Antonio Banderas talks playing Anthony Bourdain’s mentor in the upcoming biopic, Tony
It was reported that Dominic Sessa of The Holdovers was in talks to portray a young Anthony Bourdain in Tony, a biopic directed by Matt Johnson (BlackBerry). Variety reports that Antonio Banderas spilled some details of the film at the Torino Film Festival recently. For starters, Banderas walked away from production every day with a stench on him. The actor laughed, “We spent a month and a half filming in Cape Cod and Newport, constantly surrounded by the smell of fish. Every time I came back to the hotel, I had to shower because I absolutely reeked — I was cleaning fish every single day!”
Tony is said to reimagine Bourdain as “an aimless young man.” Banderas explained, “After finishing university, [Bourdain] originally wanted to become a writer. But almost immediately, he began struggling with depression and drug addiction, so the film explores the very difficult early years of his life.” Banderas is playing a composite character from Bourdain’s life. He is a Brazilian-born restaurateur who takes the young Tony under his wing. The Mask of Zorro star states, “Through this relationship, Tony begins to truly learn how to cook. So the film is not just about cuisine or culinary techniques; it’s about his life, his identity, and his way of being — shaped by this unique mentor.”
He added, “My character studied at the finest institutions, graduating from the best gastronomy schools, yet he always remained an outsider. He created his own restaurant outside the traditional world of elite chefs, developing his own dishes with ingredients accessible to ordinary communities — simple food for everyday people.”
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Anthony Bourdain worked in many kitchens in New York City, including as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles. His fame exploded with the publication of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, a New York Times best-selling book that detailed the seedy underbelly of the restaurant world and his own rampant drug use. He hosted several popular shows that explored culture and cuisine around the world, including Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on CNN.
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