Dominic Sessa on why Anthony Bourdain’s life “was not a tragedy” but “a symbol of hope”

Unless you live inside an underground cave, you’ve likely heard the term ‘method-acting’ before. It’s when an actor commits. Really commits. See Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrayed beardy US president Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winner – and didn’t break character for the entire eight-week shoot. Or when Austin Butler, having honed Elvis’ soupy Southern drawl to the point of uh huh huh-induced insanity, forgot how to speak in his own accent. The goal, method actors say, is not to play the part but to become the part. For new biopic Tony, about late, bad boy TV chef Anthony Bourdain, Dominic Sessa went one better – he made the part become him. Read more: ‘Tony’ review: a mostly delicious taste of pre-fame Anthony Bourdain “I looked at his story through the scope of my personal experiences,” the 23-year-old rising star says, zooming into NME’s London office from his Los Angeles hotel room 5,000 miles away. He’s wearing a blue-and-white striped tee, paired with a faded blue baseball cap perched on top of his unruly dark brown curls; all of which exudes a very 1970s, Bourdain-like vibe. If you’ve ever glimpsed the iconic cover photo adorning most copies of Kitchen Confident...