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susan spungen

Food Stylist Shares The Secrets of Eat Pray Love Food Styling

Filed under: Dining



Eat Pray Love opens this weekend and as the title suggests, there is plenty of luscious food imagery. But movie food styling isn't as simple as just plating the pasta and letting the actor go to town. In an interview on OpenTable, the food stylist for the movie Susan Spungen reveals some of the behind-the-scenes details. Spungen was the food editor and editorial director for Martha Stewart Living magazine for 12 years and was also the stylist behind the tempting food shots in "Julie and Julia" and "It's Complicated."

As you might imagine, the actors have to eat the same food over and over for the many takes in a movie, what takes 30 seconds on the screen can take hours of work and the food has to be freshly perfect each time and the actor has to not get too overstuffed. So heavy foods and intense spices are out as is anything that might get stuck in an actor's teeth (no little pieces of parsley). The pizza eating scenes showcased in the movie were shot at the place in Naples mentioned in the book, making shooting the scenes a challenge of timing and logistics. Still, despite the challenges of melting gelato and cooking in strange locations it sounds like Spungen had a blast working on the film.

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