Category: Articles

Feb
15

News: Sebastian Stan and his Sharper co-stars gush over getting to work with ‘generous’ Julianne Moore on ‘intriguing’ thriller: ‘It was a masterclass’

Metro UK

Sebastian Stan and the cast of Sharper have spilled the beans on what it was that attracted them to star in Apple TV Plus‘s glossy new thriller – and it’s safe to say the number one reason was star and producer Julianne Moore, who did not disappoint.

The script was taken from the ‘Black List’ of popular but as-yet-unmade films that circulates Hollywood each year, and sees Pam & Tommy actor Stan, Justice Smith from Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and The Tender Bar’s Briana Middleton all embroiled in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse in the upper echelons of New York City society.

As perspectives shift and stories play out from different angles, the audience is left guessing the truth of what they know about student Sandy (Middleton), bookstore owner Tom (Smith) and the con-artist duo of Max (Stan) and Madeline (Moore).

On the question of if working with Oscar-winner Moore was a big motivation for agreeing to the project, the trio were effusive, with Smith saying she was ‘the reason I wanted to do this’, while Middleton states: ‘Watching her and getting to work with her was a masterclass.’

With the trio speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk ahead of the film’s release, Stan agreed that she was ‘the reason why we’re all here.’

He added: ‘What was amazing is sometimes you meet somebody you’ve watched for such a long time and [you know] the image and you don’t know how they’re going to be in [real] life.

Sebastian Stan, who plays Max, praised Moore’s generous attitude on set as ‘the icing on the cake’

‘You’ve got all this time that you’re sitting around waiting for the shots and all that – and the fact that she was just as welcoming and just as nice and generous off-screen, and connecting with each person… It was the icing on the cake.’

During Sharper, the actors’ characters take on different roles of their own as the power dynamic shifts and secrets are uncovered.

Stan’s Max is introduced as a ruthless but smooth con to begin with, but when Moore’s Madeline makes her fashionably late entrance in the movie, his motivations become murkier – part of what the Emmy nominee was keen to sink his teeth into.

‘When I first read the script, I didn’t really understand what my character was trying to do, what was he after really,’ Stan explained.

‘Was it a revenge thing or was he… I don’t want to go into what happens in the movie! So, it was more kind of just going into and trying to figure that out, and that part of it was intriguing to me. I liked how it started, how he starts out and suddenly it’s totally something else.’

Avoiding some pretty major spoilers, Middleton shared: ‘Without trying to give too much away… I think just the fact that there are so many different characters that my character is playing – that was the biggest selling point for me.’

For Screen Captures and the corresponding video click here

Feb
15

News: Sharper’s Sebastian Stan: ‘Money imprisons and isolates you’

Yahoo UK – “We’re exploring the consequences of money and, to some extent, capitalism”

The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, The White Lotus; we’re fascinated by the lives of millionaires – and Sharper, an upcoming Julianne Moore-starring thriller heading to Apple TV+ on Friday, 17 February, takes another shot at the wealthy.

“We’re exploring the consequences of money and, to some extent, capitalism,” Sebastian Stan, one of Sharper’s leads, tells Yahoo UK when asked about the current wave of ‘eat the rich’ content coming to cinemas and streamers.

Read more: Sebastian Stan undergoes transformation for new movie

“Money is supposed to give you all these opportunities, but at the same time, it takes so much away.

“It divides in so many ways, and it imprisons you and isolates you.”

Justice Smith, who appears alongside Stan in Sharper, believes we’re all fascinated by “the darkness inside of ourselves”.

“We all like to imagine that we would be good people under different circumstances,” the actor – best known for Detective Pikachu and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – says.

“But we’re fascinated by our capability of darkness. Same reason why we’re so fascinated by serial killers. We’re fascinated to the extent that people can be horrible to one another.

“Because we recognise in ourselves how we are, how we could potentially be horrible.”

