How Dominic Sessa and Matt Johnson Uncovered Life-Changing Lessons Hidden in Anthony Bourdain’s Legacy
Ever found yourself staring at a menu, frozen in indecision over a plate of rigatoni with burrata? It turns out that moment of simple choice can mirror the complex journey of a young Anthony Bourdain—before he became a culinary legend. In the new A24 film Tony, Dominic Sessa and director Matt Johnson peel back the layers of Bourdain’s early years, serving up a story that’s anything but a typical biopic. Instead of a polished timeline, Tony offers a raw, character-driven dive into mentorship, self-discovery, and the wild ride to manhood. Behind this heartfelt portrayal is a partnership as compelling as the story itself, with Sessa embodying a brash yet vulnerable Bourdain, and Johnson capturing it all with a naturalistic touch that breaks the mold. Ready to feast on a tale of grit, growth, and unlikely friendships? LEARN MORE
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DOMINIC SESSA POINTS at the menu and Matt Johnson follows his finger. “The rigatoni,” Sessa says assuredly.
“You’ve had it?” Johnson asks.
“With the burrata,” Sessa clarifies. His tone makes it clear that this detail is vital.
Seated at a quiet table in the corner of a Tribeca restaurant, the two lock eyes as Johnson contemplates this piece of information. “Maybe it’s time…” he says, slowly navigating his way through his sentence, “…to eat the rigatoni.”
Food has been a serious matter to consider for Johnson and Sessa over the past few years. Johnson is the director and cowriter behind Tony, the A24 film depicting a summer in 1975 Provincetown, Massachusetts, for a self-proclaimed “spoiled, miserable, self-destructive young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking” named Anthony Bourdain. Sessa stars as Bourdain, then going by Tony. The biopic pulls from a few early chapters of Bourdain’s beloved 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential, to tell the coming-of-age story of a brash young writer who would one day—much later—become one of the world’s most trusted chroniclers of culinary culture.
At 23, Sessa is only a few years older than 19-year-old Bourdain was in 1975. The actor first broke out opposite Paul Giamatti in 2023’s The Holdovers, and has since been on his own upward trajectory. His assuredness—in life and filmmaking as in restaurant orders—drew in Johnson, the 40-year-old writer-director-actor behind category-defying indies including The Dirties, Operation Avalanche, and 2023’s subversive spin on the emerging corporate-biopic genre, BlackBerry. (Yes, about the invention of the BlackBerry phone.) His most recent release, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, made with collaborator Jay McCarrol, is a showcase of Johnson’s signature style: a faux-documentary format, largely improvised, with a story partly driven by characters having real-life interactions with non-actors. Not only did Sessa embrace Johnson’s naturalistic ethos, but the two are so simpatico that they frequently finish each other’s sentences.
“We were drawn to one another, as people,” Johnson says. “That brought us together more so than, ‘Let’s make an Anthony Bourdain movie.’” The two teamed up on Tony, then a screenplay featured on the 2024 Black List, an annual industry survey of promising but unproduced scripts. Neither was initially familiar with the details of Bourdain’s life and legacy, but, Sessa says, “Bourdain at this time, in the ’70s, in Provincetown, he was kind of a vehicle for us to explore a lot of our own personal stories.”
That lack of agenda and authentic discovery of Bourdain’s bio is a big part of what makes Tony work so well. It’s not a glossy inventory of its subject’s life from birth to death. It’s not even a complete adaptation of Kitchen Confidential, which spanned well into his era of international celebrity. The film, meanwhile, takes place before he even enters culinary school. Tony is what most of the best biopics are: a focused, emotionally true, character-driven story. Sessa plays Tony as an asshole and a fabulist; he also plays him as a vulnerable kid impatient to become a man. And Johnson, for his part, trusts the camera to capture all those complexities in Sessa’s expressive acting. And that trust pays off.
Over lunch, Johnson and Sessa talk about depicting a globally admired figure on screen, what his story can teach us about both mentorship and self-discovery, and how it inspired their own close-knit friendship.
