Dominic Sessa is taking on one of the most recognizable figures in food and travel television: Anthony Bourdain. In Tony, the young actor portrays Bourdain long before the chef became a bestselling author, celebrated television host and global cultural figure. Instead, the film focuses on a restless 19-year-old discovering the world of professional kitchens.
Going Back to Bourdain’s Beginning
Directed by Matt Johnson, Tony is set largely during the summer of 1976, when Bourdain took a job at a restaurant on Cape Cod. The story draws inspiration from Bourdain’s memoir Kitchen Confidential, particularly his early experiences in the restaurant industry.
Rather than presenting the polished celebrity audiences eventually came to know, the film explores Bourdain as a young man still trying to figure out what he wanted from life.
Sessa described the experience as an opportunity to explore someone before his identity was fully formed—a period when Bourdain was still searching for direction.
The Brutal World of Restaurant Kitchens
A major element of Tony is the intensity of the kitchens Bourdain entered.
The restaurant environment portrayed in the film is competitive, chaotic and often aggressive. Sessa has spoken about how the cooks could “rip each other apart,” capturing the harsh culture that Bourdain later described so vividly in Kitchen Confidential.
For Sessa, understanding that environment was essential to understanding the character. The young Bourdain wasn’t yet the confident storyteller who would eventually travel the world. He was learning how to survive among demanding chefs and complicated personalities.
Sessa’s Transformation
Sessa first attracted widespread attention with his breakthrough performance in The Holdovers, where he played Angus Tully. His portrayal earned him major critical recognition and established him as one of Hollywood’s promising young actors.
Playing Bourdain represents a considerably different challenge. Rather than simply imitating the chef’s familiar voice and mannerisms, Sessa had to capture the personality of a young man who had not yet become the person audiences remembered.
The film’s creators reportedly approached the character as an origin story, making the transformation into Bourdain’s later self part of the drama.
A 1970s World Full of Possibilities
One of the attractions of Tony for Sessa was the opportunity to spend time in the 1970s.
The film recreates a period before smartphones, social media and the constant digital connectivity of modern life. That atmosphere gives its characters greater freedom to simply exist in bars, restaurants and streets without the distractions that dominate contemporary life.
Sessa has expressed affection for that era and the experience of playing a character who could spend his evenings as a young barfly, absorbing the atmosphere around him.
Antonio Banderas Joins the Story
The film also features Antonio Banderas as Ciro, a restaurant owner and chef who becomes an important figure in young Bourdain’s professional development. Emilia Jones plays Nancy, while Leo Woodall portrays fellow kitchen worker Sal.
Banderas’ presence adds another layer to the story, particularly as Ciro becomes part mentor and part authority figure for the inexperienced young cook.
More Than a Traditional Biopic
Tony is ultimately less interested in celebrating Bourdain’s later fame than in exploring how a young man began becoming the person he would eventually be.
Bourdain died in 2018 at 61, after decades spent transforming himself from a New York chef into an influential author and television personality. His legacy continues through his writing, food journalism and travel programs.
By returning to his earliest professional years, Tony offers a more intimate portrait of the man before the fame—and gives Dominic Sessa the chance to explore the uncertainty, ambition and contradictions that shaped Bourdain’s extraordinary journey.