It’s a theory that’s fitting considering Sharper’s about a group of people who, on the surface, appear normal, yet transpire to be a bunch of liars, thieves, and double-crossing scam artists.

To say too much more would spoil the fun – over its runtime, the movie slowly reveals itself, every new scene unravelling more secrets as we discover what drove a young woman (Briana Middleton) to steal $350,000 from a book-store owner (Smith).

Directed by Benjamin Caron, who helmed the last two episodes of the Star Wars series Andor, Sharper’s a tight mystery that, ideally, should be seen on the big screen. However, the movie’s heading to streaming a week after its theatrical debut in the US. That’s not too much of an issue for Smith.

“I like streaming,” he says. “It’s accessible. “There are people, me included, where sometimes I can’t sit through a two hour film. I need to watch it on my own terms. And I enjoy it because I got to watch it on my own terms.”

Stan is slightly more cautious. “I think having the choice is important,” he says. “But maybe I’m more old school. I hope that we continue to also protect the theatrical experience.”

Yahoo points out that a film like Sharper probably wouldn’t get made without a streamer’s backing. “Where does [a movie like this] live nowadays?” Stan asks. “I’d rather have it exist, quite frankly, than not.”

“I was going to sit through the movie [in a cinema] because I was like, ‘I don’t remember what my acting is like on a big screen. I don’t even know if it’s any good,’” he continues.

“There’s something that gets processed in a different way when it’s like that.”

Sharper will enjoy a limited theatrical release in the US and UK, and will stream on Apple TV+ from 17 February, 2023.

For Screen Captures and the corresponding video click here

Sep
11

Press: ‘Thunderbolts’: David Harbour, Florence Pugh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell & Others Board Marvel Film – D23

Deadline -‘Thunderbolts’: David Harbour, Florence Pugh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell & Others Board Marvel Film – D23

Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige introduced the leads for the studio’s upcoming film Thunderbolts at Disney’s D23 Expo Friday, including David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wyatt Russell, Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen and Olga Kurylenko.

Harbour, Pugh and Kurylenko are reprising their respective Black Widow roles as Alexei / Red Guardian, Yelena Belova and Black Antonia / Taskmaster, with Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Stan returns to the Marvel fold as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s Bucky Barnes, with his co-star Russell returning as John Walker / U.S. Agent. Then, there’s John-Kamen, who will portray Ava / Ghost.

The Jake Schreier-directed film will close out Phase 5 of the MCU on July 26, 2024. Deadline had previously reported Pugh, Russell and Stan as likely castings. Plot details are scarce, but Thunderbolts revolves around a group of villains who are sent on missions commissioned by the government.

The project, going into production early next year, was first unveiled at Comic-Con in July.

The film understood as the MCU’s version of Suicide Squad is based on characters first introduced to Marvel Comics in 1997. Eric Pearson (Black Widow) is writing the script, with Feige producing.

Phase 5 of the MCU opens with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is slated for release on Feb. 17, 2023. Following the release of Thunderbolts, Phase 6 kicks off with a Fantastic Four film slated for release in theaters on Nov. 8, 2024. Other upcoming titles for Phase 6 include Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, which are respectively slated for release on May 2, 2025 and Nov. 7, 2025.

Aug
09

News/Video: News: ‘Pam & Tommy’s Lily James & Sebastian Stan Reveal The “Personal” & “Full-On” Nature Of The Hulu Drama

Deadline – ‘Pam & Tommy’s Lily James & Sebastian Stan Reveal The “Personal” & “Full-On” Nature Of The Hulu Drama – Contenders TV: The Nominees

[Note: * The 15 minute panel is available at the article link]

“There was a huge sense of wanting to do this real person justice and tell their story honestly, and with great empathy and protecting them,” Pam & Tommy’s Lily James said about playing Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s multi-Emmy-nominated miniseries.

“This felt so personal and became really universal beyond this story that just happened to Pamela, and became about really looking at how we treat women,” she added of the professional and private blows the Baywatch star suffered from a stolen sex tape that lit up the internet in its near infancy.