Johnson directs Sessa on the set of Tony.
MEN’S HEALTH: What was your relationship to Anthony Bourdain like prior to making Tony?
MATT JOHNSON: Neither of us knew much about Anthony Bourdain, so it was also a good opportunity to learn.
DOMINIC SESSA: Matt was the person who gave me a copy of Kitchen Confidential.
MJ: Which I, myself, had just read. It’s not like I had read it when I was a kid or anything like that.
DS: We were definitely coming at it from an angle of discovery, rather than of having a preconceived notion about who this person was and trying to meet that.
MH: Matt, you’ve said that you made the movie because of Dominic.
MJ: Yes, I did.
MH: So much of your work takes a naturalistic approach. In Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, you tell the story through people you really encountered in the world. Did you find that Dominic was able to naturally inhabit Bourdain and the story you wanted to tell?
MJ: Absolutely. Look, everybody who knows movies says this: filmmaking is about casting. When I’m making Nirvanna the Band the Show, Jay and I are actively looking for the right kind of person for us to interact with to tell the story through. In the same way, when I’m casting actors, I’m looking for people who are going to tell me what the story is, as opposed to the other way around.
You use the term naturalistic. I think that’s correct, in that I saw Dom as ready to go. I didn’t want him to overprepare, I didn’t want him to get in his head, I didn’t want him to worry about how he was coming off. I wanted him to be himself. When I’m making any of my movies, I want everybody on camera to be the best possible versions of themselves. That doesn’t mean the most impressive or moral version; it means the most them. Thelonious Monk said that the genius is the man who’s most like himself. That’s so deeply true. Don’t pretend to be somebody else. Be yourself, and we’ll find something in it.
MH: When you bring in someone like Antonio Banderas, who’s been doing this for nearly 50 years, is it easy to get them on board with that style of filmmaking?
DS: Yeah, what was it like when you first met with Antonio?
MJ: I called and we talked—he was in Malaga. He asked me about the character, then he told me what he thought about the character. And like with every great actor I’ve ever talked to, it turned into a conversation about life, and not a conversation about the movie. I don’t know that we figured anything out on that phone call, or if we necessarily had another deep conversation about what this movie was supposed to be. He knew what he wanted to do. Clint Eastwood has a great line: “You’re the head of your department.” That’s what he says to actors when the actors come to him with notes. He says, “You’re telling me this, why? You’re the head of your department.” And Banderas is the embodiment of that. He was telling me his character’s backstory, he was telling me why he was doing certain things, all in a way that was illuminating and not challenging.
MH: Since you two were both relatively new to the whole Anthony Bourdain experience, did you talk to any die-hard fans during the production process?
DS: A lot of people.
MJ: Yeah, most of the crew.
DS: A lot of my friends from high school constantly ask about [the movie] because they’re such big fans of Anthony Bourdain. But I’m kind of glad that this was my entrance point. I’m experiencing it in a very unique way, which I’m grateful for.
MJ: Our stunt coordinator cried when Eric Ripert came to the set. She cried. Dominic had no idea who he was.
DS: But as a result, we were able to be completely honest in our approach.
MJ: Hell yes.
DS: And I think that’s better for the people who really, really do love this person.
MJ: Every once in a while, people would chime in with ideas to keep us on track—people who knew more about Anthony Bourdain than we might. We got lots of great advice.
DS: One hundred percent. We can’t take all the credit.
MH: The movie doesn’t depict him as a saint—and that’s very true to how he describes himself at this time in his memoir.
MJ: “I was a piece of shit.” Yeah.
MH: Bourdain is still an aspirational figure to so many men out there. How do you create a character who lives up to that legacy but remains honest?
