The Anthony Bourdain biopic has found its leading man in Dominic Sessa.
The 22-year-old New Jersey native, who made his big screen debut in the acclaimed 2023 drama “The Holdovers,” has been tapped to play the celebrity chef who died by suicide in 2018.
The film, titled “Tony,” will chronicle Bourdain’s early beginnings in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the mid-1970s, Deadline reported Wednesday. Production is expected to begin next month.
Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas is also attached to star in the film, in a role that has yet to be revealed.
“Blackberry” director Matt Johnson will helm the A24 project written by Todd Bartels and Lou Howe.
Sessa, set next to star in the drama “Tow” at the 2025 Tribeca Festival in June — had been the rumored choice to portray Bourdain since last year. For his breakout role in “The Holdovers,” the actor won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer and snagged a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Bourdain led a remarkable life in the food world as a celebrated chef, author and television host. The Culinary Institute of America alum served as an executive chef of New York’s Brasserie Les Halles before making a name with the 2000 memoir “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.”
The winner of eight Emmy Awards for his CNN travel show, “Parts Unknown,” the New York City native was found dead by self-inflicted hanging in his hotel room in northeastern France at age 61.