Certainly, in the last decade of the 20th century, few besides Bill Clinton loomed larger, or with greater infamy, than Anderson and then-husband Tommy Lee. In many ways, the near-boundless fame of the Canadian-born actress and the Mötley Crüe drummer, and the merciless fallout from their most intimate acts strewn across the digital landscape inadvertently set the stage for the era of today’s explicit social media landscape.

“It’s almost impossible to remember sometimes what it was like to exist without the internet,” Pam & Tommy co-showrunner D.V. DeVincentis said of the vast gap between the not-so-distant past depicted in the eight-episode series and 2022. “The ’90s looks like now, but culturally it is so distinct, so different.”

Peeling back the layers on the sordid saga of Anderson, Lee and the loss of privacy and reputation in modern America, James and DeVincentis were speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees event. With Pam & Tommy nominated for 10 Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and top actress and actors noms for James and co-star Sebastian Stan. The duo were joined on the panel by Stan and co-showrunner Robert Siegel.

“It was full-on up until the last second, every day,” revealed Stan of the actors’ transformation into the now-divorced real-life couple.

However, for all the glamour, grit and gall of Pam & Tommy, as well as the dizzying heights and harsh descent it profiles, this was always a story about fragility, The Wrestler scribe Siegel said. “We always very firmly felt that we were on their side, you know, particularly Pam,” he said. “In the end, she’s ultimately the person with whom our sympathies lie.”

Pam & Tommy also stars Nick Offerman, Taylor Schilling, Andrew Dice Clay, Pepi Sonuga, Spenser Granese and Mozhan Marnò, as well as Seth Rogen. Also serving as an executive producer, Rogen’s nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his role as hapless sex tape thief Rand Gautier.

Aug
02

News: ‘Pam & Tommy’: A tale of up-dos, fake breasts, tattoos … and a talking penis

LA Times – ‘Pam & Tommy’: A tale of up-dos, fake breasts, tattoos … and a talking penis

The outrageous story of the internet’s first celebrity sex tape so frequently borders on the absurd that any retelling could quickly become a farce. To avoid that fate, the Hulu limited series “Pam & Tommy” faithfully and meticulously re-creates the 1990s tale about the whirlwind romance of “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, and the torturous consequences of a stolen videotape of their honeymoon lovemaking.

Where many productions might use computer-generated wizardry, the hair and makeup team here relied on handcrafted artistry and every tool in their arsenal. The crew’s many challenges included transforming Lily James, a pale, slight British actress, into Anderson, the perennially tanned, busty Malibu sex symbol — and making a rock star’s penis talk.

As head of the makeup department, David Williams controlled every character’s look — including actors playing Tommy Lee and his Motley Crue bandmates, Jay Leno, Hugh Hefner, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione and private investigator Anthony Pellicano. He coordinated Barry Lee Moe’s wig and hairstyling team and the special effects from Jason Collins of Van Nuys’ Autonomous F/X, which crafted dozens of face and body prosthetics.

“The Lily makeup is the most comprehensive character makeup that I think any of us have done,” said Williams, a three-time Emmy winner who is also nominated for the Peacock limited series “Angelyne.”

”The vast majority of creating this look was painting highlights and shadows and contours and restructuring a great structure that was already there. We were turning one beautiful woman into another beautiful woman,” Williams said.

Moe designed and styled 27 custom wigs handcrafted by Wigmaker Associates in Beverly Hills, including Anderson’s trendsetting messy up-dos. James managed to disguise her British accent wearing dentures to invoke Anderson’s capped-teeth smile.
Continue reading

Jul
18

Press: Sebastian Stan Is a One-Man Mötley Crüe

SPIN Magazine -Sebastian Stan Is a One-Man Mötley Crüe

Mötley Crüe ruled the metal scene in the late ‘80s, going on to sell over 100 million records. However, by the time Sebastian Stan was the right age to appreciate the glam band, the metal heyday had passed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t really know Mötley Crüe when I was growing up,” Stan says, “because when I was in high school, it was already a grunge world.”

