We know what Anthony Bourdain became. We know his travel shows and his butch foodie magnetism. We know that his brusque yet vaguely proselytising quotes have become the equivalent of a Che Guevara T-shirt for gastropub walls. But his beginnings are less clear, if once summed up by Bourdain himself with trademark crackle: “I treated the world as my ashtray. I spent most of my waking hours drinking, smoking pot, scheming and doing my best to amuse, outrage, impress and penetrate anyone silly enough to find me entertaining. I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.”
He was, for want of a more succinct term, sort of a f***-up. So when you’re in need of a guy to play said f***-up in a film about his life, it helps to find someone who’s been there and done that. Enter Dominic Sessa: star of the bittersweet Christmas comedy The Holdovers, a Bafta nominee, and the most polite and well-behaved former f***-up you could possibly ask for.
