a Manhattan restaurant, which was published in an issue of The New Yorker. The success of the article kick-started Bourdain’s career and led to his New York Times best-selling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Later, in 2002, Bourdain hosted his first food-and-world-travel network show, A Cook’s Tour, on The Food Network, beginning his TV career.
However, in 2018, at 61, the chef died by suicide on location in France. Bourdain was loved for his authenticity and ability to connect with people through food, bringing honesty to TV as he celebrated the often-overlooked elements of the restaurant industry and championed underrepresented voices.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Johnson explained that Bourdain’s best-selling memoir opened the doors to the story, saying, “Those two chapters of Kitchen Confidential read like ‘Genesis’ to me. So little happens, but the margins are packed. It meant the cast, and I could investigate this man’s origin together, knowing only where he would end up 20 years later.”
Bourdain’s estate has also shared approval for the upcoming film, sharing in a statement, “We chose to support Tony because it is not a standard biopic and doesn’t attempt to summarise a life. Guided by the vision of director Matt Johnson, the film depicts one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is an interpretation, as that part of Tony’s life will always remain somewhat unknown.
We appreciate the portrayal of Tony’s complexity, his intellectual appetite, and his conviction — qualities that eventually took him around the globe and endeared him to so many. We hope this film serves as a reminder that every journey has a start, and that audiences see the beginnings of the man who taught us how to be better explorers on our own paths.”
Tony is set to be released this August.
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