But that didn’t stop the Romanian-born actor from discovering the band later, telling SPIN, “I personally gravitate towards the ’80s.” So, despite not growing up on the iconic group, he eventually came to love them. Eventually becoming intimately familiar with one of the band members by playing him on TV.

Stan, 39, is currently garnering praise for his portrayal of Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in the Hulu drama Pam and Tommy, a fictionalized retelling of the stolen sex tape that became a cultural touchstone — and a punchline, despite the fact that it was a criminal invasion of privacy. The early episodes introduce the cocky musician as he meets and falls immediately in love (didn’t we all?) with Baywatch starlet Pamela Anderson (played by an incandescent Lily James). The later episodes delve deep into how poorly the situation was handled legally, culturally, and personally by the world at large.

On March 4, Stan stars in another Hulu original, the comedy thriller Fresh as the new boyfriend of a young woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones) navigating the horror that is the modern dating scene, which critics have hailed as a scathing critique on “toxic male sexuality and attitudes to women.” Thematically, the film complements the message of Pam and Tommy, with both projects examining gender dynamics in pop culture.

And then there’s Stan’s ongoing super cool role as super-soldier Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most recently in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. While no future plans for that series have been announced, Stan, all cagey, tells SPIN he won’t rule out another turn in the MCU. Read on for more about how he prepared for his role as Tommy Lee, his favorite karaoke songs, ’90s fashion and if we’ll see him again busting heads alongside Sam Wilson.

SPIN: How naturally did the Tommy Lee character come to you?
Sebastian Stan: Not very naturally – I don’t have a tattoo on my body, I’ve never played the drums before; I don’t play any instruments. I sing karaoke for fun, but I have nothing to really relate to. It was going to be a massive journey of research that I was about to embark on.

What is your karaoke song?
Oh my God, I have so many. There’s great Elvis songs, Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses. I’ve definitely thrown in some Mötley Crüe. And Billy Joel – very, very important.

So you’re a classics karaoke guy.
I stick to the ones that have a lot of heart, all right? “New York State of Mind,” “Just the Way You Are.”
Continue reading

Jun
27

Press/Video: Lily James and Sebastian Stan Found Playing Real-Life ‘Pam & Tommy’ Addictive (w/ Screen Captures)

Indie Wire – The actors discuss with IndieWire the challenges of portraying real people as well as the first moment they saw each other in costume as the ’90s icons.

Lily James and Sebastian Stan were nervous. The anxiety began with the mountains of research they faced in an effort to learn everything about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee for Hulu’s limited series “Pam & Tommy.” They also learned that they enjoyed the pressure.

“I genuinely feel that fear is a good thing,” Stan said in an IndieWire Awards Spotlight conversation with James. “If we can figure out a way to have a healthy relationship with it, it’s sort of a weird awakening feeling [because] it really does feel like you’re on your toes.”

James noted that her nerves came from fear of “failure; not having the ability to do what’s demanded for this,” she said. “To not be able to capture any essence or any traits and really be believable as this real person that you genuinely want to inhabit.”

Happily, the two earned rave reviews for their performances as the larger-than-life ‘90s stars on the series that followed their happy, rapid courtship — followed by the relationship’s deterioration after a disgruntled worker stole private sex tape from their home. The show is at its best when it zooms out to show the beginnings of concepts like public figures’ right to privacy and the all-consuming internet.

“In the TV show, we were the [constants],” James said. “And with these amazing directors that came in… I felt this great sort of power that we had in that it was ours, we’ve taken on these roles. There was an adrenaline to that. And it [felt] out of control at the best of times in the acting, but in control in this ownership of this thing. That was addictive.”

So addictive, in fact, that the duo remained deeply connected to their characters. Stan and James noted they would check in with each other regularly during emotionally difficult scenes, and also became quite the on-set defenders of Lee and Anderson’s one-time love.

