Exclusive Q&A: Anthony Bourdain

“I write, I travel, I eat and I’m hungry for more.” So states Anthony Bourdain in the opening of his Emmy Award-winning food-and-travel show No Reservations, which has been airing on Travel Channel since 2005 and is distributed internationally by FremantleMedia Enterprises. With his infectious wanderlust, insatiable curiosity about cultures, voracious appetite for good food (and beer), and trademark honesty, if not bluntness, Bourdain, who is also a famous chef, has developed a loyal following around the world.

TV REAL: What was No Reservations’ original mission and how has it changed over the years?
BOURDAIN: It started out as straightforward food-centric essays set in different locations around the world. It’s always been very much about me satisfying my curiosity about the world, going to a place looking for typical foods and exploring the culture through the prism of somebody who spent most of his life cooking and looking at whatever environment or country or culture through what they eat.

Over time we wandered from that. It’s a very close team of people making this show; we do it with as much creative control and freedom as anyone has ever had in the history of television. So we felt free over time to wander away from food because, as we soon found, the story was not just what people are eating but what they’re not eating, so we want to concentrate on other aspects of the culture like music or even politics. We felt free to do that. In a lot of ways the 2006 war in Lebanon just changed the game for us [Bourdain and his crew were shooting an episode in Beirut when the war broke out]. Since that time we haven’t felt obliged to repeat anything that’s worked in the past. We’re always looking for new ways to tell a story. The shows will always be food-centric; they’ll always be from the point of view of somebody who spent his whole adult life in the kitchen, but increasingly, if the subject looks really cool, really interesting, if there’s a good story and good characters or expectations of that, we’re going to go ahead and do it, even if our expectations for good food seem very low.

TV REAL: How do you decide where to go and how much research goes into each place before you get there?
BOURDAIN: I decide where we go. I make a list at the beginning of each season or sometimes we have destinations on the backburner that we, for one reason or another, haven’t been able to pull off, or it was an unsafe situation. Generally I’ll pick a spot based on maybe a movie I saw, a book I’ve read, something I’ve heard in casual barroom conversation, something I’ve heard through the so-called chef’s mafia. I’ll either know a lot about the place already or almost nothing, but in any case, in pre-production we start to look for local food bloggers, local chefs, any intermediaries who have local fixers, who have a sense of humor, who understand the kind of show we’re doing, what we’re looking to do, and who understand we’re not looking for the best of or the most comprehensive. It helps that the show is shown all over the world so chances are many people in many of the countries we’re going to are familiar with the show. We do as much research as we can. I’ll either have a number of things I already want to do in that location, or I’ll start getting from local contacts in advance a menu of suggestions that I will then choose from or tweak.

TV REAL: And because the show is already known, you generally don’t have difficulty gaining access to places with your cameras, do you?
BOURDAIN: It depends. A lot of times it’s very difficult to get the kind of show we want. Some governments really want to control, either overtly or covertly, what you see. They want to make it look better than it is and that often leads to clumsy, laughably fake scenes. When you show up at the local butcher shop and there happen to be people dressed up in indigenous garb dancing, that’s lethal for us! We really try to avoid that. Also, there are always various secret services or tourism boards who want to make sure that certain things are not shown to whatever extent they can. Those are things we have to think about. We also have to think about the people we leave behind. If we shoot in China up by the Tibetan border, it’s a sensitive subject in China. I can go back to New York and say whatever I want about the Chinese Tibetan policies, but any Chinese who were nice to me in that area during the making of the show might find themselves in a very uncomfortable position at some point. It’s something we have to consider in places like China, Cuba and parts of the Middle East. There’s a line that has to be walked.

TV REAL: You say in your book Medium Raw that you consider yourself at heart a storyteller and the TV show is just another way for you to tell stories.
BOURDAIN: I fell into television semi-accidentally. I’ll never forget the first show I ever did. It was in Japan with a married couple, [Christopher Collins and Lydia Tenaglia], the camera people who are now my business partners and heads of Zero Point Zero Production. When they turned to me with cameras on and expected me to talk, it came as a real shock to me—it was an uncomfortable fit. Over time, Chris, Lydia and I found our own style. We learned on the road what we were doing and how we were going to tell stories. We developed together a style or work ethic of rule breaking and finding new ways to tell stories in an interesting way. At one point I realized I like telling stories, I like writing stories. When I finally came to understand the incredible power of editing—how effective a tool that is in getting people to feel the way you want them to feel about a character or a subject or a place—it was very exciting to me. I understand now. I don’t know how to operate a camera but I have a pretty good appreciation of what good shooters can do. I have a very good understanding of the power of the editing room to the extent that I want to be involved in that process, as I often am. It’s very rewarding. I really enjoy the collaborative aspect of working with people scoring music, editors, post production, graphics, cameras, all in the cause of more effectively and dynamically telling what is essentially a pretty simple story most of the time. That’s very satisfying to me.

