Matt does the final Q&A about Tony at Cineplex Scotiabank Theatre on Sunday, August 16 2026.
blackberry
Alternate YouTube tile: Matt Johnson & Dominic Sessa Break Down TONY & Their Most Iconic Scenes
In recent years, Canadian director Matt Johnson has served up two unexpected exceptions to the biopic trap. His 2023 “BlackBerry,” about the rapid rise and fall of the breakthrough smartphone, is a workplace comedy turned late capitalist tragedy with a “Succession”-like lack of reverence for its subjects. And his new film “Tony,” about the summer a young Anthony Bourdain spent working in a Provincetown kitchen, works as a coming-of-age film, regardless if you know its miserable 20-year old protagonist, played by Dominic Sessa, will become the beloved writer, chef, and “Parts Unknown” host.
The podcast mentioned at the end of the article is linked below; the Spotify version includes full video of the interview.
“In the past 12 hours since the premiere, I’ve had endless conversations with people asking me what is real and what isn’t,” says Johnson. “The best answer that I can give is that the things people think we faked we really did, and the things that people haven’t even thought of, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on VFX to make it look like it happened. Now, at the CN Tower, we’re playing all kinds of tricks. … It would have been international news otherwise.”