Anthony Bourdain interview

Unrelated to the article and picture above, an interview with Anthony Bourdain from The Independent (London), dated June 11th, 2001, by Deborah Ross:

How to describe Anthony Bourdain? Well, imagine Delia Smith, say. And then don't. Then, get her right out of your head. You can't? She's still in there, advising you how best to boil an egg ("First, with your fingers, which are on the end of your hands, get an egg... "), while wearing one of those dresses only Delia and lady cellists wear? OK, well try this. Imagine Delia, if you must, but imagine she's got a face like a big, dangerous cliff and loves Hunter S Thompson and The Clash and once had a heroin habit so bad that, one Christmas Eve, "I ended up sitting on a blanket, on Broadway, in the snow, selling my books and records to get money for drugs." Imagine, too, that she's got it in for vegetarians - as well as their "Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans" - and has written a massive bestseller that has everything to do with advising people against ordering mussels in restaurants ("because they're allowed to wallow in their own foul-smelling piss at the bottom of the reach- in") and nothing to do with recipes, because "recipes are a prison. I hate fucking recipes." I hope this has done it. I hope you haven't got confused and are now imagining Anthony Bourdain in the sort of dress lady cellists wear. He'd look complete rubbish.

I meet Anthony at a hotel in Soho. There he is, in the lounge, his big, rather handsome cliff-face of a head looming up though a cloud of Lucky Strike smoke. He says that he's often asked how, as a chef, he keeps so beanpole-thin. "Well, three packs of cigarettes a day and plenty of neuroses help." We shake hands. I'd read that his hands were spooky things, covered in scars and thick, hard callouses from where the heels of knives have dug in over the years. I don't feel them. He says it's because he hasn't been cooking for a while. "The callouses have gone soft," he says. He is embarrassed, I think. Having calloused hands counts with him. They're like war wounds. Proof that he's been into battle and survived. He is full of zinging testosterone in this way. Perhaps, I suggest, you could get some stick-on callouses? "They'd be very useful," he agrees.

He's not been cooking because he's been writing, and he is in London to promote the paperback edition of his book, Kitchen Confidential. It's a great book, part scorchingly honest, knife- slashed, drug-addicted autobiography and part magnificently compelling exposure of the restaurant business. (Never order fish on a Monday. It won't be fresh.) He still can't quite get used to his success. "At book parties I always think I should be in the cloakroom, pilfering wallets." He's just, actually, returned from making a TV travelogue of unusual foods eaten around the world. He's tried fried worms, he says, and "baby birds, deep-fried whole, with their guts rupturing out".

"Oh... yum!" I exclaim, trying not to come across as the sort of wuss who faints at the sight of liver, even though I am.

"And have you ever tried the durian fruit?" he continues. "It's unbelievably smelly. It smells like Satan's rectum. Belch afterwards and you'll be evicted from a movie theatre."

However, by far his worst experience was the vegan potluck supper his producers forced him to attend in California. "They all turned up with their best dishes, which were horrible. Horrible. They murder their veg."

"Like my mother-in-law, who puts on the Brussels sprouts for Christmas dinner in October?"

"Exactly. And their knifework looked like Fred Flintstone carved it all. It was scum. I have no respect for vegetarians. They sit around saying: `Did you see the TV last night? They've found PCBs in fish.' They're always looking for something to scare themselves with."

"Organic food?"

"I'm just as happy with an irradiated carrot, so long as it tastes good. Organic food is grown in shit by hippies."

As I said, imagine Delia. Then don't. Jamie Oliver? Ditto. Although, that said, I think Jamie Oliver would look quite fetching in the sort of dress lady cellists wear.

Although Anthony is now an established figure in New York - executive chef at Les Halles, a popular, well-rated faux-French diner serving up brasserie staples - for most of his career he was just a jobbing guy, tumbling from kitchen to kitchen, working in some awful joints. The worst? Being a short-order brunch cook at some West Greenwich dive. He still can't bear the smell of French toast, eggs, home fries and "all that gloopy stuff, because, to me, it smells of failure and defeat." He says that, as a cook, he sees himself more as a good mechanic than an artist. He did crave Michelin stars once, but after bankrupting the first restaurants he was put in charge of, he rather gave up on that. Still, he cares about good food and good ingredients very deeply. Too deeply, like some chefs? It is, after all... gulp... only food... He says he knows what I mean. He says if, 10 years ago, a customer had asked for the pheasant with the sauce from the scallops, "I'd have told the waiter to tell him to go fuck himself." But now? "I'll do it. It'll hurt, but I'll do it."

