Woman with No Culinary Background Recreates Iconic Meals from Movies in Her Film-to-Table Series (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Mary Castro combines her love of food and movies in her viral “Film to Table” series, recreating iconic dishes

• She balances her creative passion with her career as a part-time dental hygienist after her videos gained traction online

• Castro’s series taps into nostalgia as she researches and recreates foods from beloved films like The Princess Diaries and Hook

Ever since Mary Castro was a kid, she has always loved cooking.

Growing up watching the Food Network, Castro, 34, learned all the basics about preparing the perfect meal while honing her craft at home. Along with her love for food, she also had a deep appreciation for “how movies and TV shows are made, from casting to costumes, lighting sound and food styling.”

“When I was little, I would watch the DVD behind-the-scenes featurettes for the movies,” Castro tells PEOPLE. “I would say a lot of the foods from all these movies, they always look so good to me.”

“There are times when I would watch a film, and I would find myself wanting to jump through the screen to try something. So basically, combining these two fixations was a way for me to connect with these movies even more.”

Mary Castro with her version of Kronk’s spinach puffs from ‘Emperor’s New Groove’
Credit: Mary Castro

She also notes that animated movies, specifically, “have such a way of presenting foods so that they appear so beautifully like they’re enticing, it’s tangible, you can almost smell it through the screen.”

“I always thought that was magical, and it was so cool that they portrayed food in that sense,” Castro shares. 

After years of wishing she could try the foods seen on screen, Castro began her “Film to Table” series, where she takes famous foods — such as the chocolate pie from The Help, Turkish delights from The Chronicles of Narnia, ratatouille from the Disney-Pixar film of the same nameor the peach sorbet from The Princess Diaries — and recreates them in real life.

Castro, a registered dental hygienist, says that once her series began to gain traction online, she cut back to part-time so she could focus on content creation.

“I like it because I get the best of both worlds. I started when I was full-time as a hygienist. I found myself really needing a creative outlet, and that’s when I started filming food videos, and that was to me, just for the fun of it,” she shares. “Once it started taking off, I thought, ‘I should be putting more into this.’ “

“Now I’m part-time and I still get to practice and have my patient interactions, which is great and I get to do something creative on the side,” Castro adds.

After deciding on the meal she wants to recreate, she spends time researching exactly how the food team for the film made it.

Using the green sorbet from The Princess Diaries as an example, she says, “I remember watching a video from a food stylist from that movie, and they were talking about how frozen foods are very hard to film.”

“A lot of the time, that could have been fake, or it could have been an actual sorbet, but they had to make a ton of it,” she shares. “Going through the behind-the-scenes aspect, through the food stylist’s perspective, I would look into that and then I would just like to look through what it is.”

“A lot of what I saw online was that it was most like a pear sorbet. I didn’t think it was gonna be pear. I thought it was mint, but it’s Genovian pears. I do research heavily into whatever I’m making,” Castro continues.

Castro’s version of the sorbet in ‘The Princess Diaries’
Credit: Mary Castro

Making her series, Castro admits, is “such a learning process for me.”

“I don’t have any culinary background. I’m learning a lot about how to film food, the lighting and all the technical aspects. A lot of it has been trial and error,” she shares. “There have been plenty of days where you’re recipe testing, or you’re trying to film something, and it’s not going well. So that’s been something that I’m definitely learning through.” 

While she says picking a favorite food item she’s made is “hard,” she loved making the brightly colored pie from Hook. 

“It’s one of the scenes that I think has stuck with me even through adulthood, and I remember rewatching the movie right before I made the episode, and I thought, ‘Wow. this still feels so magical even as an adult.’ “

She loves that her series is resonating with so many people, and she’s gained almost 100,000 followers from her videos, which frequently go viral. She admits she “never thought that this would resonate with so many people.”

Castro’s version of the colorful pie from ‘Hook’
Credit: Mary Castro

“I think the reason why a bunch of it does resonate is I think that a lot of us have formed an emotional connection to the movies and shows, and it taps into the nostalgia of being a kid and watching Hook or Matilda or The Secret Garden. That alone has been so special.”

“People say, ‘This video has brought me so much joy, it’s bringing me back to my childhood watching your videos feels so comforting,’ and those comments are really what makes it feel so special,” she adds. “It’s that shared experience, the nostalgia and the way that people connect with these movies has been cool to see.”

Mary Castro and her partner
Credit: Mary Castro

She emphasizes that movies serve as a reminder “of us all being human” and can be a great way to unite people, no matter their background.

“There are so many times when obviously a movie will make you laugh or it’ll make you think deeply or it moves you to tears,” she shares, adding, “It makes us feel more alive. I feel like we’re all fulfilling a childhood dream and for me, especially because I get to make them, I get to try them.” 

Making this series, she says, “I found so much joy in it and the connection with the people that have been enjoying it has been the best part.”

“I only hope to continue to keep making them, as long as there’s people out there who keep enjoying them, then I’ll be here.” 

Read the original article on People