Tony Star Dominic Sessa Shares Biggest Surprise About Anthony Bourdain

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Dominic Sessa quickly learned why Anthony Bourdain was a cut above the rest.

As the 23-year-old prepared for his role as the famed chef in the upcoming biopic Tony, Sessa was surprised to learn that Bourdain’s original intention wasn’t to become a culinary master, especially because he initially viewed Bourdain as “this guy that was on Food Network.”

“I didn't realize that, early on, his focus was writing and he really had a passion for that,” Sessa exclusively shared with E! News during an interview alongside costar Stavros Halkias and director Matt Johnson. “That was the thing that he saw himself doing and believed was his destiny.”

“Ultimately [it] was,” he added, “but it wasn't possible unless he had the experience he had in the kitchen and those years of his life as a chef and in New York and before that.”

Bourdain—who died by suicide in 2018 at age 61—had channeled his career as a chef into his best-selling 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly before continuing his career onscreen as a celebrated host and TV personality.

And while there was much to be gleaned from his later years in the kitchen and on TV, as the film’s director noted, they were more interested in Bourdain’s early years, which is why the film follows a 19-year-old Bourdain during a summer working in Provincetown, Mass.

“We thought we could understand what it was like to be a young, struggling kid attempting to become Anthony Bourdain,” Johnson explained to E!. “So that's why it's this summer and nothing else.”

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The film also served as a turning point for Halkias, who was cast in the role of Sessa’s mentor Stavros, a move that changed the way he viewed his own life.

“It was fun to realize, ‘Hey man, you're not a kid anymore. You're being cast to be the guy who helps the kid,’” he reflected. “’So stop thinking about yourself as a kid. You're a grown man, grow up, for God's sake.’”

As the 37-year-old shared, that realization came about during a pivotal point in his life when he was already “having those thoughts.”

“It really helped me to sort of rethink where I am and my own relationship to my work,” Halkias added, “and how I relate to other people.”

Tony opens in limited theaters on Aug. 7 before being released nationwide on Aug. 21.

For a look at Bourdain’s life in the culinary world, keep reading.

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Entering the Culinary World

Anthony Bourdain was born on June 25, 1956. According to the Culinary Institute of America, he started his culinary career by working as a dishwasher in Provincetown, Mass. during his summer break from Vassar College. He went on to attend the Institute and graduated in 1978.

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Writing Best-Sellers

Bourdain went on to work for a number of restaurants, including The Supper Club, the Rainbow Room and Coco Pazzo Teatro. In the 1990s, he then started writing and would go on to publish a number of books, including Kitchen Confidential.

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Enjoying Time With His Fellow Chefs

Bourdain entered the television world in the early 2000s and appeared on Food Network's A Cook's Tour. This photo shows him posing alongside fellow chef Marcus Samuelsson and singer Lisa Loeb in 2004.

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Growing His Television Career

In 2005, Bourdain started to appear in the Travel Channel series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. It was around this time Bourdain divorced from his first wife, his high school sweetheart Nancy Putkoski. In this 2006 photo, the celebrity chef can be seen enjoying a beer at Tintol restaurant in New York.

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Exploring a New World

The chef would later travel the world for CNN's Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, which debuted in 2013.

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Starring in a New Show

2013 was also the year Bourdain starred on the show The Taste. Here he is with his fellow judges, Marcus Samuelsson, Nigella Lawson and Ludo Lefebvre.

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Receiving Accolades

In 2013, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown received a Peabody Award for "expanding our palates and horizons in equal measure."

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Winning Emmy Awards

Over the course of his career, Bourdain's TV shows would receive several Emmy nominations. Here he is at the 2015 Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The program won in the Outstanding Information Series or Special category. In 2016, Bourdain's second marriage with Ottavia Busia would come to an end.

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