Marco the Movie - the feuds, the tantrums, the wives! Nothing's off the menu in Hollywood biopic, says superstar chef Pierre White

• Chef's ascent from Leeds council estate being dramatised by Ridley Scott
• Michael Fassbender has met Marco, 53, to talk about taking the lead role
• 'He has a magnetic energy and I would love him to play me', said chef
• Film is likely to go into production next year, he told the Mail on Sunday

By Katie Nicholl For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 17:01 EST, 29 November 2014 | Updated: 03:49 EST, 30 November 2014

His hell-raising antics are legendary. As haute cuisine’s chain-smoking, pot-throwing enfant terrible, Marco Pierre White is as famous for his fiery relationships and tortured domestic life as he is for his prowess in the kitchen.

With three Michelin stars, as many former wives, and four children to his name, his life story – peppered with angry feuds and marital high jinks – could have been written as a movie script.

And, sure enough, now his colourful journey from a council estate in Leeds to becoming the first British chef to win the culinary world’s loftiest accolade, is to be made into a Hollywood film by the British film director and producer Sir Ridley Scott.

Spot the difference: Marco Pierre White (left) and how Michael Fassbender might look playing the fiery chef

Marco has sold the rights to his bestselling autobiography, The Devil In The Kitchen, to Scott, whose films include Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Blade Runner and Thelma And Louise.

Hollywood star Michael Fassbender has first option to play the rock ’n’ roll chef.

Speaking about the film for the first time, Hell’s Kitchen star Marco, who retired from professional cooking 15 years ago, says that Scott is the only director he wanted to portray his life on the big screen.

‘I’ve had lots of film offers in the past, but Ridley’s the only person I trust to tell my story,’ says Marco. ‘Ridley and his partner Giannina [the Costa Rican actress Giannina Facio, who made Gladiator with Scott] are doing the movie. They made an offer last year and now the deal is finalised and I’ll be working closely on the project.’

Special cameo? Lisa 'Family' Butcher, his wife 2 of 3

Scott has indicated that he is down to a shortlist of two scriptwriters and the film is likely to go into production next year.

Others tipped for roles include Daniel Craig – he is believed to be in the running to play Marco’s pugnacious rival Gordon Ramsay, who was once his trainee. Marco is the only person known to have reduced the equally fiery chef to tears.

German-born Fassbender, nominated for this year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his part in Twelve Years A Slave, met Marco during the summer to talk about the role.

‘He’s a wonderful actor and quite extraordinary,’ says Marco. ‘We had dinner and he was incredibly cool. He just oozed charisma.

‘He has a magnetic energy and I would love him to play me. He has that fire inside his belly that I understand.

‘It’s a great privilege to have met him and to be working with Ridley. I’m just a cook, a Yorkshire boy from humble beginnings, so to have a movie made about my life is pretty incredible.’

If Marco sounds a tad more meek than his fearsome reputation suggests, it may be because, about to turn 53, he claims he has finally mellowed. In that respect, he has been helped by the love of yet another good woman.

She is none other than the British actress Emilia Fox, the 40-year-old star of the BBC television series Silent Witness and daughter of actors Edward Fox and Joanna David.

Ms Fox is divorced from her first husband, actor Jared Harris, to whom she was married for four years. She also has a four-year-old daughter, Rose, from her one-year union with actor and peace campaigner Jeremy Gilley after she split from Harris.

‘We’ve been together three years, but we’ve been careful and the papers didn’t find out until recently,’ Marco chuckles. During the summer, he confides, they split up for a short period, but are now happily back together.

‘She’s a wonderful person and we have a very special relationship. I feel very safe and very loved with Emilia,’ Marco says, speaking about the relationship for the first time.

‘I am very comfortable with her. We first met years ago and I’ve always enjoyed her company. She’s the kindest human being you’ve ever met.

‘She’s a real person and without question the hardest working woman I’ve ever met, and she’s also an extraordinary mother.’

While Marco may have toned down his wildman antics, the film will depict all the excesses of his younger days.

It will begin when the young Marco, one of four children born to Frank White and Maria-Rosa Gallina – who died when Marco was just six – left his home in Leeds at 16. He quit his comprehensive, Allerton High School, without any formal qualifications and arrived in London with ‘£7.36, a box of books and a bag of clothes’.

Action: Gladiator director Ridley Scott, who will make the film of Marco's rise from a Leeds council estate

He had decided he wanted to be a chef, and having heard of the legendary Roux brothers, Albert and Michel, knocked on the door of their restaurant – Le Gavroche in Mayfair – asking for a job.

