Anthony Bourdain needs no introduction. Whether you’re a food lover and/or someone who has a hunger for stories of humanity and travel, you’re more than likely aware of the impact he made in this world. But who was Anthony Bourdain before he became Anthony Bourdain? The highly anticipated film, TONY, is set to land in theatres on August 14th.
TONY follows 19-year-old Bourdain in his early years
Before the best-selling books, the hit TV shows, and the voice that defined a generation, there was the summer of 1975. In the picturesque beachside enclave of Provincetown, on Massachusetts’ idyllic Cape Cod, a lanky teenager from New Jersey discovers the first taste of the man he would become. This is the origins story of one of the world’s most famous icons in the world.
The film offers an unexpected glimpse at the culinary legend before the world knew his name—and before Bourdain discovered the passion, purpose, and mentorship that would shape the rest of his life.
Rather than trying to compress an entire life into a conventional biopic, the film instead focuses on a singular moment of time. It reveals a brief but transformative chapter in which a young man searching for identity first discovers the intoxicating possibilities of food, work, friendship, romance, rebellion, and reinvention.
“It’s a coming-of-age story about somebody we all think that we know, but nobody knows from this specific period of his life,” says the film’s director, Matt Johnson. “The concept for the film is taking a single, formative summer of Anthony Bourdain’s youth and expanding on a lot of the mythology that people know about him, which originated out of this one pocket of time.”
Actor Dominic Sessa (THE HOLDOVERS) stars as the young Bourdain in this new feature film along side Antonio Banderas who plays a soulful seafood chef who takes Tony under his wings.
“With TONY, I wanted to figure out how Bourdain became who he was, and the discovery of Provincetown was as much a surprise to me as it was to him,” says Johnson, who lived in the seaside enclave while writing the film’s script. “It’s as far a place as you can go without leaving America—the very end of the road.”
Learn more about the film, TONY here.
In honour of the film’s release and Bourdain, here are 10 life quotes I absolutely love!
“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel—as far and as widely as possible.”
“You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.”
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”
“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.”
“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”
“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
“Assume the worst. About everybody. But don’t let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.”
“I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.”
“I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.”
“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough – to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”
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*Director Matt Johnson’s quotes were provided from the film’s production notes