Subtítulos (160)
0:00From a character inspired by action star Steven
Seagal to gourmet dishes hand-crafted by an
0:05award-winning chef, the untold truth of The
Menu is chock full of tasty tidbits.
0:11The Menu is a very tightly wound film with
a lot of precision, but that doesn't mean
0:15there wasn't room for improvisation on set.
0:18Stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult revealed
that they had plenty of time to improvise
0:22together while filming.
0:23In a video segment for Vanity Fair, Taylor-Joy
explained that director Mark Mylod wanted
0:28all the actors to be improvising while the
camera was on other characters and they were
0:31sitting in the background.
0:34"We committed to the improv, like, pretty
hardcore the first couple of days."
0:38Taylor-Joy also confessed that she improvised
a line during a scene with Ralph Fiennes - and
0:43was terrified afterwards.
0:45During the scene in question, Taylor Joy's
character Margot primly tells Fiennes' character
0:49Chef Slowik "thank you" as he's leaving their
table, and it's clearly a passive-aggressive
0:55Taylor-Joy recalls adding the line and thinking,
0:57"Oh god, Ralph Fiennes is going to think I'm
an absolute brat because that was not scripted."
1:01Mylod kept her ad-lib in the film, and she
felt vindicated as a result.
1:06John Leguizamo plays Georgie Diaz, a washed-up
action star who's pompous and arrogant.
1:11He's clearly passed his prime but still behaves
as if he's on top of the world.
1:15As it turns out, Leguizamo based his performance
on a real actor: former co-star, Steven Seagal.
1:20"If I find out you're lying I'm gonna come
back and kill you in your own kitchen."
1:24Leguizamo told The Ultimate Rabbit:
1:32As the story goes, Seagal shoved Leguizamo
against a wall after losing his temper.
1:36Leguizamo brought up the fact that he used
Seagal as his inspiration for The Menu in
1:40another interview with Entertainment Weekly,
confirming that the film they clashed on was
1:431996's Executive Decision, one of Seagal's
better-rated movies.
1:48Leguizamo told the outlet:
1:53One of the central tensions in The Menu is
the fact that Margot doesn't want to eat the
1:56food Chef Slowik has so painstakingly prepared
for her.
2:00Tyler, on the other hand, who's played by
Nicholas Hoult, is in his element.
2:03What this meant for Anya Taylor-Joy was that
she didn't have to spend much of the film
2:07eating, unlike Hoult.
2:09Taylor-Joy discussed how impressed she was
with Hoult's eating abilities during an interview
2:12with BBC Radio 1, revealing that he "attacked
every take with so much gusto and fervor"
2:18and somehow managed to keep it all down.
2:19Hoult told Vanity Fair that the hardest day
on set was when he gorged himself on bread,
2:24a day that Taylor-Joy described as "BreadGate."
2:27If the high-dining experience shown in The
Menu feels very real, that's because a real-life
2:31superstar chef was a consultant on the film.
2:34French chef Dominique Crenn - the only woman
in the U.S. with a three-Michelin-star restaurant
2:39- worked to make the menu described in the
script a reality.
2:42Crenn crafted many of the dishes herself,
often re-doing them several times when scenes
2:46required numerous takes, according to The
Hollywood Reporter.
2:49One dish, which features a scallop balanced
atop a rock, is a near-replica of a dish at
2:53Crenn's own restaurant, San Francisco's Atelier
Crenn.
2:56Crenn told The Hollywood Reporter:
3:02She also spoke with Ralph Fiennes about the
psychological aspects of his character, describing
3:06how "mentally exhausting" it is to be the
head of a restaurant of that stature.
3:10Does Crenn see herself as a mad genius like
Chef Slowik?
3:13The chef told Bon Appétit:
3:18Nicholas Hoult's Tyler is the resident foodie
in The Menu.
3:21He's not a chef himself, but he's obsessed
with the world of food.
3:24As such, Tyler has obviously watched every
episode of the Netflix docu-series Chef's
3:28Table, something he proudly admits to.
3:31If you've watched Chef's Table yourself, you
might have noticed some similarities between
3:35how that series and The Menu were shot.
3:37These similarities were intentional: Chef's
Table creator David Gelb was actually hired
3:42as a second-unit director on the film, reports
The New York Times.
3:45Gelb's entire purpose for being on set was
to film the restaurant and the staff in exactly
3:50the same way an episode of Chef's Table would
be shot.
3:52Fans of the series will likely recognize the
slow-motion close-ups and the focus on small
3:56details - the bright heat of a blue flame,
the precision of a hand laying down a tiny
4:00piece of food on a plate.
4:02The film's climax is also a reference to Chef's
Table.
4:05Director Mike Mylod told The Hollywood Reporter
that the final s'mores dish was an homage
4:09to a dessert made by Grant Achatz at his restaurant
in Chicago, which was featured in an episode
4:15Achatz's dessert is laid out over the entire
table, which Mylod expanded to encompass the
4:21The aerial shot of the s'mores dish is a tribute
to that specific dessert, but also to the
4:25cinematography of Chef's Table as a whole.
