Dominic Sessa Didn't Know How to Cook Before Playing Anthony Bourdain
Dominic Sessa plays Bourdain before fame, and the film follows the 19-year-old trainee chef into the kitchen culture that shaped his career.
- Director Matt Johnson's biographical drama Tony premieres in Australian theaters on August 20, 2026, exploring a formative 1970s summer when 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain worked as a dishwasher in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
- Drawing from his seminal 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, the film depicts Bourdain's transformation from an arrogant Vassar College student into a lowly kitchen dishwasher before achieving fame.
- Dominic Sessa, known for The Holdovers, plays young Bourdain and deliberately avoids impersonation, instead focusing on capturing the character's internal growth through his chaotic early experiences.
- At The Flagship restaurant, Antonio Banderas portrays the enigmatic Chef, whose stern mentorship provides the structure and discipline that force the petulant young Bourdain to confront reality.
- Avoiding a standard biopic structure, director Johnson explores the 'spark of discovery' in a directionless youth rather than explaining Bourdain's later legacy, creating a truthful portrait that resonates beyond the famous name.
11 Articles
11 Articles
Tony: ‘rollicking, surprisingly sunny’ Anthony Bourdain biopic
There are many stretches from Anthony Bourdain’s “gritty” and “well-chronicled” life that could work for a biopic, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. But in “Tony”, Matt Johnson sticks with “just one summer” in 1975, when the celebrity chef was 19 – long before he found fame and fortune. Based on the opening chapters of Bourdain’s bestselling memoir, “Kitchen Confidential”, the film opens as Tony – Dominic Sessa, the “deeply talented” young actor …
Movie review: 'Tony' dishes up immersive summer coming-of-age story
Young Tony (Dominic Sessa) has had a rough night. When he wakes up in a hammock with a shiner, brilliant white sand dunes behind him, he doesn’t know yet that it’s the first day of the rest of his life, which happens to be the too-short life of chef, author, TV host and international flâneur Anthony Bourdain. However, “Tony,” the movie, written by Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, Matthew Miller and ...
Film Review: Tony; Dominic Sessa cooks up a remarkable turn in unconventional Anthony Bourdain biopic
Anthony Bourdain knew exactly what kind of young man he had been. Tony opens with his own less-than-flattering assessment: “I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” It’s both a warning and something of an invitation. Rather than attempting...
Tony gives Anthony Bourdain something worth writing about
We are often asked as adolescents what we want to be when we “grow up” — doctor, lawyer, engineer, the usual respectable pursuits to pluck from. Embedded in the question is an assumption that maturity and wisdom simply arrive as natural side effects of aging into our careers. As filmmaker Matt Johnson’s Tony, a fictionalized biopic about Anthony Bourdain’s formative years, reminds us, growing older offers no such guarantee. The film introduces u…
‘Kitchen Confidential’ Returns to Bestseller Lists Following Anthony Bourdain Biopic
More than 25 years after Anthony Bourdain first pulled back the curtain on restaurant kitchens, readers are going back for seconds. Bourdain’s seminal 2000 memoir, “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” has returned to bestseller charts following the theatrical release of “Tony,” A24’s new biographical drama about his formative years. The book is also […]
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