Dominic Sessa is speaking to me from his New York apartment, while I’m on the other side of the world in Sydney. I’ve already had the chance to screen his upcoming film, Tony, A24’s unconventional portrait of a young Anthony Bourdain, and while it’s clear this isn’t a biopic interested in tracing the familiar contours of a life we think we know, Sessa manages to find the heart of Bourdain long before the kitchens, books and fame.

The actor, now 23, first broke through in The Holdovers, and came to the project without an encyclopaedic knowledge of Bourdain. And rather than attempt an impersonation of a man whose voice and worldview are so deeply embedded in the cultural imagination, he and director Matt Johnson went looking for something less fixed.

Here, Sessa speaks to RUSSH about finding Bourdain before he became the cultural icon, and the freedom that came with not knowing him too well.

How did you first get introduced to this project? I know Matt sort of built the film with you in mind. What was that initial meeting between the two of you like?

We [Matt and I] were just meeting because we were fans of each other, really, and we wanted to get to know each other. And this was kind of a good excuse to do that. I know Matt didn't feel super compelled to make [the film] until we first met and had a really long lunch. I didn't really know a lot about Anthony Bourdain and I hadn't read Kitchen Confidential until Matt gave me a copy of it. But we opened up to each other pretty instantly and got to know each other really well. And yeah, he basically felt like, "I want to make this movie, but only if you do it with me." And that was it. I mean, the movie wouldn't have been made if it weren't him and I together.

Did you know right from the start, then, that you kind of wanted to be a part of this project?

I didn't know if, at the time, [the film] was something that I fully wanted to do – or if it was something I could do. But yeah, I mean, that's what we talked about in the meeting initially. There were a lot of things in the original draft of the script that we were like, you know, there's an opportunity to change things. So, once he had decided to make it with me, he changed a lot and geared it towards myself specifically.

Matt wanted to work a lot of my own history and my own experience as a young person into that, you know, make it sort of reminiscent of things that I've gone through and can relate to more specifically. Which is like a dream, you know? When somebody's making a role for you and creating circumstances that remind you a lot of things that you went through on your own.

"Matt wanted to work a lot of my own history and my own experience as a young person into that, you know, make it sort of reminiscent of things that I've gone through and can relate to more specifically. Which is like a dream, you know?"

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned you weren't super familiar with Bourdain, but what was your knowledge of him beforehand?

Not much. I just knew he was, like, a food travel guy. I'd seen him on YouTube probably a few times, and that was it. I mean, I think after he passed away, when I was maybe 16 years old, he really had a big sort of resurgence in my generation specifically. Like, kids my age started to become really fascinated with him because he was talked about a lot in the media, and people my age felt encouraged to read his books and watch his shows.

So I think around that time, that's probably when I became aware of him, you know, which is kind of the tragic irony of that situation. I felt like, okay, this is a cool opportunity to discover this person in a way where my entry point into learning about him is through a project where I'm trying to portray him before a time when anybody knew who he was. So it was interesting. And I mean, that's really exciting. Having an opportunity like that, it's really rare.

So how did you kind of go about learning his mannerisms and getting familiar with him, seeing as you weren't super familiar with him beforehand? Were you someone who went back and watched a lot of his shows, or was that something you avoided in order not to do an impersonation of him?

Yeah. I definitely read a lot of stuff. Kitchen Confidential specifically, and watched his shows. I mean, I don't know. It's not like it really influenced my physicality or my voice. I wasn't trying to really mimic the guy at all because, I mean, there was no footage of him when he was 19 years old. So I had a lot of freedom. I didn't have to put a lot on it. I could kind of be myself, in a way, and get away with that, which is, I think, much more flattering for a style like this – this style of biopic, you know, whatever you want to call it.

I think it was more important for me to kind of have an understanding of his feelings of the world. And, you know, I think obviously when he's older and you're reading his writing from an adult's perspective, these thoughts are more fully formed or fleshed out. For myself, I really had to focus on where these feelings came from, where this attitude came from, like, who are the people around him that made him this way? Because you don't start in a place like this.

A lot of the focus for Matt and I was talking about the other characters around him and what aspects of Antonio [Banderas]'s personality and work ethic affect him along the way as I play the role? And Leo [Woodall]'s actions and all the things that he kind of introduces to me – where does that exist in Bourdain now, as we know him, and how could that have been introduced? You know, seeing this guy who's all tatted up and doing drugs and shit. Those were kind of the elements of his character that, I don't know, I guess I was reacting to and receiving as an impressionable young person.

I'd heard that you'd spent a bit of time in kitchens and with some chefs to get a hold of that dynamic. What was that like, and who were you working with in that space?

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to overstate what I did. I can't say that I was, like, training in a kitchen or anything. I met up with this chef. His name's Eli Sussman and he has a place called Gertrude's in Prospect Park. I met with him once and I went to his restaurant. He showed me how to shuck oysters and showed me around all the stations and explained to me, I don't know, just how a kitchen operates, basically. And then he introduced me to a group of chefs and restaurant owners in New York – friends of his – and I just got to have dinner with them all and ask them questions about the food and restaurant industry.

I don't know how much of that I really utilised in the film – other than shucking oysters – but these are the perks of having a big production company behind your movie. You can get to have these cool experiences because they are helping with your research.

"Going into this thing knowing how difficult it's going to be and knowing that the odds are typically stacked against you. But they do it anyway because they have such a deep passion for it. And you're waking up so early and, you know, working your ass off in a hot kitchen. Yeah, it's really hard work, and I think it's super admirable."

Did Eli have any wise words to impart?

Not that I remember, really. Well, I don't want to say he didn't have any wise words. I don't want to try to quote him specifically. But what I really respected about him and all those people that I met – and what was really eye-opening – was the risk-reward of opening a restaurant. Especially in New York. You're really hard-pressed to stay open for a long time, and the margins are so slim with being profitable and all that stuff. Going into this thing knowing how difficult it's going to be and knowing that the odds are typically stacked against you. But they do it anyway because they have such a deep passion for it. And you're waking up so early and, you know, working your ass off in a hot kitchen. Yeah, it's really hard work, and I think it's super admirable.

Doing this movie, I don't think I ever, you know, got more than maybe a 1% taste of what that feels like. So I have a lot of respect for him and the others.

A lot of actors talk about building playlists to find their way into a character. Given how important music was to Bourdain, was that something you explored while preparing to play him?

Yeah. Thankfully, he has really, really well-documented music taste. We had all of his favourite songs playing on set, and Matt made a whole playlist for us all. In the movie, with the first scene that he's in the restaurant, Bourdain says that his first memory of working in a kitchen, he remembers the song Strawberry Letter playing. And that's the song that Matt has playing in that first scene where I'm washing dishes. So the music was really important to us in this movie, and, you know, the man had really good taste. So thankfully we had a good basis to work off of.