By August 3, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n Two years ago, A24 announced plans for Tony<\/em>, a biopic about Anthony Bourdain. Predictably, a vocal contingent of his fans\u2014or at least the extremely online ones\u2014declared, \u201cI think Tony would have hated this,\u201d with absolute conviction, as if they\u2019d just been ripping Marlboros and downing negronis with the man himself.<\/p>\n Would he have hated it? I didn\u2019t know the answer, and for a while, I put the question, and the film, out of my mind. When I started working as Tony\u2019s assistant in 2009, I quickly learned not to predict his responses to the many queries that came to him through me. How would Tony the man feel about Tony<\/em> the film? As Bourdain\u2019s long-time assistant, I learned never to predict his responses.<\/p>\n Tony was often more than happy to do interviews with people whose viewpoints he adamantly opposed. He jumped at the opportunity to appear on Yo Gabba Gabba<\/em>, a show aimed at toddlers. On another occasion, I was certain he\u2019d roll his eyes, but he said, \u201cFor reasons of overweening vanity, I\u2019m eager to do it,\u201d before rattling off a list of designers he admired.<\/p>\n I\u2019d consulted for Roadrunner<\/em>, the 2021 Bourdain documentary, but I had no involvement with the A24 biopic. While the film was shot and edited, I stayed busy with my 2025 memoir, in which I address the weird privilege of living and working in Tony\u2019s massive shadow, both while he was alive and after his death in 2018. With me are the many talented people who cooked with him, helped make his TV shows, and published his writing. Tony\u2019s brother, Chris Bourdain, lives in that shadow, too.<\/p>\n A family photo from July 1974 shows Tony, Pierre, and Christopher Bourdain eating dinner at home. In his 2001 book A Cook\u2019s Tour<\/em>, Tony wrote of Chris: \u201cMy younger brother, Chris, is about as different from me as anyone can be. While I\u2019ve spent my whole life living a hand-to-mouth existence, paycheck to paycheck, letting the good times roll, not giving a fuck \u2026 Chris has always been the responsible one, the good son.\u201d<\/p>\n Over lunch at an Uruguayan restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, Chris and I discussed Tony the shadow and Tony<\/em> the film. In 2008, Chris appeared with Tony on an Uruguay episode of No Reservations<\/em>, in which they traced their roots and enjoyed a chivito sandwich, similar to the one we were splitting, piled high with steak, ham, bacon, egg and cheese.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a troubling encounter just last week, talking to my neighbors,\u201d Chris said. \u201cOne woman realized that I was Anthony Bourdain\u2019s brother, and someone else asked, \u2018Who was Anthony Bourdain?\u2019 She said, \u2018He was one of the best chefs in the world.\u2019 Tony never thought he was the best chef. He described himself as a somewhat-skilled cook. He never called himself an expert. He was a brilliant commentator on anything you threw in front of him\u2014travel, politics, anything that caught his interest. He was the modern Mark Twain. They totally missed the point, and that made me very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n Tony Bourdain appeared in a publicity still for A Cook\u2019s Tour<\/em>, his first television series, for Food Network. I know exactly what Chris is getting at. I wince when I see or hear someone reposting the viral, fan-written quote (\u201cEat at a local restaurant tonight\u201d) and hate when people are careless with the facts, or reduce him to a single outrageous moment\u2014eating a live cobra heart on TV, or warning against fish on Monday in Kitchen Confidential<\/em>. Tony was a complex person who willingly put himself in the entertainment industry, which can, unfortunately, compress a whole person down into a series of bullet points and memes.<\/p>\n To my eye, Tony<\/em> the film does the opposite, building a narrative framework from elements of a true story that invites viewers to consider the humble origins of this near-mythic figure. Before the action begins, a quote from Kitchen Confidential<\/em> appears on the screen: \u201cI was\u2014to be frank\u2014a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.\u201d Then we see him unhappily enrolled in college and chasing the object of his romantic fascination to Provincetown, Massachusetts\u2014where a 1976 photograph caught him that summer\u2014navigating temptations and disappointments through the lenses of desire and ambition, making mistakes as he tries to figure out what kind of man he should be. A mid-1970s photo shows Tony Bourdain (back left) and friends at Vassar College.<\/p>\n Todd Bartels, who wrote the initial script with Lou Howe, explained the impetus: \u201cTony\u2019s a larger-than-life figure now, a spiritual figure to so many people. How did he get from being an angry little shit from New Jersey to this globe-trotting ambassador connecting people through food?\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Bourdain had an early opportunity to see the film. \u201cI\u2019ve read about how it\u2019s supposedly \u2018a touching and heartwarming story,\u2019\u201d he said. He wasn\u2019t ready, and isn\u2019t sure if he will ever be. \u201cWhat is it, Ratatouille<\/em> meets The Karate Kid<\/em>? If he were to ever hear such words associated with anything to do with him \u2026 I think Tony would have hated the entire idea of this film.