I like being honest about how messy life is and being human and being a young person. It’s what I’m always trying to do. I like seeing people deal with problems, and for me, that’s what making movies is. That’s what acting is. I’m kind of putting myself in a simulated environment where I can learn to problem-solve and experience things in other people’s shoes.
I don’t really like it when I think I’m acting too much. I’ve never done anything where I feel like I’m totally a different person from who I really am.
You and Bourdain actually share a surprising number of parallels. You’re both from New Jersey, both went to prep school, and both discovered the thing you were meant to do unexpectedly. Did that ever cross your mind?
I don’t really consider myself starting to do movies as something that’s relatable. What’s relatable to me is starting to act in the first place, like actually doing it in high school. In this film, Bourdain never gets to a point where he’s actually able to work in a professional kitchen or write his own books. But it’s about getting the idea in your mind that maybe you are capable of something.
I had a similar experience in high school when I started acting and finally felt like I was doing something that was true to me and allowed me to connect with people. It came about in a similar way, where it was sort of thrust upon me, and it was scary, and I had to step outside of myself.
What was it like filming in Provincetown? And how were the meals?
Tons of people there remembered him. We ate a lot of Italian food and seafood, but honestly, some of the best meals happened on set. Every day there were fresh lobsters, oysters, squid stew, lobster thermidor…tons of stuff that we were pretending to cook in the restaurant. Honestly, a lot of my best memories of eating were when we were filming in the kitchen.
What was it like working opposite Antonio Banderas?
Antonio is just such a character. He’s got a special youthfulness to him. We had a pretty young cast, and it never felt like there was this older guy around that we couldn’t relate to. He was the funniest out of all of us and typically had the most energy. He was the most awake.
Leo Woodall’s character introduces Tony to this punk rock version of kitchen culture, while Antonio represents discipline. Were you conscious of those two sides pulling him in different directions?
That’s a good way to describe it. They’re almost playing different parts of the Anthony Bourdain people eventually came to know, while I’m just this impressionable young guy.
We were really intentional about things like cigarettes. It would have been easy to start the movie, like in the original draft of the script, with me smoking a cigarette in the first scene and being like, “That’s who I am. Anthony Bourdain smokes.” But we decided that the first time I smoke in the movie is when Leo [Woodall] hands me a cigarette. It’s about giving these hints of where those very specific parts of Bourdain come from. The tattoos, the drugs, all of that comes from Sal.