Production would say, “‘we’re moving forward into the show, we need to show how the relationship is getting [negatively] affected by all these things,’” Stan explained. “We’re like, ‘I know, but they really loved each other!’”

“It’s weird,” Stan said later. “You can feel nostalgic about it and then suddenly I’ll have to remind myself, ‘That’s not your life, bro.’ Let them have their life back.”

Note: The complete video interview is at the IndieWire link above. I’ve added screen captures to the gallery.

Jun
27

Press: Behind the Whirlwind Romance of ‘Pam & Tommy,’ There’s a Longstanding Creative Partnership

Indie Wire – Behind the Whirlwind Romance of ‘Pam & Tommy,’ There’s a Longstanding Creative Partnership

Australian director Craig Gillespie creates an energy in his images that brings the emotional undercurrent of his characters to life. He invites you into their space to wash in their feelings without saying too much. It’s the result of close collaboration with key department heads, a dynamic that editor Tatiana Riegel was first introduced to on 2007’s “Lars and the Real Girl.” “Craig is remarkably collaborative and secure in his own feelings and ideas to not insist upon them but he allows people to interpret them where he can then say yes or no,” she told IndieWire.

Riegel said their efforts have blossomed over the course of projects like “I, Tonya” (for which she earned an Oscar nomination), “Cruella,” “The United States of Tara” in part, because even though they “are very different people, the yin and yang of it works pretty well.” Gillespie has grown fond of how effortlessly the editor navigates outside the box. “We did our first assembly of ‘Lars’ and there was an interview scene between Ryan [Gosling] and Patricia Clarkson [who plays a therapist] that I thought was too long,” he said. “Tatiana said, ‘Maybe it’s in the wrong place.’ So we pulled out the scene cards and rearranged the whole second half of the film and that scene never got shorter. Since then, we’ve never settled on the structure of the script and we’ll always think about moving something around or tightening.

The simpatico relationship gives Riegel the “courage to try things” she might otherwise be conservative about with someone new, a trust that continued into the first trio of episodes of “Pam & Tommy,” Hulu’s limited series about how the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape found its way onto the web.

Creator Robert Siegel based “Pam & Tommy” on a 2014 Rolling Stone article that details how the “Baywatch” star and Mötley Crüe drummer first met, and the “karma” that led to their private life being exposed. After stripping away the public persona and glamor of these two famous icons – portrayed convincingly well by Lily James and Sebastian Stan — “Pam & Tommy” depicts a couple unequivocally supporting each other while falling deeper in love — until it collapses.

“The tone was incredibly clear to me and that’s something I always look for when searching for something to work on,” Gillespie said. “If I can visualize it while I’m reading [the script], half the job is done.”
Continue reading

Jun
27

Press: Drum Practice, Penis Puppets, and Fake Nipples: How Sebastian Stan Transformed Into Tommy Lee

Vanity Fair – For the Hulu limited series Pam & Tommy, becoming the notorious bad boy drummer required serious dedication both inside and out.

There are many ways to be an icon—but being recognized entirely by your chest is probably a unique one. That’s the pantheon that Tommy Lee is in, at least based on the experience of Pam & Tommy makeup head David Williams, who went nipple-ring shopping in preparation for transforming Sebastian Stan into the famed drummer and tabloid fixture.

“I usually don’t disclose what I’m doing when I go in, but I had pictures of Tommy Lee’s chest,” says Williams of his visit to the Los Angeles piercing parlor Body Electric. “The guy says, ‘Oh, you’re working with Tommy Lee?’ And I was like, ‘By just his chest?!’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I can see with the tattoos.’ Tommy Lee’s tattoos are very identifiable.”

Those tattoos were painstakingly recreated and on constant display in the Hulu streaming series, in which Stan costars alongside Lily James as Pamela Anderson. Thirty-something of them, transferred onto Stan’s body by multiple people simultaneously (“not unlike the Crackerjack tattoos you used to get as a kid,” special makeup effects supervisor Jason Collins says.)