I don't know about Anthony Bourdain's cooking. But his writing is excellent. He loves language and uses it with enviable dexterity. What's it like having a big bestseller? "It's a mix of pleasure and terror, like when you were a kid at the seaside and your dad puts you on his shoulders and walks you out into the surf." I think it's this, probably, that saves him from being a kind of Gordon Ramsay with knobs on. Anthony's always been precocious with language. He remembers, when he was pre-kindergarten, finding a book in his parents' bedroom called Why Johnny Can't Read and "teaching myself to read to way beyond what should have been my level." He has always used language as a kind of weapon. He was a madly disturbed child, and his parents once "forced" him to see a psychiatrist. "I can't remember which outrage I'd just committed, but at the second meeting I turned the argument against him. He had a weight problem, and I compared my problem with drugs to his overeating. It was a cruel thing to do. He told my parents I didn't need to see him any more, that I was fine, because he just didn't want me to go back."

"Are you frightened of anything?" I ask.

"Shame. Genuine shame. The prospect of doing something so appalling, I'm ashamed."

"What have you done that you're most ashamed of, then?"

"Stealing from people who've trusted me. Letting people I love down. And all the casual cruelties."

"Such as?"

"When I was a kid, my parents took me out of public school and put me in a private school. My best friend at that time was Michael, a working- class kid who smelt of his parents' kitchen. But when I went to the private school, I turned my back on him. I still cringe when I think about that."

"Are you ever namby-pamby?"

"I'm actually very sentimental. I cry at long-distance-telephone- call commercials. And I'm a complete wuss around my cat."

He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Nancy, who was his high- school sweetheart and has always stuck by him. They have no children and don't plan to have any. "Being able to take care of myself is only a recent development. I couldn't bear the responsibility. I would be afraid all the time. I'm filled with terror enough at what might happen to my cat." He does love his cat, Molly. Molly hates people. Molly spits and scratches. Molly won't be stroked. The other day, he had to get the vet out, and "it took him three hours to take her temperature, then he gave her the kind of drops usually only given to feral cats. I'm very proud of Molly." As he would be.

Anthony - the oldest of two sons born to Pierre, a Columbia Records executive who died in 1988, and Gladys, an editor for The New York Times - was something of a feral child. Spitting, scratching, always angry; he's not sure why. Perhaps he was just born that way. "I was a terrible torment to my parents. A great disappointment. My mother hoped I'd be a lawyer." Even at the age of four, he was into drawing violent pictures and "got into trouble for telling the other kids at kindergarten I was a dinosaur and was going to eat them, which they believed." He was always being punished for something. Later, it would be the drugs his parents would find in his room and flush down the toilet. He found his escape through film. "I loved movies deeply. I liked lurid stuff that got a reaction. If it upset my mother, then it was all the more powerful." Anything you can't stomach in a film? "I do find extended rape scenes quite worrying."

What, I wonder, does his mother make of him now? "I had coffee with her the other day, and she said: `Do you have to use such bad language in your books? Can't you be cleaner in the next one?' I told her that all my life I've only ever done the opposite of what she's ever told me, and it seems to be paying off. For once in her life, she had nothing to say."

He went to Vassar, never attending classes but writing essays for other students for drug money, as well as working in Provincetown kitchens in the holidays. Professional kitchens, I think, gave him a sense of belonging, being staffed with other piratical, testosterone- driven misfits. He dropped out of Vassar and went to the Culinary Institute of America, at a time when "the lemon wedge and sprig of parsley were seen as the definitive garnish". He came off heroin in the late Eighties. Was there a turning- point? "I couldn't stand the whine in my voice any more. You know, always whining for money. And being afraid to answer the phone or open the door, in case it was someone I owed money to. I was weak. I looked in the mirror and saw someone pathetic and needy." He went on to the government methadone programme, "which got me off the street overnight, but three times a week I had to queue up with other hideous junkies." Ultimately, he went cold turkey. "It feels like the marrow in your legs is going to explode. You lie there all night, your legs kicking and kicking. It sucks."

In the book, he says he always sought "to fill the empty spot in my soul". Has it been filled now? He's not sure, "although I know what won't make me happy. A new Jag won't make me happy." He isn't especially materialistic, no. "If I got a good car, I'd have to look after it, and wouldn't. It would get dirty and dented, and then I'd feel guilty. I do have a weakness for cowboy boots, though." What gives his life meaning now? "Not being such a bad person any more," he says. "And having other cooks tell me they like my book."

Our time is up. One last question, then. Anything you wouldn't eat, Anthony? Well, he could have tried live monkey brains in Asia. But? "I didn't want to look at the little monkey's face as they were popping his skull and getting his brains out." Honestly, what a big girl's blouse, after all. Perhaps, even, he could just about get away with wearing the sort of dress lady cellists wear.

`Kitchen Confidential' is published by Bloomsbury at £7.99

Copyright 2001 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

It's interesting to see how some of his strongly held views have changed and evolved since then. And I assume Nancy got custody of their cat, Molly.

