“With Tony, I wanted to figure out how Bourdain became who he was, and the discovery of Provincetown was as much a surprise to me as it was to him,” says Johnson, 40.
“It’s a coming-of-age story about somebody we all think we know, but nobody knows from this specific period of his life.
Despite being only four days out from his wedding and just eight days before starting to shoot his next movie, Canadian director Matt Johnson looked decidedly relaxed last week.
He rolled up to Toronto’s Revue Cinema in a T-shirt and sweatpants to talk to CBC News about Tony, the buzzed-about biopic focused on the early years of world-renowned chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain’s life.
Similar article from the Toronto Star.
McCarrol says the experience exposed him to a more regulated production environment, with stricter rules around unions, actors and what filmmakers can do on set.
“I think where the movie started to really come alive is when Matt returned to Canada, and all of us at Zapruder got to weigh in and watch it and discuss how to support certain sections, fix certain sections,” said McCarrol. “It’s a very collaborative process.”
Similar article from CBC Music
In the meantime, the pair are dealing with an unexpected consequence of their “Nirvanna” success: becoming internet heartthrobs.
“Matt and I have, in some corners of the internet, just been turned into sex dolls. Hey, look, we deserve every bit of it — it’s all on screen,” McCarrol quips.
He says the online fandom runs “the spectrum from fun and cute to downright freaky,” and includes a fair share of Nirvanna the Band fan fiction.
“I’ve been given a few artists’ renditions of Matt and I with our arms around each other, kissing,” he says.
“We like it.”
“My feeling is that when he’s in his 40s, he is trying to portray himself, I won’t say in the best possible light, but as the character that he thinks that either people want to see or that he’s creating. … And then I think as he gets older, he’s given another opportunity to look at the same period, but now through the eyes of somebody who’s a success. And it’s very different when you are self-mythologizing as a 39, 40-year-old man who hasn’t made it, who’s basically a nobody, versus when, … basically, there’s nobody more famous in the world of chef, author, world traveller,” Johnson told Yahoo Canada.
Alternate YouTube title: Matt Johnson & Dominic Sessa Break Down TONY & Their Most Iconic Scenes
This video was also clipped on August 29, 2026 as Matt Johnson On Why You Have To Be Delusional To Make It | Scene Stealers Clip
“Australia?” he says, visibly stoked. “I’m a huge Aussiephile. Australia means a lot to me because I’m Canadian and I grew up skiing and snowboarding, which means I grew up skiing and snowboarding with Australians. I love …” – he draws a name out of his memory – “… Civic Video. I love Chris Lilley. He’s a major influence on me, major, major. Peter Weir, I probably love him too much.”
We asked McCarrol to share his favourite film scores — here’s what he said:
Back to the Future, Alan Silvestri
“It’s probably the best and most popular use of the octatonic scale or the diminished scale. When you dance around these chords, it sounds like it’s flip-flopping on itself. It’s so evocative. It heightens reality. “
This clip doesn’t seem attached to a larger interview unfortunately.
“Within 30 minutes, I was like, ‘Dom, we’re going to make this movie about Anthony Bourdain.’ It was us getting excited about exactly the things you see in the movie,” Johnson recalls. “A young man lying to create status. What’s it like to have all your self-worth tied up in how women see you. The power of homosocial relationships as a developmental tool. And then my job was to bring Bourdain into this conspiracy and read everything that he’d written and go, ‘Okay, let’s see where you agree with us.’”
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