David Schwimmer has a lot of requirements before he agrees to a new TV show. “For me to sign on to anything, especially a series, I have to really love the character,” he says. “And it has to film in New York, so I wasn’t going to do it if it shot anywhere else.”
But despite those geographic limits he has been saying yes to a lot of projects lately, and breaking his own rule in the process. Including his turn as Robert Kardashian in the critical and popular smash The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story this spring and the upcoming UK comedy Morning Has Broken with Julia Davis, which starts filming in London shortly.
Those are both limited series with short commitments. He really went through the wringer before deciding to play Tommy Moran on AMC’s new drama Feed the Beast, which debuts on 5 June at 10pm EST (and will air in the UK this autumn on BT). “I love Tommy and I think I’m drawn to characters that are somewhat broken and in pain,” Schwimmer says about his character, a single father who is getting over his wife’s recent death in a car accident.
Feed the Beast is an adaptation of the Danish series Bankerot and is about two best friends, one a chef and one a wine expert, that decide to open a restaurant together. Because of their tough past as kids from a rough part of town, the mob and some other unsavory investors get involved. And then, of course, they have to keep the kitchen going.
Schwimmer says he watched all 16 episodes of the original series and loved the world it created. “I thought, wow, this is going to be tricky for an American audience to get this show because the tone of it – there is such a sweet spot for a show that is this dark and dramatic, darkly funny, has all this violent crime and then cooking. I thought this would be a fun challenge but if we could pull it off, it would be pretty cool.”
British actor Jim Sturgess was more of a movie actor before signing on to play Dion Patras, who grew up with Tommy in the Bronx and became a chef but was later thrown in jail. Before Tommy’s wife’s death and Dion’s incarceration the three were going to open a restaurant in the quickly gentrifying Bronx. When Dion gets out he uses his crime world connections (and a brick of stolen cocaine) to help finance their dream.
“I love that he’s kind of flawed and mischievous and trouble follows him wherever he goes. Those are all exciting things to play,” Sturgess said days after filming wrapped. He’s getting used to hearing his own accent after adopting an American accent for the four months of shooting. (Yes, he even did it when he was off camera.)
Even harder than the accent, Sturgess had to learn how to work and move like a chef for the complicated work in the kitchen. Before filming he described his cooking skills as “sub par”. He went to a cooking school in Brooklyn and they wanted to teach him how to make certain dishes but he wasn’t really that interested in that. “I wanted to know how do you hold a knife?” he says. “How do you chop something? How do you hold a vegetable? I wanted the choreography of being a chef, because that is what reads on camera.”
Sturgess says that some of the more complicated dishes weren’t that difficult but there was one easy one that was. “Strangely out of all the food, the hardest thing I had to do was make french toast,” he says, adding that he was forced to do it about 15 times. “They wanted it to be cooked in real time in the duration of a scene. I find a bag of stale croissants in my uncle’s cupboard and I say: ‘You can’t eat this, let me rustle something up.’ So through the dialogue I had to make it and present it to him as the last bit of the scene. The logistics of having to do that and remember your lines was impossible.”
Clyde Phillips, who adapted the series for American television, isn’t much of a food guy himself. “I had a health bar for lunch,” he says. But for Phillips, who worked on Dexter, Nurse Jackie, and a number of shows going back to the 90s, he loved the Danish original so much he wanted to make it his own. For all of the cooking and wine details the writers hired consultants to make sure they don’t go astray.
While the food remains a constant there were a lot of things Phillips had to change, particularly how long the show runs, because one 10-episode season on American television is more than twice as long as one season of the Danish production. “The story is the story, but we had to go sideways with it to fill up those minutes,” Phillips says. Phillips also diversified the cast since it is set in the melting pot of New York. Tommy’s ex-wife, who he has a son with, is black. His new restaurant manager (and love interest) is Cuban and there is both a Muslim and a lesbian cook on staff. “When the TV turns off and it becomes a mirror for two seconds I want you to see yourself,” Phillips says.
If Sturgess’s and Phillip’s eating habits haven’t improved, did Schwimmer learn anything from playing a wine expert? He says that one of his good friends is a top sommelier in New York and tutored him on how to talk about wines and made some great recommendations. “I’ve been trying a lot of Rieslings lately. I thought it was too sweet and he introduced me to much more complex Rieslings. And Chablis. I’m appreciating Riesling and Chablis,” he says. “That sounds like very stuffy law firm.”
Feed The Beast starts at 10pm on AMC in the US; it will air on BT in the UK later this year
• This article was amended on 3 June 2016 to correct the ringer/wringer homophone.
