Dominic Sessa returns as young “Tony” Bourdain

You know what is so weird is that on Monday night during the Met Gala, I randomly wondered what Dominic Sessa, breakout star of The Holdovers, is up to, and then boom, a trailer for Tony, starring Dominic Sessa, dropped. Tony is a biopic about the late Anthony Bourdain, set in the summer of 1976 when Tony fails to get a writing fellowship and ends up taking a job in a kitchen to make ends meet. This is loosely based on Bourdain’s life but is NOT adapted from his memoir, Kitchen Confidential (which Bradley Cooper once tried to turn into a TV show, anticipating The Bear by almost 20 years).

Tony stars Sessa as Tony; Emilia Jones as Nancy, Tony’s eventual wife; Stavros Halkias and Leo Woodall as fellow restaurant workers; and Antonio Banderas as Ciro, the chef who eventually trains Tony. The Holdovers was Sessa’s first film role—first professional acting credit, period—and between then and now he’s had roles in Tow, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, and Oh What Fun, but Tony is his first main role since The Holdovers. That was just over two years ago, it’s not like it’s been a drought, it’s just that Sessa was an immediately impressive presence in that film, holding his own opposite Paul Giamatti at his most professionally curmudgeonly, and I am SUPER interested to see what Sessa does next as a leading man.

And I am ESPECIALLY interested to see him in Tony, not because of the Bourdain of it all, though I know that will be the appeal for most people, but because Tony is directed and co-written by Canada’s own Matt Johnson, one of the most hilariously bold filmmakers working right now. Matt Johnson previously made Blackberry, a corporate biopic of Canada’s cell phone sensation which is both hilarious and scathing, and this year’s dementedly delightful Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It is truly bonkers, having started as a web series in the 2000s, then a TV show in the 2010s, and now a movie in the 2020s (thus that long ass title). It is a wonderful display of Johnson’s sensibility and talent as a filmmaker (he is also a good actor), and one of the funniest time travel movies, period.

The combination of Dominic Sessa and Matt Johnson is incredibly promising. Johnson gets GREAT performances from his actors (legit Glen Howerton should have gotten an Oscar nod for Blackberry), what he can do with Sessa, who now has a couple more years of experience under his belt, is very exciting. I love this combination and we haven’t even gotten to Bourdain yet!

Tony is not directly adapted from either of Bourdain’s memoirs, but the trailer, obviously, puts heavy emphasis on this being Tony’s origin story, of learning to love the preparation of food, and of turning to cooking when his initial dream of being a writer fell apart (he did, of course, go on to be a successful writer, too). This is an interesting time to depict Bourdain, rather than his more commonly known years as a chef in New York (the Kitchen Confidential years), or as a world traveler and television host.

Choosing to focus on Tony’s early, lesser-known years gives Johnson a LOT of room to play, rather than be bound to the nostalgia machine by the more familiar image of the later-in-life Anthony Bourdain. There is a lot of wiggle room, and maybe less expectation of what Tony’s life “should” look like at that stage, compared to the parts people are more familiar with, and might feel more ownership over, as Bourdain was SUCH a popular figure in pop culture in the 2010s. Matt Johnson and Dominic Sessa are two incredible talents; I can’t wait to see what they cook up together with Tony.