There he trained as a commis chef before setting up his own restaurant, Harvey’s in South-West London, in 1987. Within a year he had won two of his Michelin stars (he won his third aged just 33 for The Restaurant Marco Pierre White).

His work rate and his temper soon became as famous as his dishes, and Marco would frequently boot customers out of his establishments if they complained about the food.

Emilia 'Arctic' Fox: His ice-cool leading lady

‘I was struggling and searching for something, and I thought, “Wow – I’ll have a go at cooking.” I went on to achieve the ultimate in French gastronomy and, to this day, I’ve yet to dine in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France,’ he adds proudly.

As well as charting his culinary achievements and training of chefs such as Ramsay, the movie will also chart Marco’s turbulent love life. His first marriage to Alex McArthur yielded a daughter, Lettie, while his second – to the former model Lisa Butcher – ended during their honeymoon. He has yet to divorce his third wife, Spanish-born former waitress Mati Conejero, the mother of three of his children.

Theirs was a turbulent union. That said, his relationship with Mati now, is, according to Marco, better than it has been for years.

The pair met when Mati was a bartender at the Canteen restaurant in West London. They were married in 2000 but separated seven years later.

‘Mati supported my dream and she made great sacrifices,’ he concedes graciously. ‘She also gave me three wonderful children.’

But during the marriage, Mati accused Marco of cheating on her (for the record, he swears he was never unfaithful), and the couple’s rows made frequent headlines in the tabloids. ‘Things with Mati are very good now,’ he insists. ‘It’s about respect and I respect Mati for being a really great mother. Lots of people separate – it’s very easy to separate. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough.’

Then, of course, there have been the many feuds with fellow celebrity chefs, all of which will also feature in the movie.

Marco famously fell out with his old boss Albert Roux when Roux, his best man at his second wedding, didn’t vote for Marco in an awards ceremony. And he still refuses to speak to his one-time protege Gordon Ramsay.

‘I stopped talking to Gordon because he bought a camera crew to my wedding.’ This was on the occasion of his third wedding, to Mati, when Ramsay hid in some nearby bushes with his team. (It remains unclear why he did it.)

‘But I am over feuds and politics these days. I’m growing older, not younger. Life’s too short for rows, fame and nonsense,’ Marco insists.

It certainly appears as though his wild days are a thing of the past.

In The Devil In The Kitchen, he recalls taking women up to his office above Harvey’s for something that wasn’t on the menu, but these days he is committed to Emilia.

He now advertises Knorr stock cubes and travels widely – he will spend three weeks filming MasterChef in Australia in the run-up to Christmas.

It was while filming the show Down Under in 2012 that Marco decided to tame some of his hell-raising ways by abandoning a host of friendships.

‘I left my home in London on October 30, 2012, and came back in March 2013. During the drive to the MasterChef studios I went through my phone and started deleting numbers of people I didn’t feel enriched my life any more. By the end, I had eliminated 500 numbers. It was very cathartic.

Gordon 'Effing' Ramsay: Marco Pierre White's arch-rival could end up starring as himself

‘When I came home I was a different man and I decided to leave London. I’m naturally an introvert but I was more reclusive after Australia. I’ve never liked crowds and parties. What I enjoy is spending time with ordinary people – my builders and gardeners.

‘I’m so over awards ceremonies and showbusiness parties.

‘I’ve always loved fishing, deer stalking and planting things, and that is the life I have chosen.

‘I’m a country boy at heart. As a little boy I used live in my wellington boots, partly because they were all my parents could afford.’

Marco’s home now is a Victorian country retreat near Bath.

His latest project is a boutique hotel overlooking the Wiltshire countryside called The Rudloe Arms in Corsham.

He has overseen an extensive refurbishment, and Emilia’s influence, including a ‘Kissing Gate’, is clear. ‘Emilia loves it here. She says it really feels like home.

‘For me it is home and I don’t miss London at all, but Emilia still lives there and I can’t persuade her to move, but we make things work.’

At 40, Emilia is some 13 years younger than Marco. But the chef is unperturbed about the age gap.

‘Age is just a number, isn’t it,’ he shrugs, drawing on one of his trademark Marlboro cigarettes.

‘We can’t retain youth and beauty. It’s who we are that matters. I know myself better these days.

‘I don’t care about the fame and celebrity. My priorities have changed. My children, Emilia and little Rose are without doubt the most important things in my life. Family is more important than anything. I still have the same insecurities I had when I was ten, but I’ve learned to deal with them.’

He admits: ‘I’m far from perfect. I’m sure my mother would have been horrified by my conduct at times.’