Food Stylist Reviews Food Scenes from Movies

I was the food stylist on Julie & Julia.

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 Spungen.

Today, I'll be reviewing food styling in TV and film.

[enchanting music]

This next clip is from The Princess Diaries.

What a wild bunch.

Very exciting.

Thank you.

[Susan] In any situation,

ice cream is definitely the hardest thing to shoot,

whether or not this is real ice cream or sorbet is

an open question.

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 doesn't melt.

Because by the time you started shooting,

it could be melting.

[Mia mumbling]

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,

'cause they're eating it.

It's very possible it's actual sorbet.

'Cause I did see a little bit of melt around the edge

in the bowl.

[people struggling]

They're acting like monkeys.

[Susan] This scene is from Matilda.

[students gasping]

This cake really had to have a lot of screen presence.

Smells chocolatey, aye?

[Susan] 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

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.

[boy burping]

[students laughing]

[Susan] This next film is Eat, Pray, Love.

[opera music]

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 into her impulses and just live life.

But, I didn't really understand how important

the 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 wrapped.

We're moving onto the next location,

company move, they say.

So you clean up and you throw everything away.

And they were like, Wait a minute, wait a minute.

We need to shoot an insert.

It just 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 re-plated it,

and we did the Parmesan cheese falling on the pasta.

But don't worry,

I didn't feed Julia Roberts pasta that had been

in the trash.

This is Sex and 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 a pretty easy thing to source.

They probably had trays and trays of it in a refrigerator,

because it might've taken multiple takes

to get the shots that they needed.

[Samantha] 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.

[Susan] This next scene is from Julie & Julia.

You may think that boning a duck is an impossible feat.

[Susan] I was the food stylist on Julia & Julia.

Don't be afraid.

No fear, Julia.

We had a sort of makeshift kitchen 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 back bone.

Is it hard to bone a duck?

Well, it isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Ew, disgusting.

Oh, maybe the eggs aren't fresh.

Julia 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.

'Cause 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, Meryl is doing a few things.

But, you don't see the more intricate parts.

[Julie] And then, I was trussing

the Poulet Roti a la Normande

and it fell on the floor. Damn it!

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.

[Susan] This next scene is from Emily in Paris.

Ah, this steak isn't cooked at all.

Excuse me? Pardon, Monsieur?

[Susan] 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 totally the actors' reactions

and the dialogue that is 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 closeup 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 comes out

of a small little bistro kitchen perfectly clean,

and his sleeves are rolled up on his biceps.

I mean, it's definitely not real.

It's all there to serve the story

and it's not about the food.

See? I knew you'd like it if you give it a chance.

[Susan] 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 is how it all starts.

And you are immediately just drawn in

to 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.

[food sizzling]

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 kinds of things would kind of dictate

how you would source your ingredients

and how to basically prep.

Your job as the food stylist is to be ready,

never want to keep this very huge

and expensive crew waiting.

This next scene is from Inglorious Basterds.

[speaking foreign language]

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.

[speaking foreign language]

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 closeups

of the strudel and the cream,

just so they could show you a closeup 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 a 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 the 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 so are the clothes.

So, it's all of a piece.

This next scene is from The Grand Budapest Hotel.

[Narrator] This was also when I met Agatha.

From what I understand about the way Wes Anderson works,

there are 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.

[Narrator] Not only was Agatha immensely skilled

with a pallet 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.

[Man 1] Out of this world.

[Man 2] Mendl's is the best.

[Susan] This next scene is from Crazy Rich Asians.

Forget about those girls.

Camp out here and order room service.

[woman screaming]

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 definitely looks like a real fish in this scene,

to me.

The guts and blood are probably fake,

but you never know.

It could be anything.

It could be paper towels soaked in fake blood.

This is sometimes where the special effects department

would actually get involved.

Usually they can create like fake gross stuff that isn't

as gross as it looks.

Next up is Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Hurry up, Violet!

This way, Grandpa.

Each of those props that you see,

all of the supposed candy in the garden,

and they're all going crazy over it.

If you look at it, 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 this 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.

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 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.