How Anthony Bourdain inspired Jeremy Allen White’s ‘The Bear’ performance
“You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone,” sang Joni Mitchell back in 1970, and it’s an epithet that certainly rings true regarding the late, great chef Anthony Bourdain, who died back in 2018, and has undoubtedly become more famous after his passing.
His influence can be seen in everything from kitchens to politics to a million memes online, but also in the performances of current talent, including the likes of The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White.
When The Bear hit screens back in 2022, there was very little like it on TV; it took viewers behind the scenes of a chaotic Chicago sandwich shop with designs on becoming a fine dining establishment thanks to the hopes of White’s head chef, Carmy. It is a fast-paced, engrossing and fascinating piece of drama and comedy with some astonishing performances, especially from White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
Now in its recently released fourth season, The Bear has rightly amassed a raft of Emmys and Golden Globes, twinned with a storming soundtrack featuring the likes of Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. The show brilliantly mixes important realism with lighter moments, a deep understanding of cooking techniques alongside the city/place that produces the palate they cater to, and an insight into the world of cheffing that’s usually not witnessed by those patiently waiting out front for their food.
Much of that comes from the show’s creator Christopher Storer, who used to work in a sandwich shop called Mr Beef that became the basis for The Bear, but also through the dedication of White, who has picked up three consecutive Golden Globe ‘Best Actor’ awards for playing the troubled Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto.
And Bourdain’s seminal industry book Kitchen Confidential was an undoubted inspiration for White, who explained to Cherrybombe: “I really enjoyed the book. I had read some of it before the show. What struck me, and I think what strikes everybody about him, [his passion, not only for kitchens and food, but for life.
He elaborated on how he tied that understanding into building his character, saying, “And I knew that Carmy needed that passion, he needed that drive. I needed to find something that he wanted so badly because nobody just wants to watch a guy who’s angry, shouting at everybody all the time. There needs to be something there… It’s just so nice to listen to somebody talk about how much they love this thing. And then I could try to just make Carmy love it.”
Bourdain was the man who made cooking cool long before anyone else thought much about the professional kitchen life, or kitchens in general. He paired a love of making fine food with an insatiable desire to travel the world and experience other cultures at the grassroots level, which took him from the polished chef’s knives and counters of Manhattan to a long-running show for the Travel Channel called No Reservations.
After ten years running kitchen restaurants in New York, he had also attempted to get a literary career going on the side, unsuccessfully writing two books, one of which was a mystery set in the culinary world. He struck gold in 2000, though, with Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, a warts-and-all exposé of the drug-fuelled life of a head chef under pressure that became a best-seller. It perpetuated the idea that success in the industry necessitated a cut-throat, masculine and occasionally troublesome environment, however, something for which Bourdain later expressed remorse.
Since he tragically died seven years ago, many of his beliefs and sayings have captured public imagination, and indeed, his book rose to the top of the bestseller lists around the world posthumously.
Jeremy Allen White, meanwhile, continues to find success alongside filming The Bear; he stars as Bruce Springsteen in the forthcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, for which he is already tipped for an Oscar.
