Sebastian Stan Talks ‘Different Man’ and Trump’s Role on ‘Apprentice’

Sebastian Stan is not only a Marvel star, but he proves it in a phenomenal way Another manAaron Schimberg’s dark tale of transformation, madness, and murder.

Initially wearing facial prosthetics, Stan is extraordinary in the role of Edward, who finds a miracle cure for his neurofibromatosis (a condition that causes disfiguring tumors) and ends up starring in an off-Broadway play about his former life, written by a neighbor (Renate Reinsve) he misses, and eventually a stranger (Adam Pearson) who looks exactly like him shows up.

Deftly and intensely portraying Edward’s ever-changing feelings about his past and present, the actor creates a complex portrait of desire, discomfort, confusion and self-destruction. Like a one-man mirror in a distorting mirror, he is a lost soul struggling to see and accept himself clearly, and Stan conveys his upheaval with equal parts poignancy, horror and absurdity.

Premiere in cinemas on September 20th Another man is one of the best of the year and further confirmation that Stan is an artist of impressive versatility. While he is best known as the metal-armed Winter Soldier of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he has spent his time away from superheroes working on a wide range of projects, whether it be Craig Gillespie’s ripped-from-the-headlines Me, Tonya AND Pam and TommyMimi Cave’s terrifying thriller Freshor upcoming StudentAli Abbasi’s controversial biographical drama, in which the actor plays a young Donald Trump.

Without much fanfare, Stan has become a bold Hollywood risk-taker, moving between blockbusters and indies—not to mention genre—with aplomb and skill. But his latest is his most accomplished yet, demonstrating not only his talent for complex characterization but also for comedy, which helps to amplify the film’s dizzying surrealism and darkness. A performance that mutates and surprises with every twist is the real driving force.

Stan wasn’t done with his career of spectacular comics yet; Lightning*his latest Marvel assignment will be out next summer. However, his work in Another man is so incredible that, in a just world, it would herald a future of even bolder roles. For now, though, he’s focused on Schimberg’s masterful film, which he talked to us about — and a bit about his upcoming role as Trump — ahead of the film’s debut.

Another man was filmed in New York. Did you go out into the city wearing Edward’s prosthetics to see what the reactions would be?

So I did. It was probably one of the most important things I could have done. Mike Marino designed the prosthetics, and he worked on my prosthetics, and he worked on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. As a result, I sometimes prepared for us, even though I didn’t work until much later in the day. I spent hours in my prosthetics before we started, and then I would walk.

It was incredibly enlightening for me to feel that, because no one doubted me. No one thought I was an actor with prosthetics. I felt a certain tension around me. I was very nervous doing it, and in those situations, people are either very good actors or they don’t lie very well (laughter).

Were there any particularly noteworthy interactions during these outings?

I went to my old coffee shop and I saw people I knew and they obviously didn’t know it was me, so I went and sat down. The most relatable interaction I had with anyone was this little girl who came up to me and tried to talk to me and her mom, being a parent, started worrying that she was bothering me or something. It was just interesting how that whole interaction went because this little girl was inquisitive and she wasn’t making any judgments; she was just curious. Whereas everyone else in New York, you know, would either completely avoid you and not even look at you or would be really brusque and direct and stare and take pictures.

How does one prepare for a role that involves wearing — and not wearing — prosthetics in equal measure?

Every job is different, but you have to start from the inside; that’s what you’re always working on. You have to find the character within yourself. Then the external things are the icing on the cake, which informs behavior and helps in other ways. Again, it’s about building self-confidence.

Luckily, we shot a lot of Edward’s early scenes first, so I had experience with prosthetics, which allowed me to prepare the later part of the film when I don’t. I think that was valuable. But I did the usual research. I talked to Dr. Kaleb Yohay, who is the head of the neurofibromatosis program at NYU, and I asked him to look at the script and tell me if it would ever be possible, what it would look like, and what the community’s feelings were about it. And then, of course, I talked to Adam. And you can go on YouTube and find a lot of people with disfigurements and disabilities who talk about growing up and their experiences. It was very educational.

That must have been an interesting experience.

The last bit that really helped me was Elna Baker, who wrote a book and spoke on the This American Life podcast about her experience of losing 200 pounds and becoming virtually unrecognizable to people who were there before her — like Edward — and the crisis of identity and truth about herself that she went through as a result of that. Listening to her journey was really helpful for me because there were a lot of similarities to our story, weirdly.