4:28The Menu is quite a mysterious film in which
the backgrounds of some characters are left
4:33That's especially true of Elsa, the austere
hostess character played by Hong Chau.
4:37Speaking with Awards Radar, Chau described
the process of deepening the character of
4:41Elsa, which involved a lot of conversations
with director Mike Mylod.
4:45She explained that she was shooting a movie
in Portland, Oregon when she got the role,
4:48and she wanted to bring some of the city's
"funkiness" to the character.
4:51Chau had her own ideas about how Elsa should
look, though Mylod wasn't especially receptive
4:56to them, at least at first.
4:57Chau told Awards Radar:
5:05Luckily, Chau found an ally in Amy Westcott,
the film's costume designer — and also the
5:11Amy Westcott "was very willing to conspire
with me against Mike Mylod," Chau went on
5:15to explain to the outlet.
5:17The outfit they ended up with — a sort of
modern Victorian look - is unique enough to
5:20give Elsa some personality, but not too zany
that it contradicts the serious atmosphere
5:26The Menu was written by Seth Reiss and Will
Tracy, two comedians who have plenty of experience
5:32Reiss spent several years at Late Night With
Seth Meyers and Tracy worked on Succession,
5:36and both screenwriters previously worked for
The Onion.
5:39Of all their career experiences, it was their
time at the satirical news website that proved
5:43to be most influential in the making of The
Menu.
5:46Reiss told Slash Film:
5:56Judith Light is a veteran Hollywood actor,
known for her vast body of work on television,
6:01in film, and on Broadway.
6:03She has a small but important part in The
Menu, that of Anne, a wealthy woman who frequents
6:07the restaurant with her husband but doesn't
seem to enjoy the food all that much.
6:11Speaking with Cinema Daily, Light explained
that she's a foodie herself, something that
6:14drew her to the role.
6:16Light told the outlet:
6:27Light went on to say that she grew up in "a
family of female cooks," which is why it was
6:30such a pleasure to see the famous French chef
Dominique Crenn in action during the shoot.
6:35The actor told Cinema Daily:
6:46Certain roles require actors to do intense
prep work, whether it be learning a new skill,
6:50perfecting an accent, or transforming their
bodies.
6:53For the stars of The Menu, preparation for
the film was far more enjoyable.
6:57Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Anya
Taylor-Joy joked:
6:59"This was a very hard job in terms of research.
7:01Both Nick and I spent a lot of time on the
couch watching 'Chef's Table.'
7:06Nicholas Hoult's Tyler is obsessed with shows
like Chef's Table, so binge-watching the series
7:10was always going to be helpful for him.
7:12However, he didn't stop there.
7:14Taylor-Joy also revealed that Hoult went even
further in his research, actually going out
7:17to eat at some of these fine-dining restaurants
himself.
7:21"I went and ate nice food, because I had to."
7:23Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult have shared
that they did a lot of improvising while their
7:27characters were sitting in the background,
but there was one moment of improvisation
7:31that was front and center.
7:33Near the end of the film, Chef Slowik reveals
to Margot the extent of Tyler's deception:
7:37He had known all along how the night would
end and invited Margot anyway.
7:41When Margot hears this, she slaps Tyler across
the face.
7:44As Nicholas Hoult told BBC Radio 1, Tyler
definitely deserved a slap in the face, but
7:49that moment wasn't actually in the script.
7:51Anya Taylor Joy explained her decision, saying,
7:53"I have a thing about feminine rage."
7:56She went on to reveal that she often gets
scripts that have men doing terrible things
7:59to women, and the women just sitting there
and absorbing those terrible things, upset
8:05After reading the big reveal moment in the
script, Taylor-Joy went up to director Mark
8:10"I'm really sorry, but the only way to play
this truthfully is for me to like, attack
8:16Mylod eventually came around to Taylor-Joy's
way of thinking, and she got to react to Tyler's
8:19betrayal authentically.
8:21How did Hoult feel about the slap?
8:25I didn't like it one bit."
8:27Chef Slowik's menu for the evening was meticulously
planned out, which is part of the reason why
8:30he doesn't take too kindly to the unexpected
appearance of Margot.
8:34To make matters worse, Margot is entirely
unreceptive to his brand of culinary genius
8:38and refuses to play along as one of his dutiful,
awestruck guests.
8:42Most of Margot's stubbornness is in the script,
of course, but Anya Taylor-Joy made a character
8:46choice on set that made her dislike of him
even more explicit.
8:50Unfortunately, she put herself in a bit of
pain in doing so.
8:53She told BBC Radio 1 that she thought it was
important that Margot have her back to the
8:57chef in order to illustrate how she really
feels about him.
9:00What this meant in practice was that Taylor-Joy
had to be constantly twisting around to look
9:04at Chef Slowik while he delivered his monologues
about the food.
9:08"That essentially meant three months of the
worst neck pain you could possibly imagine."
9:13Taylor-Joy expanded on the experience further
in a video segment for Vanity Fair, noting
9:17that, despite the back problems it gave her:
9:19"I still maintain that it was a good choice."