MJ: Dom and I both were trying to create a genuine story about male role modeling. And in that sense, yes, we wanted to show Anthony Bourdain as a role model, but we also want to deconstruct it. We wanted to say to young men, “Hey, the journey of your life will be fraught with all kinds of ups and downs. Don’t let those discourage you to the point of giving up.” Look at Anthony Bourdain’s life. He’s a total fuckup by basically every possible metric—resentful, unhealthy, drug-addicted, going on a fast track to nowhere. And through those experiences, he actually winds up developing a persona that inspires people to the point that it turns him into an international celebrity.
Part of the intention of the film is to give examples of male role modeling that are useful. You could have a view of the film that says Leo Woodall [as Sal, Tony’s free-spirited friend with a dark streak] plays the bad guy and Antonio Banderas [as a mentor figure referred to only as “Chef”] plays the good guy. But that’s not what this movie is about. This is saying that you can take inspiration from the best parts of all people, and incorporate them into yourself. Sal is actually an amazing friend to Tony. He introduces him to life. He says, “You don’t need to be so scared. You can go out and grab life by the neck and create the experiences you want. Just watch, I’ll show you.” Of course, he takes it too far, but then so did Bourdain in his lifetime. And that’s part of why we relate to him.
MH: The movie gives us twin montages, one with Leo as Sal and one with Antonio as Chef, the two driving figures in Bourdain’s life at that moment. Sal shows him how to have fun, even though it eventually goes too far; Chef shows him how to be a professional.
MJ: And it transforms him.
DS: But he never becomes fully Sal or fully Chef. I think the rest of his life is a kind of a synergy between those two paths.
MH: There’s a scene where Sal shoots up heroin and the camera holds on Anthony’s face watching him. Knowing what Bourdain’s experience with addiction would become, why was it important to you to switch the perspective like that?
MJ: It was a very specific decision to not show Sal doing heroin, or to focus on Sal’s experience of it. The truth is, Bourdain didn’t start experimenting with heroin until he was in New York about five years later. I’ll tell you what I was hoping would come across: an image of a man seeing his future and the underside of this lifestyle.
DS: It was like planting a seed. There are certain images you’re exposed to at a young age that, whether you like them or not, are always going to flash in your mind.
Sessa with Leo Woodall in Tony.
MH: Dominic—you’re able to express so much on your face, nonverbally. And Matt—you seem to trust him implicitly to do it on camera. There’s a scene in the pizzeria where Anthony’s love interest, played by Emilia Jones, asks him why he does something, and he says, “I don’t know.” We can see him processing the question and getting jittery about it. How do you prep a scene to allow for that kind of authentic moment?
MJ: There’s a great story behind that scene. It’s one of my favorite scenes because right before we shot it, Dom was like, “So, she’s going to ask me this question. What’s my answer?” And I said, “Just answer whatever. Just tell her what you think. Tell her the truth.” So when we shot the scene, Dom literally thought, and then he said, “I don’t know”—and it was the truth. “Why do you act this way? Why are you trying to constantly impress this girl?” And in the moment, Dom was genuinely thinking, “I don’t know. Why do I do that?”
DS: A lot of the movie is watching someone problem-solve, watching them work through it in their mind. And watching someone try to solve a problem is more interesting than the problem ultimately being solved. There are moments like that where Emilia, specifically, challenges me and it stops me in my tracks.
MH: Anthony goes through an emotional journey—and a mental health journey, in a way—throughout the movie.
MJ: We wanted to show a guy slowly realizing he needed to take responsibility and ownership of his own status. That’s why it was so important that he begins the film telling everybody, “I’m Tony. I’m a writer. I’m great. I’m this, I’m that.” He inflates himself so that people don’t see the real him, so he can pretend to be this slightly bigger thing. And—for me, anyway—life starts when you go, “I’m never going to learn anything unless I admit I have something to learn.”
MH: He’s constantly projecting this image of what he thinks masculinity should be.
MJ: He wants to be Hunter S. Thompson.
Johnson in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.
Sessa (L) with Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers.
MH: And what do you want his evolution to say about becoming a man?
