New Delhi: The first trailer for Tony, the biopic on late American chef and documentarian Anthony Bourdain, has dropped. It’s raw, chaotic, and unapologetically foul-mouthed as one would expect.
Instead of a polished tribute, the film dives straight into the messy beginnings of a man who would go on to redefine food storytelling.
Dominic Sessa, of The Holdovers fame, steps into Bourdain’s shoes, playing him at 19 as he lands his first kitchen job in mid-1970s Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It’s not a tale of instant genius. It’s confusion, ego, and a young man trying to figure out where he fits.
In one of the scenes in the trailer, he said, “I’m actually not a fu—g cook, I’m a writer”, a line that sums up the identity crisis simmering at the heart of the film.
The cast also features Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones, and Leo Woodall.
Tony is helmed by Matt Johnson, the brains behind BlackBerry, which earned acclaim for its offbeat take on the rise and fall of the once-iconic smartphone.
It is slated for an August 2026 release.
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A restless life
Bourdain’s estate seems to be on board with that approach. In a statement, they emphasised that Tony isn’t trying to neatly package his life into a standard biopic.
Instead, it zooms in on “one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is an interpretation, as that part of Tony’s life will always remain somewhat unknown.”
The film, they say, captures his complexity, restless intellect, and conviction, the very traits that would later take him across the world and make him a cultural force.
Before this, Bourdain’s story was explored in a documentary, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.
Bourdain was an acclaimed American chef, author, and television personality. He rose to fame with his 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Bourdain was best known for hosting No Reservations and CNN’s Parts Unknown, where he used food to explore cultures.
He died by suicide on 8 June 2018, at the age of 61, in Kaysersberg, France. He was there to film an episode of Parts Unknown.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)