Anthony Bourdain had savage words about Bradley Cooper after actor played him in little-known sitcom
Anthony Bourdain did not hold back on his initial assessment of Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of him in a ‘little-known’ sitcom, claiming he thought the star would ‘go nowhere’ at the time.
Before the early life of the late and great Bourdain was reimagined by A24 in the Dominic Sessa-starring film, Tony, another company had a shot at bringing the writer and former executive chef to life.
In late 2005, Kitchen Confidential, starring Bradley Cooper as Jack Bourdain, an executive chef making a comeback following an alcohol and drug addiction, premiered via Fox to little fanfare.
The David Hemsingson-created series was based on the celebrity chef’s book of the same name.
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It featured Nicholas Brendon, the late Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor, John Co, Bones’ John Francis Daley, and Jaime King, among others.
The TV programme, which saw Bourdain collecting a group of chefs to open an upscale restaurant called Nolita in just 48 hours, ran for just one season.
Fox pulled the plug after just four episodes due to low viewership. It currently has a 64 percent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.
Anthony Bourdain’s scathing first thoughts on Bradley Cooper
14 years ago, Bourdain took to Reddit for a question-and-answer session where he was specifically asked to comment on Kitchen Confidential.
“I am Anthony Bourdain. Ask me Anything,” he wrote.
“I am an author and traveling enthusiast, debuting a travel docu-series, Parts Unknown, on CNN this spring, EP'ing The Getaway on the Esquire Network & currently co-hosting The Taste on ABC,” he wrote at the time.
“I voice bastard chef Lance Casteau in this week's Archer (I hung around the Archer parking lot until they gave me some work). Ask me anything.”
One fan, who went by the moniker @sushimi711 used the opportunity to question if he’d ever seen the ‘short-lived sitcom’ based on his book.
Apparently, Bourdain was familiar with Kitchen Confidential; he wrote via the Reddit thread that he believed the episodes were ‘strange’.
“Bradley Cooper as me? It was strange. I thought—this guy’s going nowhere.”
Luckily, he didn’t end it there, with the Peabody Award winner admitting that his original thoughts on the American Sniper icon were totally ‘wrong’.
“How wrong can you be. Also, I thought he was brilliant in Silver Linings Playbook. So about as wrong as a man can be.”
Since starring in Kitchen Confidential, Cooper has gone on to win three Grammy Awards and a BAFTA. He has been nominated six times at the Golden Globes. Not too shabby, huh?
Bradley Cooper played a chef in Burnt
Funnily enough, Kitchen Confidential is not the only time that Cooper has portrayed a chef.
A decade after the sitcom aired, the twelve-time Oscar-nominated actor appeared in the underrated comedy-drama, Burnt.
Directed by Steven Knight, Burnt sees two Michelin star-rated chef Adam Jones (played by Cooper) starting over in London where he looks to add a third star to his roster.
The ensemble cast includes Sienna Miller, Marvel’s Daniel Brühl, Uma Thurman, Dame Emma Thompson, and Downton Abbey favourite Lily James.
Burnt was not well received by critics, with one scathing review stating: “Burnt is, to be clear, not a good movie. It is in fact a pretty terrible movie.”
Someone else wrote: “Despite all of the beautiful cuisine and energetic kitchen chaos, Burnt is simply a half-baked redemption tale.”
Burnt is available to stream on Netflix now. Catch Tony in cinemas.
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film, Social Media
Ella Scott