The nipple ring, too, ended up being an illusion, though Stan says he briefly considered just going for the real thing. “And then actually, I saw a video of [Lee] actually talking about piercing your nipples and how apparently it’s like one of the most painful things you can do,” Stan says. “[I thought], Oh, yeah, like that’s probably going to be more traumatic than helpful, like, no.”

Which meant fake nipples—silicone prosthetics, rings included, that when attached to Stan’s body alongside the tattoos transformed him into “dirty boy” Tommy Lee, as Williams put it. The show takes place at the height of Lee’s rock and roll all night and party every day fame, tracking the era of Lee and Anderson’s whirlwind romance and marriage, as well as the stolen sex tape and its fallout. The show speculates on the private moments of Anderson and Lee’s relationships, treating them as sympathetic victims of a life-changing crime.

Though Stan used fewer prosthetics than his costar James, he physically transformed himself for the role, shedding the Marvel bulk from his role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to become the gaunter, frequently shirtless Lee. “For a few months I just wasn’t really eating much,” Stan says. “And when we had those shirtless scenes I was sometimes not drinking a lot of water.” As Collins puts it, “Tommy didn’t like to wear a lot of clothes in the show.”

But even with a shirt on, Stan kept the prosthetic nipples in place—just one of many indications of how seriously he and the crew took his immersion in the role. Stan listened to endless interviews and videos and read Lee’s biography, Tommyland, describing him as “very passionate and intense,” a kinetic force. “He’s always moving,” Stan continues. “And there’s just music kind of always playing in his head.”
Continue reading

Jun
27

Press: ‘Pam & Tommy’ Editor Reflects on Scene That Was a “Pivotal Turning Point”

Hollywood Reporter – ‘Pam & Tommy’ Editor Reflects on Scene That Was a “Pivotal Turning Point”

Talking about reteaming with her I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie on Pam & Tommy, Oscar-nominated editor Tatiana S. Riegel describes the stories Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, and that of Tonya Harding, as “misunderstood.”

“I actually find them kind of similar, the two stories,” Riegel says in a new episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Behind the Screen podcast. “Because of the length of time (since the events occurred), a lot of people either didn’t know anything about it, or had a preconception of what the stories were going to be — often a very judgmental preconception.”

“I knew there was going to be a certain emotional level to it,” Riegel adds of Gillespie being at the helm. “And it would be intriguing in addition to his comic sense, [showcasing] his ability to sort of walk back and forth between those two places in a lovely way.”

A favorite scene for Riegel, whose work with Gillespie also includes Disney’s Cruella, occurs in episode two and features newlyweds Pam (Lily James) and Tommy (Sebastian Stan) at home one night watching TV as Pam introduces her husband to The King and I. She sings “Getting to Know You” from the classic musical as the pair playfully giggle and dance around the bedroom.

“That particular scene was a real pivotal turning point, emotionally, in the story,” Riegel says. “This is a really unusual scene, to have a character like Tommy Lee watching this musical. She’s so into it. I find it to be this really sweet, vulnerable scene that they both are participating in. And I feel like that really cracks the door open for the rest of the season.”

During the conversation, Riegel also discusses her approach to film editing, including why she “avoids the set at all costs.”

“I have a lot of work to do, number one. And number two, I think [being on set] influences my perception,” Riegel says. [When] I watch the dailies … I try to hold onto … my first emotional reaction–to a take, a line, a performance, whatever it is, as whether it’s genuine or real, or made me laugh or made me cry.”

“[But] there’s a very classic thing that happens where things are hysterical on the set,” she continues. “Everybody loves it. And when it actually comes into the cutting room and you watch it in dailies, it’s not so funny anymore, or vice versa. And so everybody’s like, ‘That seemed so much funnier on the day.’ It’s not an editorial thing. It’s just a translation thing. …. It’s like watching a comedy at home alone, versus with a huge audience. It’s a different experience.”