Morgan Neville Reveals The Hardest Part Of Filming Roadrunner - Exclusive
Morgan Neville, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, recently released his latest work, "Roadrunner," on the life and death of Anthony Bourdain. While the movie broaches many difficult topics, as well as the joys of Bourdain's career, the dense and heavy documentary was no easy feat to film. Mashed sat down with Neville to discuss the documentary and Bourdain's legacy prior to the film's release. It was during that interview that Neville explained just what made "Roadrunner" so challenging to create.
One component of "Roadrunner" that made it so hard to film was the timing of the shooting. "There was so much grief in the wake of his death," Neville said. "And me, I started the film maybe 16 months after he had died and I worked on it for two years, so almost two years," he added. Speaking to and interviewing the close friends and family of Bourdain so close after his death by suicide revealed just how fresh their pain and remembrance of the beloved writer and travel host was.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Neville saw a pattern in all of his interview subjects
While working on the film so soon after Bourdain's death allowed him to get real, visceral responses from his subjects, Morgan Neville felt that wasn't the only part of the documentary that was so challenging. It was the weight of the topics and the sheer trauma that all of those he interviewed felt, which was so challenging. "So it was a lot of just trauma to deal with, whether in interviews or conversations or just thinking about it, it's just f***ing heavy," Neville explained. "It was hard, which is not to say that's not the job I signed up for. It was, but that was the hardest challenge in making it," he added.
Neville understood that he was making a documentary that would be incredibly difficult to interview those closest to Bourdain so soon after their loss. Those interviews included chefs David Chang, Éric Ripert, and Bourdain's former wife Ottavia Busia. However challenging, Neville's dedication to the project and working through such difficult conversations ultimately resulted in a film that is a raw and real portrait of Bourdain's life.
Neville's documentary "Roadrunner," released by Focus Features, is now playing in theaters.