Ken Watanabe interview

Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007

KEN WATANABE
'What is Hollywood anyway?'

By DAVID McNEILL
Special to The Japan Times

Ken Watanabe's latest film opens with an image of a polar bear resurfacing into the brilliant spring sunlight after months living underground. It's tempting to see the scene as a metaphor for a career that has alternated between stretches of intense, highly acclaimed work and long periods of hibernation.

The 48-year-old was famously forced into semiretirement by a leukemia diagnosis in 1989, just two years after NHK's samurai television series "Dokuganryu Masamune" launched him to fame. He fought the disease into remission, but it returned in 1994, leaving another five-year hole in his resume.

Watanabe is now re-emerging, blinking in the media spotlight after another year away from the cameras — this time self-imposed — following a string of high-profile Hollywood performances that have made him perhaps the best-known, most respected Asian actor on the planet.

In "The Last Samurai" (2003), "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005) and "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006), Watanabe brought charisma and depth to roles that in less capable hands were ripe for stereotype: a recalcitrant warrior in the dying days of feudal Japan; a middle-aged businessman in the runup to World War II; and the doomed Pacific War Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi.

In "The Last Samurai," Watanabe's rich, soulful turn in Edward Zwick's Bushido sword-fest outshone one of Hollywood's brightest stars, Tom Cruise, and earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. He is the heart and soul of "Letters from Iwo Jima," a movie widely lauded as a masterpiece. Even his phoned-in performance in the exquisitely packaged but slight "Memoirs of a Geisha," and a cameo in "Batman Returns," were noted by critics.

All of which made his next career move appear odd. Watanabe returned to Japan to make "Ashita no Kioku (Memories of Tomorrow)," a low-key yet grueling, distinctly un-Hollywood drama about an office worker's descent into Alzheimer's disease. And though he briefly made the headlines again when he married actress Kaho Minami, since then public sightings have been so rare that you feel he might be in hibernation again.

But here he is: Tanned, fit and impeccably turned out in a tailored Italian suit for our interview in a central Tokyo hotel. Where has he been?

"How can I explain this?" says the 48-year-old Niigata native, struggling for words. "With 'Letters from Iwo Jima,' then 'Memories of Tomorrow,' I reached a sort of turning point in my acting. I had poured so much of myself into those movies that I really had no idea where to go from there. Of course I was offered scripts, but nothing that moved me at all in the same way. A lot of people advised me to go ahead and make a movie anyway. In the end I didn't make one for nearly a year."

But the time off seems to have done him the world of good.

"I said to my wife, 'I've haven't done anything in a year, I wonder if it's OK?' " he recalls, smiling. "But she said 'What are you talking about, you're living your life.' And it was a kind of relief to realize that this is what life is: spending time with your family and doing other normal things."

The project that brings him back from hibernation is the BBC nature series "Planet Earth" (titled "Earth" in Japan) by documentary maker Alastair Fothergill, the creative force behind the huge worldwide hit "Deep Blue." A filmic plea to rescue the planet from environmental destruction, "Earth" opens with a haunting shot of that polar bear coming out of hibernation and searching for footing on melting ice.

Watanabe, who narrates the movie's Japanese version, recalls what he saw when he spent a month in the Arctic filming on a different project, before he got the call from the producers of "Earth."

"The first dawn after winter up there is supposed to be mid-February, but the sun appeared to rise two weeks earlier. When I asked the locals about it, they said there have been huge changes here in the last few years. The weather is changing here too. So when I was asked to do the narration, I thought 'I've got to do this. It's so important.' I mean, mankind has lived for such a short time on the planet, and maybe we don't have much longer to go. But we can still help by doing even small things. Using water and electricity carefully, for example."

It's a long way from Hollywood, but Watanabe thinks the older he gets, the more inclined he is to seek out work that "says something" to the audience. Though he says that a return to the small screen is a possibility, he denies that stardom has turned him against the lure of Big Movies.

"Not at all," he says. "It depends on the production. If the script is good, the cast and director good, I'll go anywhere. You have to ask, 'what is Hollywood today anyway'? I mean, there is a physical place by that name and a different aesthetic and scale, but movies are no longer made there. There is so much collaboration now. The money can come from Japan, the movie might have a Korean director and be made in the U.S.; it is not about where you make the movie anymore."

The big difference he says is how much waste there is on a U.S. set. "They shoot a lot more and then select the best material. But once you get to the set there's not much difference between a Japanese or foreign movie. There are directors who like to do a lot of takes, and there are others like (Clint) Eastwood (director of 'Letters from Iwo Jima') who usually say one will do."

