Matthew Rhys On Fearing Bradley Cooper’s Death And Struggling To Make An Omelette Filming ‘Burnt’ [EXCLUSIVE]

Interview By uInterview Founder Erik Meers

Matthew Rhys stars in John Wells‘ culinary comedy-drama Burnt as the elite chef whose successes taunt Bradley Cooper‘s character.

Matthew Rhys On ‘Burnt’

In Burnt, Rhys’ character Reece proudly boasts three Michelin stars, a feat of the culinary elite that Cooper’s Adam Jones is hungrily trying to achieve. For Adam, it’s of paramount importance to attain that elusive status to make himself Reece’s equal on paper, and for Reece, it’s equally important to hold onto the mark of superiority.

Despite the characters being at odds with one another, one scene in the film forced Rhys to break character and respond as any human would when someone else’s death appears imminent before him or her. In a moment of improvisation, the committed Cooper managed to convince Rhys that his apparent suffocation wasn’t an act.

“He’s fearless in striving to make the scene as perfect as possible, and that is applied to any element,” Rhys told uInterview exclusively. “At the very end… Bradley’s character at his lowest ebb sort of took [a poaching bag] and began to suffocate himself in a very realistic way,” Rhys explained. “So I abandoned any acting and tried to get it off his head.”

Fearing Cooper’s end by way of a poaching bag may have been Rhys’ most memorable moment on set, but reviewers have noted that the shots of food are the ones that won’t soon be forgotten after seeing Burnt. One of the items that Rhys had to cook up was a French omelette – a task that proved far harder than the actor had anticipated.

“[I had] to present Bradley with an omelette at one point, which I thought would be fine. But when I was taught by one of Marcus Wareing’s chefs, who is a three star Michelin chef himself, how to do a french omelette, I realized that I was so out of my depth, I should’ve drowned,” joked Ryhs.

So, how did the scene go on? “She very kindly did the majority of all the omelette shots, and very kindly passed it to me on the word action.”

Burnt, which also stars Sienna Miller and Daniel Brühl, is currently in wide release.

Text by Chelsea Regan.