Bowdoin students enjoyed a special treat recently as film and TV actor Paul Adelstein ’91, who is also a writer and director, shared his insight into the entertainment world.
Filming The Menu was definitely one of the creative highlights of his career, says Adelstein. “It felt like doing theater with that wonderful group of actors on camera at the same time—basically the whole production. That’s very rare in film,” he adds. “It’s usually done piecemeal.”
A dark comedy/ horror, The Menu depicts the fate of an invited group of wealthy foodies, celebrities, financiers, and other prominent people invited to the private island of a world-renowned chef, played by Ralph Fiennes, for the culinary experience of a lifetime. As the guests make their way through an exquisitely crafted and increasingly bizarre menu, which includes a “breadless bread plate,” events take a sinister turn.
Adelstein plays one of the guests, editor and companion to a renowned food critic, played by Janet McTeer. When he first saw the movie script, Adelstein had one reaction: “I loved it immediately. I thought it was one of the most original things I've read in a long time.”
The movie was shot during lockdown, explains Adelstein, which had its challenges and its pluses. “We all got very close,” he says, reflecting on the sense of camaraderie among the cast and crew. As you would expect, the catering was good and at times exceptionally good, as they got to taste the creations of the film’s culinary advisor—Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn. The set featured a real working kitchen, says Adelstein, and Crenn made the actual dishes featured in the movie, although supplies were not limitless: “The first take or so you would get the real stuff, but after that it would be a piece of potato instead of a scallop.”
Adelstein is one of the most consistently working and in-demand character actors in Hollywood at the moment. His current big screen credits include the thriller Crime 101, where he stars alongside Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry, and the romantic comedy For Worse. He’s also excited, he says, to be starring in the upcoming TV series featuring Zach Galifianakis, The Audacity, which premieres on AMC next month. “It's a really great dark comedy about tech billionaires and their psychiatrists… I’m one of the psychiatrists.”
For a few days in early March, Adelstein took time out of his schedule to visit Bowdoin. He joined students for a campus screening of The Menu followed by a question-and-answer session, during which he shared some insight into the filmmaking process and offered some career advice for those interested in careers in filmmaking and acting.
Today’s film and TV environment, transformed by industry consolidation and the impact of artificial intelligence, is very different from when he graduated, says Adelstein. “It's always been an industry that's constantly changing, although I think in the last ten years it's probably changed more radically [than] since, maybe, ‘talkies’ were introduced.”
Despite this challenging environment, the best general advice Adelstein offers remains the same as it’s always been: “Whether it’s directing, writing, or acting you’re into, find a place you can do it. Take whatever opportunity you can to actually be doing the thing, not just studying it,” he stressed. “There's nothing more valuable than that, and it invariably leads to other opportunities that you couldn't have imagined.”
Adelstein also sat in on an English and theater class taught by his former teacher, Harrison King McCann Professor of English Marilyn Reizbaum. “I did my honors thesis on Samuel Beckett and James Joyce under Professor Reizbaum,” says Adelstein, who majored in English with a minor in music. “She was teaching a class on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot so I talked to the students from the perspective of an actor, because it’s a text that can be approached in so many different ways, and the nuts and bolts of it are quite different when you're putting it on its feet and acting in it.”
His own path saw him take to the stage as an undergraduate, acting in one official Bowdoin production and one student production. For much of his college years, however, Adelstein acted professionally, taking up with John Cusack’s trailblazing Chicago-based New Crime Productions theater company after his sophomore year. “I always wanted to be in film and television, but I also knew theater was the best training I could get. I also loved doing theater.” Adelstein took his own advice and seized the opportunity to become a professional actor, spending his junior year in Chicago, where he was able to stay enrolled at Bowdoin by taking some credits at Northwestern University and doing a summer class.
During this time, Adelstein admits he was considering dropping out of Bowdoin, going to drama school, and throwing himself fully into acting. He’s glad he didn’t. “I had a really wonderful teacher in Chicago who told me I had to go back to Bowdoin. ‘You need to read the good books,’ she told me. ‘You need to learn how to think; you have to expand your mind as much as you possibly can, because that is what you draw on to act. Do not undervalue a liberal arts education.’ She was absolutely right.”
Paul Adelstein's visit to Bowdoin was hosted by the Departments of English and Theater and Dance, the Cinema Studies Program, and the Bowdoin Film Society.
