How Andrew Rea Decides What To Cook On Binging With Babish - Exclusive

YouTube sensation Binging with Babish boasts nearly 10 million subscribers, so it's no surprise if you're already familiar with this channel that features chef Andrew Rea cooking up tantalizing dishes from your favorite movies and television shows. In recent episodes, Rea has made Aunt Petunia's Pudding from "Harry Potter," artfully created Patrick's suitcase filled with ice cream and doughnuts from "Spongebob Squarepants," and made a giant everything bagel from "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Over the years, Rea has cooked and baked a huge assortment of foods inspired by movies and TV shows, but the foods he prepares on his channel aren't just chosen at random. He takes several key factors into account when he plans his channel's content, including what people will like, what will perform well on the channel, and what he personally would enjoy making. Some videos, he told Mashed in a recent exclusive interview, are just for him, but others are made with particular fan bases in mind.

Andrew Rea told Mashed he's always striving to find the right balance in deciding what to cook for his show. He asks himself, "What am I going to have fun making? What do people want to see? What will perform? It's very hard to tick all three of those boxes at once," Rea said. Sometimes, I'm putting out episodes that are just for me. Nobody was asking for the everything bagel from 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' [and] nobody certainly asked me to recreate the vibe of the movie. That one was for me."

Rea also says that he loves featuring food from "Spongebob Squarepants," partially because of the show's large fan base. Sometimes, he honors crowd requests like with his recent episode featuring the blue noodles from "Andor."

"They're only on screen for two seconds. They don't talk about them. Normally, that's a deal breaker for me, but blue noodles were so interesting. I had to play with it, and we got a fun episode out of it," Rea said.

But the everything bagel episode inspired by "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is one of Rea's favorite recent creations, one that he also calls one of his most labor-intensive to date. He said, "That movie's about universe popping and multiverse stuff, so I wanted to do some multiverse things. I did some visual effects. I did some camera trickery, and I had a blast. I pulled the first all-nighter that I've pulled in my 30s or since 35. I was obsessed with what I was doing because I was so excited about it ..."

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