Food Stylist Reviews Food Scenes From Movies | Vanity Fair

i was the food stylist on julian julius

i was the

hand double for meryl streep in this

film so in the black and white

segments those are actually my hands i

had on

meryl streep's watch and her shirt and

that's me

sewing up the duck hey vanity fair i'm

susan spungan

today i'll be reviewing food styling in

tv and film

[Music]

this next clip is from the princess

diaries

in any situation ice cream is definitely

the hardest thing to shoot

whether or not this is real ice cream or

sorbet

is is an open question um because

they're eating

you would have to make something that

looks like

sorbet but doesn't melt you also could

just keep resetting the scene

but it would be ideal to have something

that that doesn't melt because

by the time you started shooting it

could be melting

i thought it was a cruel she didn't

realize it was frozen

if it was me i would do everything in my

power to create something that

looked like what they wanted it to look

like but also

could be edible for the actors and you

know it can't be like

crisco which is a common way to make

fake ice cream because they're eating it

it's very possible it's actual sorbet

because i did see a little bit of melt

around the edge in the bowl

acting like monkeys

this scene is from matilda

[Music]

this cake really had to have a lot of

screen presence

smells chocolaty

and one way that they did that was just

by making it

huge it's a really really big cake

i don't want any thank you it looks to

me like it was just made in giant

wedding cake pans and also they're using

camera angles to make it look

even bigger and scary actually

eat it it's hard to make something like

chocolate

look unappealing or unappetizing part of

what's

helping that is that you can see that

the actor doesn't want to eat it but

they've also tried to make the cake

just look um kind of just really messy

and sloppy and then the cook is

wiping her nose so it just seems kind of

disgusting

and very like kind of sloppily made when

you see an actor

on screen eating or seeming to eat a lot

you'll know that they cut away a lot and

there are plenty of opportunities for

the actor to spit out the food which is

often what they have to do

i can't look usually you want the actors

to

eat as little as possible unless they

want to eat it

this next film is eat pray love

working on eat pray love was definitely

an adventure

we did not have a set kitchen

and we were really shooting on location

in rome and if you've ever been to rome

you know the streets are small and only

a couple of trucks were allowed to get

near the set

and a food truck was not one of them in

this case

the pasta would have been pretty warm

because the doors that you see

behind her that's where the kitchen was

and i was right inside and so i would

have tried to plate this

as freshly as possible for this scene i

don't believe that they specified the

kind of pasta

and i just wanted something simple and

iconic because this scene was all about

her deciding to give in to her

impulses and just live life but i didn't

really

understand how important this scene was

going to be until i saw

the final edit and i think we did it

with one plate of pasta

and then they said okay we're done we're

rapper moving on to the next location

company move they say so you

clean up and you throw everything away

and they're like wait a minute wait a

minute

we need to shoot um an insert it says

was the parmesan cheese falling

on the pasta as much as i hated taking

it out of the trash i took it out of the

trash

i replated it and we did the parmesan

cheese falling on the pasta

but don't worry i didn't feed julia

robert's pasta that had been in the

trash

this is sex in the city

the truth is you wouldn't prep any

differently for this scene as you would

for

sushi that was sitting on a table it

looks like it's real sushi

on a real body she probably also had

certain

modesty garments on underneath the sushi

more likely than not the prop team

ordered sushi from a restaurant

and they probably wouldn't have brought

a sushi chef on set because it's pretty

easy

thing to source they probably had trays

and trays of it in a refrigerator

because it might have taken multiple

takes to get the shots that they needed

[Music]

