Open Road Films and Aldamisa Entertainment Present in Association with Kilburn Media and Fetisov Teterin Films a Fairview Entertainment Production
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Open Road Films and Aldamisa Entertainment Present In Association with Kilburn Media And Fetisov Teterin Films A Fairview Entertainment Production Jon Favreau Sofia Vergara John Leguizamo Scarlett Johansson Dustin Hoffman Oliver Platt Bobby Cannavale Amy Sedaris Emjay Anthony And Robert Downey Jr. Written and Directed by Jon Favreau Official Website: http://ChefTheFilm.com Twitter: http://Twitter.com/ChefTheFilm Facebook: http://FB.com/ChefTheFilm PHOTOS AND MATERIALS AT EPK.TV CHEF OPENS MAY 2014 (MEDIA CONTACTS FOR CHEF LISTED ON PAGE 2) Chef – Press Notes – 2 OPEN ROAD FILMS Liz Biber, Exec VP Publicity [email protected] Office: 310-696-7599 Lori Burns, VP Publicity [email protected] Office: 310-696-7519 Mobile: 310-739-0018 Adam Bittner, Director Regional Publicity [email protected] Office: 310-696-7531 Mobile: 310-691-4937 U.S. U.S. International National: Hispanic: Aldamisa: 42 West Think Latino Samantha Peel [email protected] LA Rocio Kissling 818-783-4084 Annalee Paulo [email protected] [email protected] 818-888-4001 424-901-8723 Veronica Buenrostro NY veronica.buenrostro@thinklatin Kate Rosenbaum o.net [email protected] 323-315-2643 646-723-9696 Digital: Ashton Fontana [email protected] Mammoth 646-467-9058 Melanie Klein [email protected] 212-352-2200 x 1006 Megan Alvino [email protected] 212-352-2200 x 1017 Chef – Press Notes – 3 CHEF Written by, directed by, produced by and starring Jon Favreau – Chef features an all-star cast including Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Platt, Robert Downey Jr. and young actor Emjay Anthony. When Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner (Dustin Hoffman), he is left to figure out what’s next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara), his friend (John Leguizamo) and his son (Emjay Anthony) to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen -- and zest for life and love. EXTENDED SYNOPSIS With his career and personal life suddenly at a crossroads, a once-celebrated L.A. chef embarks on a cross-country culinary odyssey with his best friend and young son in an effort to rediscover his creativity and love for cooking. When he started running the kitchen at trendy Brentwood eatery Gauloises, CARL CASPER (Jon Favreau) was one of the hottest chefs to hit the L.A. food scene. Now, a decade later, the restaurant is still always full, but creatively Carl is running on empty. Divorced and disconnected from his 11-year-old son, he’s convinced cooking is the only thing he’s good at— and he yearns to reignite the spark that made him love doing it in the first place. When he learns that popular food blogger RAMSEY MICHEL (Oliver Platt) is coming to review the restaurant, Carl plans to dazzle him with an adventurous new menu. But the restaurant’s owner, RIVA (Dustin Hoffman), insists he serve the same safe and predictable dishes that have kept the place packed year in and year out. Disappointed at the meal’s lack of originality, Ramsey writes a scathing review, which—along with a video of Carl’s embarrassing out-of-control response—quickly goes viral. With his illustrious career suddenly reduced to an internet punch line, Carl finds himself jobless with no prospects for work. Chef – Press Notes – 4 At the suggestion of his successful ex-wife INEZ (Sofia Vergara), Carl accompanies her and their son PERCY (Emjay Anthony) to Miami, where Inez’s first husband, MARVIN (Robert Downey Jr.), takes pity on Carl and offers him a beat-up old food truck. With the help of Percy and Carl’s friend and longtime grill chef MARTIN (John Leguizamo), Carl turns the rusting hulk into a gleaming rolling kitchen, where he and Martin serve up a fresh, mouthwatering take on simple Cuban fare and introduce Percy to the joys of working the line. As the trio makes the trip back to L.A. in the truck, with memorable stops in culinary hotspots including New Orleans and Austin along the way, Carl begins to reconnect with his passion for cooking—and with his son. ABOUT THE PRODUCTION Jon Favreau began his filmmaking career nearly two decades ago, writing and starring with Vince Vaughn in the seminal hipster comedy, Swingers. After that he made his directorial debut with the self-scripted Made, then helmed his first big studio project in 2003 with the instant holiday classic Elf, starring Will Ferrell. More recently, Favreau effectively launched Marvel’s superhero franchise by directing the first