Please Note: This article briefly mentions suicide, please proceed with care.
Of all the celebrity chefs I grew up watching, few were as exciting to me as Anthony Bourdain. While it’s true that Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman and Alton Brown of Good Eats were the main staples in my house, the nights where my dad would turn on Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover were always the most entertaining. I don’t know if it was the travel, the idea that you could actually do something during a layover other than sit in the airport, or the fact that every so often, my father would have to mute the tv or briefly change the channel, but 12-year-old me was sold.
I still remember being shocked and heartbroken in 2018 when I learned that Anthony Bourdain had tragically taken his own life while filming Parts Unknown, a show that I still watch and enjoy today. Despite his passing eight years ago, Bourdain’s legacy lives on, with Gen Z finding a new appreciation in his approach to life, and an upcoming biopic on the chef that’s set to release on August 7 this year.
The biopic, entitled Tony, is an A24 film that chronicles Bourdain’s cooking origins as a line cook in Massachusetts, the job that made him into the successful chef he is still known as today. Starring Dominic Sessa as Anthony Bourdain, the film will take inspiration from Bourdain’s memoir, Kitchen Confidential. While most of us familiar with Bourdain know about his life as a celebrity chef, Tony takes you to the beginning of his story, making this biopic feel more original compared to others I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot.
Among my many hobbies, I love watching movies, especially in theaters. And Hollywood has seen a lot of biopics in recent years. However, when all of the biopics coming out are about people who are extremely well-known, it can get a bit boring. That’s the beauty of Tony. Anthony Bourdain’s journey from line cook to celebrated chef isn’t as well known as, say, Michael Jackson’s rise to stardom, so the story will feel fresh and new to viewers.
If you want to see Tony in theaters but don’t know a whole lot about Anthony Bourdain, I highly recommend checking out his shows, which can be found on HBO Max and Pluto TV. The Layover is my favorite show he did, likely due to watching it with my dad as a kid, but Parts Unknown and No Reservations are equally as amazing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to tune into a major Anthony Bourdain rewatch while waiting for Tony tickets to go on sale.