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The much talked about big-screen adaptation of Marco Pierre White’s autobiography ‘The Devil in the Kitchen’, looks to have taken a major step towards production phase with the involvement of Australian actor Russell Crowe.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, White said "I have just signed the deal. Russell has written the script, Russell's company is producing it, Russell is directing it and Russell is playing the third or fourth Marco."
He explained: "When they do a movie on your life, you don't just have one Marco - I am nearly 60 years old."
White seems very happy with the choice of Crowe to play the chef saying, "If there was anyone in Hollywood to play me, it would have to be Russell."
Legendary director Ridley Scott is the force behind the movie, originally optioning the rights for ‘The Devil in the Kitchen’ together with his wife Giannina Facio and screenwriter Colet Abedi back in 2014.
However, Crowe has rowed in to breathe fresh life into the project and will direct it. As it’s a biopic, which happens over the course of 50 years or so, several actors will get the chance at playing Britain gastronomy’s original enfant terrible, with Michael Fassbender’s name also routinely linked to the project.
He recalls how he first saw the Australian in an in-flight movie: "I didn't know Russell then”, he says.
"I had never met him because [the idea for the movie] all started with Ridley Scott, not with Russell.
"But I thought to myself, 'Actually I think Russell Crowe should be playing me, not Michael Fassbender'," he added.
But the chef said he thought twice about sharing his views with the award-wining director, saying: "I can't tell Ridley Scott how to suck eggs."
He said: "Shortly afterwards, Ridley came on board with Russell so it was purely coincidental."
Marco Pierre-White, famously the first and youngest British chef to win three Michelin stars, experienced a ‘tumultuous upbringing’ on a Leeds housing estate before heading to London to pursue his culinary dreams.
At 24 he became the head chef and partner at Harvey’s with a kitchen staff including a young Gordon Ramsay, who he allegedly made cry.
The restaurant world his completely unrecognisable to how it was then such has the industry changed, but there is still a great deal of fascination for the heady days of hedonism in a booming Thatcherite London and the tales of sex, drugs and casseroles during service at the pinnacle of the fine dining scene will sure make for compelling viewing.