two Iron Man blockbusters. With Chef, the filmmaker has taken a break from big-budget extravaganzas to return to his indie roots. “I wanted to write a screenplay from scratch, let the characters speak in the voices I gave them, cast the people who I wanted to work with and then see where that led me,” says Favreau. And so, after executive producing Iron Man 3 and The Avengers, Favreau has brought to the screen the story of Carl Casper, a gifted chef who finds himself stymied by both professional and personal frustrations. Embracing the spirit of 1996 cult favorite Swingers, Favreau saw Chef as an opportunity to tell an intimate story about a flawed hero, with an adult audience in mind. “I haven’t made a small movie like this in a very long time,” he says. “I thought it would be interesting to bring the skills I’ve developed to this type of project. I wanted to try something on a different scale and face a different set of challenges that would keep me sharp and grounded.” Setting Chef against the backdrop of Los Angeles’ booming food-truck subculture was a natural choice for Favreau. As a longtime fan of food culture, he hosted and produced IFC Chef – Press Notes – 5 Network’s 2002 “Dinner for Five” series, filmed on location in some of Los Angeles’ most iconic fine-dining establishments. That world of high-end cuisine serves as the glossy jumping off point for Chef Carl, as he leaves the safety net of a big restaurant to become captain of his own food truck. During pre-production research, Favreau discovered that chefs often display the same obsessive drive he’d encountered in type-A show business personalities. “I found a lot of similarities between the movie world and the culinary world,” he observes. “In both cases you’re dealing with the creative process. With Chef, we’re watching a character who wants to have an original creative voice.” Coming off his string of studio-managed motion pictures, Favreau savored the opportunity to exercise complete creative control over Chef. “Making a small film is like writing a novel, doing a painting or putting up a play, anything you can control because the resources that you require are not that great,” says Favreau, who cites triple-threat writer-director- performers Larry David, Lena Dunham and Louis C.K. as models of creative autonomy. Giving up big budget perks–and the accompanying constraints–to make Chef on a more modest scale, Favreau says he wanted to reinvigorate his creative mojo, much as Chef Carl trades the security of a fancy restaurant gig for the freedom to follow his own muse into the realm of low-overhead street food. “In the case of Chef, it’s the food truck that allows Carl to explore his creative instincts,” says the writer-director. “The guy goes from working in this very successful restaurant where he’s making a lot of money but isn’t being creatively challenged to try something closer to his own passions. I found that a lot of chefs share that passion.” Where the autobiographically tinged Swingers channeled Favreau’s experiences as a twenty-something single actor moving to Los Angeles, Chef reflects the filmmaker’s interests as a creative, middle-aged family man. “For the way I work as a director, you’ve got to really connect in some way and relate to the characters,” he says. Chef Carl Casper represents the road not taken, says Favreau. “If I had made different decisions in my life about ten years ago, I would’ve been closer to who Carl is in the film. I Chef – Press Notes – 6 made decisions early on not to travel out of town when the family was in school and to prioritize the personal aspects of my life. Carl’s divorced. I’ve never been divorced but I have three kids, so as a father I relate to Carl on that level.” Favreau says he also relates to Carl’s decision to prioritize freedom over monetary gains or prestige. “Part of that bargain is that you have to be happy with the fact that you’re going to let the outcome land where it does, because it’s tough to go up against the big boys. But if you feel creatively satisfied and you’re growing as an artist, that, I think, is the hero’s journey. It’s about growth.” PIMP MY FOOD TRUCK To ensure that Chef Casper’s immersion into food truck culture felt authentic, Favreau turned to the king of Los Angeles’ street food scene, Roy Choi. Winner of Food & Wine Magazine’s 2010 Best New Chef award, Choi pioneered the concept of gourmet fast food by embracing social media to promote local appearances of his Kogi BBQ Taco Truck. “To really represent a chef on the movie screen, you’ve got to know what it feels like to be a cook,” says Choi.