MJ: The journey we put this guy on is one Dom and I both feel is universally applicable. I think it’s as relevant in 1975 as it is today, and likely will be forever. It’s about rites of passage, a crucible, going through difficulty and making it to the other side ready to face the world. But too often today, we choose, “Ah, I’d rather not. That seems hard.” And the truth is, you’re giving up your own life by not challenging yourself, not going through something truly difficult. What Tony did, by choice or by chance, was go through hell. And rather than crushing him, it turned him into Anthony Bourdain.
Our lives should be challenging because the further away we get from understanding the hardship of our ancestors, the less human we are, and the more lost. Comfort can become a prison. Don’t think that sitting around eating lotuses is going to lead to a heroic life that will make you feel proud of yourself. Instead, put yourself in a difficult challenge where you know you have something to add. Even if you’re just washing dishes in a shitty kitchen in Provincetown, do it. Go out to Cape Cod, make a movie that nearly kills you.
MH: How was the movie a crucible for you?
MJ: We were shooting a movie that should have been shot in 40 days in 20 days…
DS: I mean, overtime, every day.
MJ: Nonstop, no time to think. We were shooting so many scenes, so quickly. Everybody was desperately trying to go from one thing to the next.
DS: And we were in the middle of it.
MJ: Dom and I, at the center of a whirlwind.
DS: We were just standing next to each other like, “Oh—”
MJ: “—what the fuck are we doing? People are depending on us, and we don’t have all the answers.” And it wasn’t just a function of not having enough time. We were in a place that neither of us had ever been, trying to make a movie, and figuring it out as we did it.
DS: Yet it was—
MJ: —one of my best memories.
DS: Oh my gosh, yeah.
MJ: Do you know Viktor Frankl? He wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning. He said, “A man will crawl through a foxhole covered in broken glass, and he’ll do it with a smile on his face, if you give him a reason to do it, if there’s something on the other side he truly cares about.” He tells this great story: There are two men in the Middle Ages laying bricks. It’s pouring rain, there’s mud all over them. It’s horrible. Someone asks one of the men, “What are you doing?” And he says, “All day I pile bricks for a building I’m never going to see. It’s going to take 200 years to finish. All my labor away, all my toil, and it’s for nothing.” Then they ask the other man the exact same question and he says, “I’m building a cathedral.” And that says it all. No matter what’s going on in your life, you can change your perspective when you realize that you’re building the cathedral of yourself.
MH: Dominic—your breakout role was in The Holdovers and you’ve been in a few projects since then. But I read that you’ve turned down a lot of offers. What was it about Tony that drew you in?
DS: Yeah, in the past few years, I’ve had opportunities to do other things, but coming off The Holdovers, this felt like the best opportunity to perform and work on that same level. It’s just the way I try to operate. It’s about the people I’m surrounding myself with—I’m so grateful I was able to work with this cast, and with Matt especially. We think similarly.
MJ: Filmmaking is hard because if you want to do it right, it’s going to cost you. And do you really want to bleed for something you don’t care about?
DS: Exactly. And I felt that this was something I really, really wanted to put myself through.
MH: And for the first time, you were number one on the call sheet. Was there anybody you went to for advice, knowing this was going to be your first time leading a movie?
DS: I’ve observed other actors in the other movies I’ve done and watched how they operate. The biggest lesson was gaining the trust of your castmates and everybody on set. And now Leo, Emilia, Antonio, Stavros [Halkias], these are all real-life friends of mine.
MH: It sounds like the two of you have gotten really close during this process.
DS: I think we’ll always have this thing that will connect us. It was a unique experience.
MJ: It will never be like that again.
DS: And that’s the beauty of it. But then, hopefully, someday we try to do it again.
MJ: Oh, I think it’s basically fated.
DS: But outside of that, we’ve become good, real friends. Which is nice. It was a hard experience, but Matt and I never disconnected.
MJ: We never abandoned one another. We were crawling on that glass together.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photographs: Rona Ahdout
Writer: Evan Romano
Deputy Visual Director: Dangi McCoy
Senior Entertainment Director: Nojan Aminosharei
Art Director: Gillian MacLeod
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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