Bradley Cooper and Marcus Wareing on cooking up a storm for the big screen
The actor and the Michelin-starred restaurateur talk about their collaboration on Burnt, a movie that shows the driving passion and the driven personalities at the heart of the world’s top kitchens
Remember all that aggression Bradley Cooper had to keep bottled up playing tightly wound Navy Seal Chris Kyle in American Sniper? It’s finally coming out.
In the new movie Burnt, Cooper is master chef Adam Jones, a worthy contender for the title of World’s Scariest Boss. After the subpar opening of his fancy new restaurant (also named Adam Jones, of course), the top toque throws a temper tantrum, hurling many plates and even more expletives before his pièce de résistance: grabbing an employee by the collar, screaming in her face and shoving her.
It’s a meltdown to remember. Alarmingly, it’s also pretty realistic.
“With all the research we did, we can regale you with hundreds of stories that are much worse than in the movie,” Cooper says recently from Los Angeles. “This is absolutely what happens.”
Adds director John Wells: “You’ll find a lot of chefs tell you it’s not really like that anymore,” except then Wells would talk to someone who would say, “I got hit in the face with a steak that just came off the grill - that’s what this burn is over my eye.”