How did you get here? Another man?

I have a cheat sheet of things that I’m looking for now, and it’s really about the character, the director, and the story. I don’t discriminate based on what the film is about or what genre it is; it’s really about who the character is, who the director is, and is there something in the story that I can learn from, or is it asking certain questions that can motivate and inspire. That’s how I approach it.

My agent sent me the script and said this filmmaker, you have to know him, you have to watch his movies. I watched Chained for life and I was blown away, and I thought, man, this is so crazy. The way it was written, you just don’t come across stuff like that unless you’re reading a play that was written decades ago. It was original, it was unique, and it wasn’t about anyone we knew. It just stood there on its own.

Was there a trick to keeping the essence of the character as the movie progressed towards Edward becoming Guy while still being Edward and then playing a theatrical version of himself and so on?

At first I thought about what the audience experience would be like and that you had to recognize Edward even though he didn’t look the same. There had to be things about him that were familiar, like body language. There were things that I was very aware of, but again, only until the prosthetics came in, at which point a whole other world took over.

I think about when I was a little kid. In high school, it was so much fun to get up and do plays and dress up and put on (costumes) and you weren’t always playing yourself; you could play different characters. I still get excited and excited when I think about a transformative situation, if that makes sense, because it opens things up in a completely different way. So yeah, sometimes I’m more looking for that, or I was looking for that. But I just think there’s so much value in doing something very small and quiet and personal in a completely different way.

In this case, when you have such a huge change, it really affects everything. You really forget about yourself, and that’s the goal.

It seems like outside of your Marvel work you’re constantly on the lookout for bold and/or off-beat parts. Is that intentional?

Yeah. I wondered, if I didn’t have Marvel, would I make the same creative decisions? I don’t know. I’ve been really lucky with that character (Winter Soldier) for 15 years. It allowed me to explore certain types of things. He’s not your typical lead character; he’s an antagonist, he has a backstory, all of those things. But it allowed me to explore a level of acting that I enjoyed.

At some point I thought, “Oh, I’m interested in these other things too.” So I know that I made a conscious decision to continue to keep myself in suspense, and hopefully other people in suspense. I’m a big believer in discomfort. That’s the thing about these kinds of movies—you can’t help but be very philosophical. But life is discomfort. Change is the only way to evolve. I think the Marvel thing is a different kind of challenge, because you think, what else can I discover about this character after all these years? But in terms of doing things outside of Marvel, I felt like I wanted to do things that scared me.

Unfortunately, as you know from watching a lot of movies, there aren’t many movies like this that are made on a big budget. That was Scorsese and David O. Russell and guys that I’ve always tried to get and I haven’t been able to get. That’s another level of big budget movie that I haven’t gotten to yet.

I saw Studentand you’re great at it. Are you prepared for the inevitable uproar that will greet its release?

I don’t know what it’s going to be like, because it’s already been here. Since we started doing it, there’s been a lot of turmoil, because it’s been so crazy and so hard to do. The process was so intense, and the last day of shooting was January 31st, and now here we are in the same year and we’re talking about the movie coming out. I had no idea it was even coming out. It’s hard for me to know what to expect in our unpredictable world.

Besides, this issue will come out at the end of the presidential race.

I think the whole point of it is to experience movies the way you experience a book or a piece of writing or a painting. We have to be able to experience that because I think that gives us something more profound than if we just analyze everything to the nth degree. Unfortunately, not everyone has the level of commitment and research and passion that you have for understanding movies; we dismiss them because of one clickbait element, thinking, “Oh, I know what that is.” Well, the whole point of it is to have the experience and the conversation around it.

I think this filmmaker, Ali Abbasi, is really talented and he’s saying something interesting. I’m curious about the reaction, but yeah, I don’t know.

Given the feedback I typically receive on political films, I’m sure the reaction won’t be mild.

Of course. It’s always hard, but I think the movie is, at least as far as I’ve understood it and experienced it, on a deeper human level than its politics. I think one thing that leads me to believe that we might need this movie is that whenever people interact with (Trump), he’s talked about as this distant thing that’s either closer to God or Hell, and nowhere in between. We need to normalize the situation and him in a way that we can process. Because at the extreme end, I don’t feel like you understand anything.