Behind 'Tony': Banderas Cooks Paella On Set, Bringing Anthony Bourdain's Summer of 1975 Back to Life

On set, Antonio Banderas wasn't just waiting around between scenes. Whenever the camera turned to other actors, he'd stand off to the side, quietly cooking a pot of paella. This wasn't rehearsal, and it wasn't a prop—it was something he started himself, because Banderas is, in real life, a restaurant owner. Describing the scene to Eater, screenwriter Lou Howe said: "He just genuinely loves doing it, and it happened to perfectly mirror the chef role he plays in the film."

Banderas plays chef Ciro in A24's upcoming film "Tony," a biopic about Anthony Bourdain set to hit theaters on August 21, 2026. Screenwriters Todd Bartels and Lou Howe spoke with Eater about how the film sidesteps the typical "cradle-to-grave" biopic formula, instead zeroing in on a single window: the summer of 1975, when a young Bourdain first walked into a kitchen in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Dominic Sessa plays the young Bourdain—both screenwriters say no one else was ever considered for the role. Another key character, Sal, is played by Leo Woodall, forming a devil-and-angel dynamic on Bourdain's shoulders alongside Banderas's Ciro. Getting that balance right came down to Kimberly Witherspoon, Bourdain's longtime literary agent, who also serves as an executive producer on the film and is one of the executors of his estate. The screenwriters say Witherspoon would often step in whenever they made Bourdain seem too likable: "Don't write him so nice—at this point in his life, he was a punk." She didn't want audiences to see Bourdain as some innocent kid simply led astray by bad company.

It was also Witherspoon who brought Eric Ripert onto the set

Chef Eric Ripert's cameo in the film was also Witherspoon's idea. Both screenwriters described his presence on set as completely different from what they'd imagined: the Le Bernardin chef wore mala beads throughout filming, was humble in demeanor, and seemed genuinely curious about the craft of acting itself—"none of that celebrity chef attitude at all."

Food on set was never just a prop. Culinary consultant Christine Tobin prepared meals daily in a small trailer behind the set—Sessa managed to eat eight lobster rolls in a single sitting for the role, while Woodall trained until he could shuck oysters with effortless precision. "He made it look completely natural, which mattered a lot for his character," Howe said. Banderas, by contrast, needed zero training beforehand—for the simple reason that he already knew how to cook.

The two screenwriters also mentioned a scene that never made the final cut: Hiram's, Bourdain's favorite childhood hot dog stand in Fort Lee, New Jersey. An early draft of the script included a scene of him returning there for a hot dog, meant to capture his earliest emotional connection to food—it was ultimately cut. To capture the feel of Provincetown, the two writers spent nearly two days at Old Colony Tap, one of Bourdain's favorite old haunts while he was alive. The bar is still open today on Commercial Street, its walls covered in nautical memorabilia and Red Sox souvenirs. "That might be the best bar in America," Howe said.