‘Tony’ biopic documents summer that changed Anthony Bourdain’s life

VPM | By Michel Martin and Ava Pukatch

Published August 10, 2026 at 8:41 AM EDT

A restaurant's head chef portrayed by Antonio Banderas (left) takes under his wing a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain, played by Dominic Sessa (right), in Tony. — A restaurant's head chef portrayed by Antonio Banderas (left) takes under his wing a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain, played by Dominic Sessa (right), in *Tony.*

The new film Tony covers a sliver of the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s life, loosely based on the early chapters of his memoir Kitchen Confidential.

The 2000 book that made Bourdain a star reveals, with heavy doses of sardonic humor, the raw chaos that unfolds in restaurant kitchens. Bourdain describes his younger self as “a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout badly in need of a good ass kicking.”

The lanky Dominic Sessa, who stars as the 19-year-old Bourdain, said he didn’t know much about Bourdain before taking the role.

“It’s such a specific time in his life that’s not documented fully,” Sessa told Morning Edition host Michel Martin. “We were able to tell and express a lot of our own stories and I think that was really attractive.”

In the film, Tony chases a love interest, Nancy, to Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. He does not get selected for a prestigious writing fellowship but flees to Provincetown under the guise that he had won. He initially struggles with direction, acting like a jerk to the people around him.

Eventually, he becomes a more sympathetic character, gradually gaining more skills in the kitchen and developing a genuine love for cooking.

Tony, played by Dominic Sessa, develops a love for preparing and cooking meals under the mentorship of a chef played by Antonio Banderas. Seacia Pavao / A24

Sessa did not initially think he’d become an actor. He pursued hockey until he broke his leg, which led him to pursue theater and later audition for The Holdovers, his film debut.

“I made a choice to kind of do something that I knew was going to be hard and I knew I was going to be uncomfortable and it was going to be completely different,” Sessa said. “But in that, I found something that I actually had power in and I felt I had control with. In this movie, the character Tony starts to develop a sense of self-control and self-awareness and direction. So, I was able to relate in that way.”

Sessa said he’s learned a lot from mentors like Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers) and Antonio Banderas, who plays the restaurant’s head chef in Tony.

“I think when you’re like a teenager in your early twenties and you’re on movie sets, you can get easily corrupted,” Sessa said. “They treat you like you’re made of glass sometimes and sometimes you need to get your ass kicked.”

Antonio Banderas is the chef of a restaurant where he oversees Dominic Sessa as Tony and Leo Woodall as Sal. Bob Gruen / A24

Bourdain died by suicide in 2018 while filming an upcoming episode of his CNN travel series, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, in the French town of Kaysersberg.

A24, which produced Tony, is a financial supporter of NPR.

Olivia Hampton edited the broadcast and digital versions of this story.

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Michel Martin

Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.

Martin came to NPR in 2006 and launched Tell Me More, a one-hour daily NPR news and talk show that aired on NPR stations nationwide from 2007-2014 and dipped into thousands of important conversations taking place in the corridors of power, but also in houses of worship, and barber shops and beauty shops, at PTA meetings, town halls, and at the kitchen table.

She has spent more than 25 years as a journalist — first in print with major newspapers and then in television. Tell Me More marked her debut as a full-time public radio show host. Martin says, "What makes public radio special is that it's got both intimacy and reach all at once. For the cost of a phone call, I can take you around the world. But I'm right there with you in your car, in your living room or kitchen or office, in your iPod. Radio itself is an incredible tool and when you combine that with the global resources of NPR plus the commitment to quality, responsibility and civility, it's an unbeatable combination."

Martin has also served as contributor and substitute host for NPR newsmagazines and talk shows, including Talk of the Nation and News & Notes.

Martin joined NPR from ABC News, where she worked since 1992. She served as correspondent for Nightline from 1996 to 2006, reporting on such subjects as the congressional budget battles, the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, racial profiling and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At ABC, she also contributed to numerous programs and specials, including the network's award-winning coverage of Sept. 11, a documentary on the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy, a critically acclaimed AIDS special and reports for the ongoing series "America in Black and White." Martin reported for the ABC newsmagazine Day One, winning an Emmy for her coverage of the international campaign to ban the use of landmines, and was a regular panelist on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She also hosted the 13-episode series Life 360, an innovative program partnership between Oregon Public Broadcasting and Nightline incorporating documentary film, performance and personal narrative; it aired on public television stations across the country.

Before joining ABC, Martin covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and national politics and policy at the Wall Street Journal, where she was White House correspondent. She has also been a regular panelist on the PBS series Washington Week and a contributor to NOW with Bill Moyers.

Martin has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Candace Award for Communications from The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Joan Barone Award for Excellence in Washington-based National Affairs/Public Policy Broadcasting from the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association and a 2002 Silver Gavel Award, given by the American Bar Association. Along with her Emmy award, she received three additional Emmy nominations, including one with WNYC's Robert Krulwich, at the time an ABC contributor as well, for an ABC News program examining children's racial attitudes. In 2019, Martin was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism. She is the 2021 recipient of PMJA's 2021 Leo C. Lee Award.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Martin graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at Harvard University in 1980 and earned a Master of Arts from the Wesley Theological Seminary in 2016.

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