As if it wasn’t clear from the title, there are spoilers ahead for Tony, which hits the 2026 movie schedule this weekend.
The story told in Tony, the biopic about the late Anthony Bourdain and the latest movie from A24, is set during Bourdain’s very early days on Cape Cod, when he decided his future would be in the kitchen. It takes place decades before his book Kitchen Confidential and the wisdom within became a smash hit. Before he was a TV star. And long before he was rubbing shoulders with the culinary elite, like three-Michelin-star awardee Eric Ripert. Still, director Matt Johnson found a brilliant way to have Bourdain’s good friend make a cameo in the movie.
Tony ends with Tony (Dominic Sessa) interviewing for a spot at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and sitting across the desk from him is one of the school’s instructors, played by Ripert. It’s an emotional moment in the movie, not just because it’s the first time Tony decides to call himself “Anthony,” but because the real-life Bourdain and Ripert were such good buddies, with Ripert appearing on Bourdain’s TV shows often over the years.
When CinemaBlend’s Hannah Saulic spoke with Johnson about the moment, he talked about how they were lucky enough to have Ripert, who has never done any acting, but he worried if it was too on the nose:
That was a function of us having a great relationship with the estate, and me realizing that we had a role in the film for the person who admits Bourdain into cooking school. And I thought, ‘Oh, I wonder if this is too cute, like, to have a cameo from somebody who not only is in this world but had a relationship with him.’
Speaking as a fan of Anthony Bourdain who found the scene completely endearing and a wonderful way to wrap up the movie, I don’t think it was too cute at all. In fact, I thought Ripert, who only has a couple of lines, did a great job as a first-time actor. That was something else Johnson seemed a little worried about, but Ripert was all business, adding:
All I remember is Eric showing up on set. I’m with Dom, and he and I go to meet him in his trailer, and I just talked about this, us wondering, okay, are we going to talk about Anthony Bourdain? Are we going to talk about, like, their time together? And all he wanted to do was get his lines right.
Sessa and Johnson worked hard to help Ripert nail his part, even though English is his second language. Johnson says:
And so when you watch that final scene with him, like, that is me and Dom, I won’t say coaching, but doing everything that the two of us can to get him in that place to give that performance.
Again, speaking for myself, I absolutely loved the scene and how it concluded the story of Anthony Bourdain’s early life. There is no way for us to ever know how Bourdain would have felt about this biopic about himself (critics love it), but I’m pretty confident that he would have been thrilled to see his great friend play a part in it.