40 minutes later sushi samantha

still no smith if they have to eat what

do they want to eat

that becomes almost the most important

part of a scene like this

i got wasabi in places where one should

never get wasabi this next scene

is from julie and julia

you may think that boning a duck is an

impossible feat

i was the food stylist on julian julius

don't be afraid

no fear julia we had a sort of

makeshift kitchen um right on the stage

it was actually a little bit

difficult because we couldn't make any

noise while the cameras were rolling

down the back of the bird

all the way from the neck to expose the

backbone

is it hard to bone a duck well it isn't

the easiest thing in the world

disgusting oh maybe the eggs aren't

fresh julie says the eggs have to be

fresh they are

fresh if you watch the film closely

you'll realize that amy adams is

actually doing

most of the cooking i would teach her

some basic knife skills

chopping and peeling onions and cracking

eggs

just to kind of get her more comfortable

in the kitchen we had live lobsters

because there was a scene where she had

to actually pick up live lobsters

and yes they were real live lobsters

look at that julia

it looks just like yours i was the hand

double for meryl streep in this film so

in the black and white

segments those are actually my hands i

had on

meryl streep's watch and her shirt and

that's me sewing up the duck in the wide

shots

merrill is doing a few things but you

don't see the more

intricate parts and then i was trusting

the pulley

roti and it fell on the floor

you always have to have a lot of backups

for

resetting i think we had eight of those

actual finished ducks for the dinner

party i mean it's not

like a super expensive item believe it

or not that would affect how many you

get

if it's something that's kind of cheap

you might just get 10

just to have them but if it becomes

expensive i mean you do always have a

budget that you're working with so you

don't want to be wasting money

i have to bone a whole duck when at some

point

this next scene is from emily in paris

ugh

this steak isn't cooked at all um excuse

me pardon monsieur

in this scene we are to believe

that emily has received a steak that is

very rare but you never see the steak

you barely see the food

so it's it's totally the actor's

reactions and the dialogue that is um

giving

context to the food and we're just kind

of buying it

is there a problem no no

i love it everything is perfect you

haven't touched it

the fact that there's no real close-up

of the food in the scene

tells you that they're not really so

concerned about the food you know i'd be

happy to burn it for you but promise me

you'll try it first

yeah try his meat emily it's much more

about the dialogue and the characters

and even the humor of the scene

nothing is real i mean the way that this

chef it comes out of a small little

bistro kitchen

perfectly clean and his sleeves are

rolled up

uh on his biceps i mean it's just it's

definitely not real it's all there to

serve the story and it's

it's not about the food see i knew you'd

like it if you give it a chance

next up eat drink man woman

this is probably one of the best cooking

scenes ever shot you see so much

real real food here this is an expert

chef it's the very beginning of the film

so it's the introduction

to the character and the story and this

this is how it all starts and you are

immediately just

drawn into the rhythmic cooking that's

going on

there are so many different actions in

the scene and

any action is more difficult to shoot

because you only get

one chance and then if you didn't get it

you have to just reset and do it again

a scene like this would have taken a

long time to shoot

it would all be charted out on a

shooting schedule

so the person doing the food would know

what to have prepared and when

all of those kind of things would kind

of dictate how you would source your

ingredients

and how to basically prep your job as

the food style is to be ready

you never want to keep this very huge

and expensive crew

waiting this next scene is from

inglorious bastards

this scene is very interesting it's part

of this

long uncomfortable conversation between

these two characters

and they go to the trouble of showing

you

how beautiful and delicious this apple

strudel is

the whole point of kind of building the

strudel up was to

show how menacing a character

he is because in the end he thinks

nothing

of putting out his cigarette on the

strudel

this is a really good example of food

sort of playing a character

in a scene because you know it was there

to really tell you something it was no

accident that you saw these loving

close-ups of the strudel and the cream

just so they could show you a close-up

of the cigarette at the end

this next scene is from marie antoinette

the asparagus tower is very central

visually in the scene and in the 18th

century

food was both of decoration and

something to eat

it just sort of really helps set the

scene and it sort of adds to like the

absurdity

of what we think of as marie antoinette

let them eat cake the idea is to

sort of find this sweet spot between

historical

correctness and theatricality to help

tell the story and paint a picture

everything is just kind of pretty and

flouncy

and ruffly and and so are the clothes so

it's all of a piece

this next scene is from the grand

budapest hotel

this was also when i met agatha from

what i understand about the way

wes anderson works there's sort of

elements of reality and fantasy kind of

interwoven together and i think these

pastries are kind of a perfect example

of that when trying to

figure out what exactly a pastry like

this might look like in the film most

likely you might start with sketches

they would have auditioned different

versions of the pastry since it's so

important it's really like almost like a

character

in these scenes not only was agatha

immensely skilled with a palette knife

and a buttercream flourish

she was also very brave in a case like

this where the pastries are just set

dressing

i would do whatever i had to do to make

these

indestructible and last as long as

possible

although they're spoiled holder mendel's

is the best

this next scene is from crazy rich

asians

forget about these girls camp out here

and order room service

it's highly likely that these two shots

were shot

at different times if there's no reason

to have the actors

in the room with this probably smelly

fish

why would you i would think even for the

film crew they would have tried to keep

the smells to a minimum

you wouldn't really want like smelly

rotten fish in the room with the crew

this

it definitely looks like a real fish in

the scene to me the guts and blood

are probably fake but you never know it

could be anything it could be

paper towel soaked in fake blood this is

sometimes where the

special effects department would

actually get involved usually they

can create like fake growth stuff that

isn't as gross as it looks

next up is willy wonka and the chocolate

factory

hurry up pilot this way grandpa

each of those props that you see all of

the

supposed candy and the garden and

they're

going crazy over it if you look at it it

really it just looks like plastic and

vinyl

and it more creates this fantasy world

and if you

look closely at what they're doing

they've just opened up one of these

plastic mushrooms and put something

inside and even the chocolate waterfall

doesn't really look like chocolate

it just looks like brown water you've

ruined your watershed wonka

it's polluted it's chocolate none of it

really looks like

food or really like anything but you

kind of buy it

and again the actors reactions are

having a big effect on how

you interpret the scene next up is the

founder

speed that's the name of the game the

first stop for

every mcdonald's hamburger is the grill

i feel like the scene is very successful

because i really did feel like i was

in that kitchen back in the first

mcdonald's

because it really showed you a lot of

detail behind the scenes

burger crossing you see hamburgers that

were

clearly made by hand that is probably

how they were made

in the beginning before they became a

huge conglomerate

that lends a real air of reality to the

scene

because if they showed burgers the way

they look now at mcdonald's these sort

of perfect

circles i would have a harder time

believing that that it was

real like to me just the shape of the

burgers

really is the one thing here that tells

me that oh wow this is like the first

mcdonald's

next time you see a plate of food in a

movie think about

all that went into it and remember that

nothing is

accidental when you see it on the screen

thanks so much for

watching and thanks for having me vanity

fair