A smart, erudite man, Watanabe is acutely aware of the dangers of cultural typecasting inside the Hollywood machine. In the DVD voiceover for "The Last Samurai," director Zwick explains that his star worked so hard because he "knew in some fundamental way" that the images of Japanese actors for decades were "two-dimensional at best and often caricatured."

As great an actor as he is, he has made his name playing roles within the very restricted Hollywood template for Asian men: warriors, generals, businessmen and sinister oriental bad-guys. Is it possible to break out of this template?

"Well, I'd like to play ordinary people too, and I'm always developing such scripts (with my agent, advisers and friends)."

Still, he acknowledges it is difficult to find roles that don't condescend. "About half the scripts sent to me feature characters I just can't identify with, particularly one-dimensional businessmen or, if it's a comedy, some absurd 10-year-old Japanese stereotype, some role related to IT or business . . . There's no point in getting mad about it; it's just the way things are. But I want to positively challenge such stereotypes."

That sometimes means challenging the director and the script, he explains, even after accepting a role. "Oh yes, there are things in scripts that you cannot let go by. In 'Letters from Iwo Jima,' there were times when I told Eastwood, 'This is just not believable,' " he says, adding that he made daily suggestions and asked the director to make sure that costumes, props and sets were accurate. "The story had to be true, but Eastwood is not someone I had to fight with because he always listened carefully and respected my opinions, right up to the end of the movie."

He says the most serious script dispute on "Letters from Iwo Jima" was the death scene.

"We discussed it for weeks and I disagreed with the original version. Some people felt he should have committed seppuku, but I felt that beautified his death. Being the man he was, having asked so much of his men, he would have fought until he had erased himself. When nothing was left, he would have accepted death. I felt that very strongly."

Watanabe's essential seriousness is perhaps one reason why he dismisses the idea that he might be a sex symbol.

"I never understood that tag," he says laughing. "I have no sense of myself as a sex symbol at all. But the meaning of sex symbol might be a little different in Japan to elsewhere. The Japanese version seems to come with a stronger emphasis on a sort of grownup or mature male charm. And if that's the case, then I guess I'm happy to hear it."

Watanabe always chooses scripts "on instinct" and claims it has rarely let him down. He says he immediately knew "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Memories of Tomorrow" were special, but once he accepted the parts he had to dig deep into himself, a process he found exhausting. "I can't become another person, no matter how much makeup I wear. Something of your own past, your experiences and personality always comes out in the role and that makes acting very risky. You're exposed. You always wonder if you can pull it off."

Acting outside of Japan is made harder by the language barrier, despite Watanabe having studied English intensely for "The Last Samurai" and "Memoirs of a Geisha." He says dialogue itself is not so difficult, but understanding the meaning behind the words and what the director and the scriptwriter want is a challenge. The burden of playing Kuribayashi after his part as Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai," two signature roles loaded with historical and political freight and scrutinized in Japan like few films before or since, added to his exhaustion last year.

Watanabe has admitted that he was "nervous" about making "Letters from Iwo Jima" — "a film that was so important to my culture." Though he undoubtedly worked hard for his role, some critics didn't appreciate the movie. "Doesn't have much to say, except that Japanese are human beings too," wrote the London-based Independent, ignoring what an achievement that was after decades of hoary cinematic cliches and banzai-screaming generals.

Watanabe rarely discusses his illness, though those who know him say his on-screen intensity and stillness is partly a product of being so close to death, and knowing it could come calling again. He admits to mining his memories of fighting leukemia when filming "Memories of Tomorrow."

"I don't think you should show those experiences on screen because they'll take over the character you're playing. But when I was making the movie, I began to remember. When you're sick, you're not thinking 24 hours a day about your suffering, about dying. You want to talk and laugh and think about other things. In the midst of trying to live your life normally, the fear and dread, the realization that it might all end, rises up inside of you. That's what I brought to that movie, although I didn't intend to at the start. The director was good enough to listen to me and we changed some scenes."

The actor who blurs the boundary between screen roles and the guy in the shaving mirror is of course something of a cinematic cliche. Watanabe, who has built a career playing proud, honorable and fatalistic men, seems closer than most to his cinematic persona.

He is reputed to lead a frugal life, and has a reputation for being scrupulously careful and honest. There is something almost Buddha-like in his stillness and thoughtful, considered replies. So is he, as some of his press cuttings suggest, a modern-day samurai?

"Well, I'd like to live like a simple samurai's life, with few possessions," he laughs. "But in reality you start to accumulate things in your life. I try to differentiate between what I need and don't need. I talk to my wife and children before buying things. But I think the samurai sensibility goes deeper: respect for others; using your time carefully; keeping promises. I think those are qualities that Japan used to have but that it is somehow forgetting. They're important to me."

"Earth" is released nationwide in Japan on Jan. 12.

Source: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20071213r1.html