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure. As the film\u2019s premiere date approaches, the online grumbling\u2014along, it must be said, with plenty of happy anticipation\u2014has intensified, much as it did before the release of Roadrunner<\/em>. I feel irritated by the premature naysaying, and the audacity it takes to render a verdict before seeing the work.<\/p>\n Having now seen the film twice, there are things I love about it. Dominic Sessa is a wonderfully naturalistic actor whose alternately swaggering and awkward gestures, expressions, and body language make me feel, for a second, that I am seeing Tony himself. Sessa is an attractive young man with Tony\u2019s impossibly lean physique, who looks good in every single piece of 1975-era costuming. I predict that Tony\u2019s vanity would in no way be offended by Dom\u2019s portrayal of him.<\/p>\n For the 2001 series A Cook\u2019s Tour<\/em>, Bourdain traveled from Phnom Penh by boat on Cambodia\u2019s Tonle Sap Lake. He also shot an episode with director-producer Lydia Tenaglia somewhere on the road from Battambang, Cambodia. A 2015 photo shows Bourdain on the Asbury Park boardwalk during a Parts Unknown<\/em> shoot.<\/p>\n Following a preview of the film, I asked Michael Steed, an Emmy-winning producer who worked with Tony for years and was with him in France at the end of his life, how Tony would have felt about Tony<\/em>. \u201cIs there any biopic that the subject would actually like?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Those left behind by suicide are frequently angry. Steed readily cops to such feelings, and to briefly considering a kind of cosmic revenge via making work that he knows Tony would have hated. \u201cWhen I was in a really angry place, I imagined writing a Broadway musical based on Parts Unknown<\/em>, and devoting an entire season of Mind of a Chef<\/em> to Guy Fieri.\u201d<\/p>\n I recognize all of it\u2014Steed\u2019s anger, Chris\u2019s reluctance, the skepticism of some superfans\u2014as variations on grief. We would far rather have Tony alive and making sense of an increasingly nonsensical world than anyone else trying to make sense of him. I wonder all the time what he would say and do about the violence and chaos of life in 2026.<\/p>\n There is no way of knowing what Tony would think of this film, but still I put the question to director Matt Johnson, who previously told an amped-up version of a tech rags-to-riches-to-rags story with the 2023 feature film BlackBerry<\/em>. Was he aware of the doubting Tony stans, and how did that affect his filmmaking?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Tony would have hated this.\u2019 That\u2019s the quote, I know,\u201d Johnson said, seeming cheerfully unaffected by the discourse, while conceding, \u201c…there are probably elements of this movie that, were he to put it on, he\u2019d be cringing, but even if he left the room, I\u2019d like to think that he\u2019d be watching through the crack of the door, saying, \u2018While this is factually incorrect, it is metaphorically true.\u2019 My job with this or any story I tell is to be as curious and truth-seeking as I can possibly be.\u201d<\/p>\n How Tony would regard the film is a riddle that answers and negates itself, like his tattoo of a snake eating its own tail. If he were still here to see it, there would be no film to dissect his origin story or explore his vast influence on food and travel. Instead of writing this essay today, I might be working on a new book with him, making his haircut appointments, stocking his fridge, and arranging fresh flowers in his apartment, to make a welcoming place for him to return to after a long time away. I would trade a lot for the chance to do all of that again.<\/p>\n This essay is by the author of a 2025 New York Times best-selling memoir, a James Beard Award winner, co-author of New York Times best-selling books with Anthony Bourdain, author of Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography (2021), and a writer for The New York Times, Vogue, and GQ.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two years after A24 announced its Anthony Bourdain biopic \u2018Tony,\u2019 his former assistant, brother, and collaborators ask: would he have actually hated 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years after A24 announced its Anthony Bourdain biopic \u2018Tony,\u2019 his former assistant, brother, and collaborators ask: would he have actually hated it?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test3.cryptofinancewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why Predicting Tony Was Impossible<\/h2>\n
Yo Gabba Gabba and Overweening Vanity<\/h3>\n
Chris Bourdain in the Family Shadow<\/h3>\n
From Publicity Stills to Kitchen Confidential<\/h2>\n
The Film\u2019s Origin Story<\/h2>\n
Seeing Tony Twice: What Works and What Grates<\/h2>\n
Dominic Sessa\u2019s Young Tony<\/h3>\n
\n
A Cook\u2019s Tour and Cambodia<\/h3>\n
Grief, Anger, and the Unknowable Verdict<\/h2>\n
Director Matt Johnson\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n
A Riddle That Answers and Negates Itself<\/h2>\n