Entertainment Weekly – “The only people that really were the most honest were kids,” he said of the “limited” interactions.
Sebastian Stan had an enlightening experience walking around the streets of New York in facial prosthetics for A Different Man.
In director Aaron Schimberg’s upcoming psychological thriller about identity and obsession, Stan plays Edward, an actor who undergoes major facial reconstructive surgery to transform his disfigured appearance. When another actor who has the same features as his former self (Adam Pearson) is cast as him in a stage production based on his life, Edward becomes fixated on him.
Following the film’s premiere at Sundance over the weekend, Stan took the stage with costars Pearson, Renate Reinsve, and director Schimberg to share the “limited” reactions he experienced while wearing his prosthetics around town, noting that the “only people that really were the most honest were kids.”
Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan attend the “A Different Man” Premiere during the 2024 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 21, 2024 in Park City, Utah.
Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan at the Sundance premiere of ‘A Different Man’.
“It was really interesting and sort of scary to see how limited the interaction is,” Stan observed. “It just really is limited between two extremes, which is either [people] won’t address it, or overcompensation. The only people that really were the most honest were kids.”
Recounting one interaction with a little girl, “Her mom was just being a parent and trying to do the right thing, but in doing the right thing, she was actually preventing the little girl from just simply having an experience,” Stan said. “She was just being inquisitive, and she was brave and courageous and that’s kids, right? It’s like they just want to know. They don’t have judgment. It was a learning lesson for me, really.”
Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis, inspired the film after having worked with Schimberg in 2018’s Chained for Life. The actor said of finding common ground with Stan, “This was the hook that we gave to Sebastian: you don’t know what it’s like to have a disfigurement, but you do know what it’s like to not have privacy and to have your life constantly invaded,” Pearson said. “You become public property.’”
In conversation with Variety at the festival, Stan said he spent between 1.5 and 2 hours in the makeup chair with Mike Marino, the prosthetic artist behind his transformation, calling him a “great” collaborator. Of that time spent on the chair, “Any time you have a bit of time to reflect on the day is good,” Stan said, noting that they filmed for just 22 days.