In 1975, one summer proved a transportive experience for a then 19-year-old, “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive, and thoughtless” Anthony Bourdain, as the late author and food connoisseur wrote in his 2000 nonfiction book “Kitchen Confidential.”
He was talking about the time circa his first summer spent in Provincetown, arriving on the beachy tip of Cape Cod. He cut his teeth working there in several of the seaside community’s now-storied restaurants, including the Lobster Pot, a local and tourist favorite whose menu today boasts overstuffed lobster rolls and aromatic bouillabaisse. Bourdain was also a fixture circa the opening of the nearby (and famed) Italian destination, Ciro & Sal’s, which took him under their wing.
The archetypal ground-shifting, ass-kicking, endless summer like the ones Bourdain had in his early years also became a creatively fertile time period for director/co-writer Matt Johnson (“BlackBerry,” “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie”) to explore, and to make the subject of his upcoming slice-of-true-life movie, “Tony,” out August 7 from A24.
The film stars “The Holdovers” breakout Dominic Sessa as the young Bourdain, here freshly out of his teenage years, opposite a cast including Antonio Banderas as the Ciro & Sals restaurateur who hired Bourdain, with Stavros Halkias and “Tuner” and “White Lotus” fave Leo Woodall as restaurant workers who bandied with the budding chef.
Little is known about the forthcoming nostalgic portrayal of Bourdain beyond the initial trailer, but at the 2026 Provincetown International Film Festival, Johnson, Sessa, and Woodall sat down for a friendly, wide-ranging conversation about “Tony,” as moderated by Sundance leader (and IndieWire co-founder!) Eugene Hernandez. Fittingly for a film about a foodie such as Bourdain, the cast, director, and audience headed downcoast for a lively beachside clambake outside the cozily rustic Provincetown Inn.
The panel included two first-look clips at the film that showed Bourdain (Sessa) arriving in P-Town on the same ferry everyone in the room (unless they were on Cape Code, of course) took to get to the festival. Another showed Sessa and Woodall working behind the scenes in a bustling kitchen. (Johnson and the filmmakers are currently putting the finishing touches on the movie in post-production.)
‘Tony’Seacia Pavao
“We were remarking how wonderful it is to be in Provincetown and not have to be making a movie,” Johnson said. “I had moved here for, I think I lived here for two months when I was putting this screenplay together, but it was really, really off-season … it was the dark times. I think I got here the end of February.”
It wasn’t the first time in Provincetown for any of the gang, as “Tony” filmed on location last summer. “It was the most cooperative city I’ve ever filmed a movie with in my life. I mean that sincerely. Come to Toronto!,” Johnson laughed.
Adapting “Kitchen Confidential” with co-writers Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels, and Lou Howe, Johnson said that “Tony” condenses three years of Bourdain’s life into one summer, “not just the first summer that Tony came here in between years at [Vassar], but it also talks about when he came here the next summer … and another summer after that. … All of his writing is self-report, so it’s like he says what’s going on with him, which is something that [I’m] so interested in as a filmmaker. This is him, in some ways, looking up and looking down at his own history, this is what’s important to me, and skipping all kinds of things. … I’m always interested in that from a journalistic point of view, like, what are you willing to tell us actually happened combined … with talking to other people who were there and getting their version of what actually happened. [It] really gives you a sense that Bourdain is both lionizing and minimizing lots of things that happened to him.”
Sessa, who steps into the role of a real-life person for the first time onscreen, said, “I always was weary about doing a biopic or portraying a real person, and what was really attractive about this was the level of agency I had with it. There’s no footage to work off of [Bourdain] at the time. It was helpful reading his writing and watching ‘Parts Unknown,’ etc., just to get a general vibe and energy. There were like four or five pictures of him … which were kind of my main reference.”
Dominic Sessa at the Provincetown International Film Festival and A24’s ‘Tony’ eventTimothy O’Connell
Johnson added, “Dom’s from New Jersey, not far from where Bourdain grew up. There were so many things that were just so connected. … I didn’t want him to do a lot of research. I didn’t want him to do an impression. … So much of what he is is already naturally there. I didn’t want him to be conscious of ‘OK, I need to do this, I need to pronounce things like this.’ I didn’t want him to turn into somebody who was crafting a performance. I wanted him to be himself.”
As for Woodall, he appears so at ease in a restaurant environment that Hernandez asked if he had any kitchen experience. “No, I didn’t have any … but I was very excited to learn how to shuck oysters, and that’s basically all I do. It’s not easy, especially when you get cocky, and throw the towel away and don’t even look at the oyster because I did impale my hand on, like, day four,” Woodall said. “Sal, the guy I play, it was a combination of fun and kind of terrifying, the way that we shot this and the way that Matt works; he wants us to take off our safety belts and just go for it.”
“Tony” shot in P-Town for only five days of the 25-day shoot, and Woodall said, “Honestly, one week in P-Town for me nearly stole my soul,” to laughter from the audience. “It’s probably good that I got out of here.”
Filmmaker Johnson is entering into promo duties on “Tony” on the heels of “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (at Neon) becoming one of this year’s most acclaimed films. 2023’s “BlackBerry,” a loose dramatization of the history of the once-trendy phone, was also among the most revered films of that year. We’re keen to see how he and his actors take on one of our contemporary culture’s most venerated — and soulful — figures, and one that, ask anybody, everyone misses.
Watch the full Provincetown International Film Festival panel below. “Tony” drops in theaters starting August 7 from A24.
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