Bourdain discusses details of his new series, The Layover, along with talking about his creative input with Travel Channel and relationship with FremantleMedia, here. Please click through to continue reading.

TV REAL: You mentioned you have creative control. How do you work with the executives at Travel Channel?
BOURDAIN: I don’t think there’s ever been a serious argument over content that we haven’t won. There really aren’t any arguments. There’s beeping for language; there’s some stuff that we’re pretty sure we’re going to have to take out. We understood very early on that television is a medium [whose executives] want to figure out what worked last week and would like to recreate that; if it worked, if it got a huge audience last week they want more of the same. That’s an instinct that any media company or network would, of course, want. That’s called a sensible business model. But we just tried to foil any expectations from day one and we made it clear that whatever worked last week we were going to do everything we could to undermine it or deconstruct it or turn it on its head. If we do anything consistently it’s that. Because the show has continually worked, and arguably we do what we do really, really well, because the show looks better than anything else on the network and because it has consistently done well, everybody seems happy and has been very supportive of this business model, whatever it is.

We understand for sure that if we do a barbecue scene set in America it will be very popular with American audiences. [I’ve learned from the previous series I’ve done] that when I traveled, the episodes we made for American audiences were extraordinarily popular in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. So in a lot of ways I’m thinking international audience from the get go. Also, from the minute we start shooting we’re very aware that if we’re making a show in Chile, people in Chile are going to be watching the show so I like to think we’re taking a more international perspective than a lot of people making similar shows do. And it’s been working.

I got to television in the first place by writing a really obnoxious book [Kitchen Confidential] and from the get go I’ve been a pretty much known quantity. I can hardly be accused of surprising anyone if I’m not willing to go along with some knuckleheaded idea to do something popular and generic. Nobody has seriously ever asked me to do anything like that. I wouldn’t know how to do it in any case.

TV REAL: You say you think international from the very beginning of a show. What is your relationship with FremantleMedia Enterprises?
BOURDAIN: We’re partners in the international sales of No Reservations and we’re also working together to develop, fund and distribute new television concepts as well as develop lifestyle and factual IP for multiplatform licensing. They’re exactly the kind of company we want to be in business with, from the very start, with the kind of reach and reputation and backlist of programs.

TV REAL: Are there any moments that stand out the most in your mind of all the places you’ve been?
BOURDAIN: I look back at the shows now very clinically. But I’m very proud of the Rome show because it was a real labor of love. It was considered madness to do it in black and white! It was very heavily planned and scripted and lit—we never use lights, but we lit this show to get a particular film look. We were using special lenses. We worked really hard for that one and took an enormous risk doing something that everybody thought was completely idiotic—doing a food show in black and white. We knew that a lot of people were really going to hate it, but I think technically speaking it’s the best of what we do. I’m really proud. It was collaboration at its best. Brilliant camera people, brilliant editing, brilliant scoring, a good idea on my part and it came together in a really technically accomplished way.

And Sardinia is another one that I’m very proud of because it was very personal. My family was in it. There was a lot at stake. My wife’s family was looking at how they and their country were going to be portrayed. I’m proud that we made a beautiful show that told the truth and pleased all concerned.

TV REAL: You have another show that you’re working on as well.
BOURDAIN: Yes, we’re doing an interim mini-series called The Layover. As it happens, I spend a lot of short periods of time around the world in between No Reservations. Also, we’ve come to know a lot of cities pretty well, so this is a slightly more informational but just as offbeat sort of high-speed version of No Reservations. In No Reservations a lot of the experiences, while they may be representative of the culture, they’re not easily attainable for ordinary travelers. These are things we were able to do—have dinner at El Bulli or be with a tribe in Liberia. These are difficult things for ordinary tourists to be able to do. With The Layover we’re trying to do a cooler version of an informational show—things that I would actually do myself on a layover that other people might be able to do, too.