Dallas Does Reality TV

The knives come out: Three Dallas chefs, including firebrand John Tesar, tocompete on Top Chef

Dallas cheftestants Danyele McPherson of The Grape, John Tesar of Spoon andJoshua Valentine of FT33.
Top Chef returns for a 10th season November 7.

Dallas scores big once again in reality TV. Three local chefs will compete on Top Chef: Seattle, the latest season of the Bravo cooking show hosted by Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi. It premieres Wednesday, November 7, at 9 pm.

The show will follow the same format as last season's Top Chef: Texas by opening with an unusually large number of contestants — 21 — including four from California; three from Los Angeles; two from New York; two from Boston; three from Colorado; three from Washington, D.C.; and one each from Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Hawaii and Georgia.

Dallas contestants are Danyele McPherson, John Tesar and Joshua Valentine, who will be the pastry chef at FT33, the new restaurant from chef Matt McCallister.

Oklahoma native Valentine, 33, got his A.O.S. in culinary arts from Le Cordon Bleu, Minneapolis. He has worked at Restaurant Alma in Minneapolis; Local, Stephan Pyles and Samar by Stephan Pyles in Dallas; The Coach House in Oklahoma; and Divine Swine.

Valentine says before filming began, he was unaware there would be other chefs from Dallas.

"I had no idea about the other Dallas chefs," he says. "I didn't know John other than by reputation and reading about him. I worked with Danyele at Stephan Pyles when Matt [McCallister] and I were there. She was a line cook."

He says that during the taping of the show, the three Dallas chefs didn't group together. "Everybody was fending for themselves," he says.

On the Bravo website, McPherson is described as the 31-year-old sous chef of The Grape, originally from Waynesville, North Carolina. She got her BA in anthropology from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, followed by an "attendance" at the Culinary Institute of America, before leaving for an internship. Stephan Pyles is listed under her work experience.

New York native Tesar is the 54-year-old chef and restaurateur of Spoon Bar & Kitchen who attended La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine, Paris. His resume is lengthy: Club Pierre in Westhampton, 13 Barrow Street, 44 & Hell’s Kitchen, Vine and The Supper Club in New York, RM Seafood in Las Vegas, The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. Hey, there's no mention of The Commissary at One Arts Plaza.

The show will bring back Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen, the digital video series hosted by Tom Colicchio in which losing contestants get a second chance at appearing in the show's finale.

Dallas has provided endless contestant fodder for reality TV, from Mark Cuban and Michael Irvin on Dancing With the Stars to Sean Lowe of The Bachelorette to Sunny Sinclair on The Biggest Loser. Tim Halperin, Hollie Cavanagh and Kelly Clarkson appeared on American Idol; Jany Lee and Hilari Younger made it to HGTV's Design Star. Louise Black and Shirin Askari were contestants on Project Runway, and recently it was announced that Joe Kirkland (of Artist vs Poet) will appear on The Voice.

Oodles of Dallas chefs have gotten in on the reality-TV action, from Ben Starr and Jennie Kelley on MasterChef to Blythe Beck on Naughty Chef to Morgan Wilson and Lina Biancamano on Top Chef: Just Desserts. Plus there was Carrie Keep on Hell's Kitchen and Liza Garza and Melissa d'Arabian on Next Food Network Star.

Three area chefs have competed on Top Chef: Tiffany Derry, Casey Thompson (now in Napa Valley) and Tre Wilcox. Fort Worth chef Tim Love was on Top Chef: Masters, and Tesar was on Extreme Chef last year. (He won.) Bravo just announced Top Chef: The Cruise with Derry, Thompson and Love.

unspecified

Movie Review

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney go off in trashy film The Housemaid

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid.

Both Amanda Seyfried (the upcoming The Testament of Ann Lee) and Sydney Sweeney (Christy) are starring in movies with Oscar ambitions this year. By sheer coincidence, the two actors are also co-starring in The Housemaid, a thriller coming out within weeks of their more ambitious works, one that is likely to be seen by many more people than those prestige plays.

Sweeney is given top billing as Millie, a down-on-her-luck ex-convict looking to land any type of job so as not to break her parole. She finds a too-good-to-be-true lifeboat with Nina (Seyfried), who hires her to be a housemaid for her large house on Long Island, where she lives with her husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and daughter, Cecilia (Indiana Elle).

After a warm interview, Nina almost immediately becomes highly erratic, whipping back-and-forth between happy-go-lucky and rageful. It seems clear that Nina is suffering from mental health issues, as she’ll often accuse Millie of misplacing or stealing items that she didn’t take. Andrew, apparently used to Nina’s tirades, tries to protect Millie from the worst, something that grows increasingly difficult as Nina ups the ante.

Directed by Paul Feig (A Simple Favor) and adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from the bestselling book by Freida McFadden, the film is likely the trashiest mainstream movie to come out in 2025. The first half of the movie relies not on story but on moments as Nina embodies the word “hysterical” to an unbelievable extent. The resigned acceptance of the abuse by Millie, as well as the saintly patience of Andrew, make almost every scene laughable, as nobody seems to be acting anywhere close to how a person would normally react to such extreme situations.

The scenes and the performance of Seyfried are so over-the-top, in fact, that it’s clear that the filmmakers are in on the joke. It’s next to impossible not to have a little bit of fun while watching the actors react to outrageous incidents as if nothing is out of the ordinary. The worse Nina acts, the more Millie and Andrew retreat into their chosen roles, and the funnier the film becomes.

Fans of the book will know that the story changes course, eventually turning into a more stereotypical thriller that also has some relatively gnarly visuals to offer. But the trashiness continues, with Sweeney’s, um, assets repeatedly on display in both clothed and unclothed ways. The sex appeal of the R-rated movie makes it an outlier, as recent studio films have shied away from asking their big stars to disrobe completely.

Both Seyfried and Sweeney are far from their Oscar hopeful roles here. Seyfried is given free rein to act as brazenly as she pleases, and she takes full advantage of that ability. Sweeney seems to have been told to be much more reserved, and unfortunately that results in too many wooden line readings. Sklenar continues his breakout streak (It Ends with Us, Drop) with a role that allows him to show more range than either Seyfried or Sweeney.

The Housemaid is an unusual type of movie to be released at a time of year when most films are either those aiming for awards or more family-friendly fare. Despite its many flaws, it’s still an enjoyable watch that features a variety of crazy scenarios not typically seen in movies nowadays.

---

The Housemaid is now playing in theaters.

movies film