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"Holdovers" breakthrough star Dominic Sessa to star in Anthony Bourdain biopic

By Chris Morgan | Last updated Apr 24, 2025 2:33 PM ET

"The Holdovers," a '70s period piece dramedy that was scripted and shot like dramedies of that era, was a surprisingly-substantive hit. It was also an Oscars darling. Paul Giamatti was nominated for Best Actor, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph won Best Supporting Actress. However, in our opinion the best performance in the film actually came from Dominic Sessa. It was an incredible story, as Sessa was a student at Deerfield Academy, where "The Holdovers" shot, and won the role, which was literally his first professional acting gig. If your takeaway from seeing "The Holdovers" wasn't, "I want to see what this dude does next," you're doing it wrong.

Sessa has a few things on the slate, though none of them remarkable. He's been wrangled into the third "Now You See Me" movie (enjoy that paycheck, Dom) and is in a Rose Byrne comedy called "Tow". Sessa is also in an upcoming Christmas comedy called "Oh. What. Fun." that has an impressive cast, but certainly has minimal buzz factor.

That's about to change, though. There have been rumors of an Anthony Bourdain biopic percolating, and Sessa's name was being bandied about. Now, it's all official. Sessa will be playing Bourdain in an upcoming biopic being produced by A24.

The film, titled "Tony," is being helmed by "BlackBerry" director Matt Johnson. It evidently is focused on a young Bourdain in 1970s Massachusetts, before he had even graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, much less become one of the foremost figures of food media. Fortunately, this is not one of those cradle-to-grave biopics, which means we won't have to see Sessa decked out in aging makeup.

During Bourdain's life, his revelatory (at the time) memoir "Kitchen Confidential" was turned into a TV show. It starred a pre-fame Bradley Cooper. After Bourdain's death, there was a documentary made about him called "Roadrunner." If it is remembered for anything, it's that the production used AI to fake Bourdain's voice to serve as the narrator for the movie. This was, to put it kindly, a trash idea.

A Bourdain biopic is an intriguing idea on its surface, but the casting of Sessa makes it a much-more enticing notion. It's certainly a real step up from being crammed into the cast of the "magicians that steal stuff" franchise.

(h/t Consequence of Sound)

Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan is a Detroit-based culture writer who has somehow managed to justify getting his BA in Film Studies. He has written about sports and entertainment across various internet platforms for years and is also the author of three books about '90s television.

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