VANCOUVER—Few people can claim they’ve directed Anthony Bourdain in front of the camera, and even fewer can say they’ve directed Bourdain in a sci-fi action movie.

Uwe Boll, Vancouver restaurateur and a former film director, has done both, directing Bourdain — the recently deceased celebrity chef, TV host and author — on a Vancouver film set.

Bourdain’s cameo came as part of an episode on his former hit TV series No Reservations — airing from 2005 to 2012 — which highlighted Vancouver as a filming and food destination. He had reached out to Boll asking for a part in his 2008 movie Far Cry, which is about a German ex-special forces soldier hired by a journalist to help investigate a secret research facility.

Boll, a German film director with at least 32 titles known for his combative style in movies, welcomed Bourdain’s cameo. He chuckled as he described Bourdain learning his scene playing a medical technician in a biotechnology lab.

“He learned to fall down after a gunshot ... and it’s hard.” The crew created a situation where he could fall backwards against the wall, while the fake blood pack exploded from under his shirt. Bourdain, Boll recalled, ate craft service like everyone else and was respectful of the busy shooting schedule.

“He is a person (who) makes everybody feel good. ... He brought that on set in Vancouver, too. Everybody was around him, everybody talked about him. But he was never disturbing the work,” he said.

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Other than the two men’s constant presence in front of and behind the camera, Boll also acknowledged that they both had an edgier, unpretentious image in the public eye.

“I think my image is more aggressive, straight-in-the-face blunt (than) Bourdain. But I think where the similarities are is ... we have strong opinions. We are kind of untainted,” said Boll, who opened Bauhaus, a fine-dining German restaurant, three years ago.

“I’m a big critic of myself, I’m a big critic of anybody else, too. So it’s like I call out bull- - - t. In that point of view, he had a life like a maverick and I, in a way, too, in a different business.”

American TV celebrity and food writer Anthony Bourdain has been found dead in his hotel room in France. He was 61. (The Associated Press)

Although both men had shared interests working in entertainment, it was their love of food and travel that first brought them together in 1999.

Their chemistry was instant when Boll, who was scouting for filming locations in Los Angeles and New York, met Bourdain at Les Halles, a French brasserie where Bourdain served as executive chef. It was just before the release of Kitchen Confidential, a book that made Bourdain a mainstream hit, and before Boll started directing a string of North American movies.

After the meal, Bourdain visited the customers and the two men exchanged notes on food destinations in New York and Germany. Boll pointed out to Bourdain, who was curious about Germany’s food scene, that high-end cuisine was more than a remake of the classics — schnitzel, pork roast and pork knuckles. Instead, German chefs were reinventing high-end cuisine inspired by different cultures and techniques.

“He gave you the feeling he really paid attention. He was really interested in who are you, why you’re here, and I think that kind of calm curiosity, that was just in him.”

That same “charisma” that he saw in Bourdain later made its way into his TV shows, Boll said.

Ever since their encounters in New York and Vancouver, he has admired Bourdain’s career from afar. As he watched Bourdain grow older on screen, Boll noticed that he never let his interest and curiosity in other cultures and people fade.

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“It’s so sad,” Boll said when he learned of Bourdain’s death last week. “But it shows really that depression is a real disease.”

Toronto Star food writer Karon Liu, who briefly interviewed Bourdain in 2011, said his affinity for Canada was clear in the friendships he formed here.

“He was always championing Canada,” Liu said, adding that Bourdain used his show as a platform to dispel stereotypes people might have had about Canada’s food scene and went in-depth to educate the public about deeper issues affecting local communities, such as overfishing and sustainability in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“It made everyone feel smarter about all the places he travelled to.”

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