Dread Central – The “Apprentice” stars and the director Ali Abbasi say their film is a “humanistic” treatment of the former president and his mentor, Roy Cohn.
Adam Schimberg’s new film A Different Man is many things. It’s funny, tense, scary, sad, heart-warming, and a little gross, all while centering on two incredible performances from Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson. It’s a story that goes to uncomfortable places, especially in how it confronts how we perceive ourselves and the people around us and how insecurity can slowly destroy you.
In the film:
An aspiring actor (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. However, his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare as he becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.
While A Different Man isn’t a horror film, per se, Schimberg is still playing in that sandbox, especially when it comes to crafting his own personal brand of body horror. And that’s ignoring the pervasive sense of dread that builds in each frame. It’s almost like Cronenberg meets the weirdest episode of Seinfeld.
Schimberg, Stan, and Pearson spoke with Dread Central at Fantastic Fest about the power of prosthetics, why we love horror, and Poltergeist.
Dread Central: Congratulations on showing A Different Man to a horror crowd. I loved when you said last night before the screening that you wanted to show this to a horror crowd. Why have you been so excited for horror people to see this?
Aaron Schimberg: Well, all my films have played at genre festivals and it’s always been a supportive community for me. My films have always played well in those environments. I’m never thinking about [my films] in terms of any particular genre, but they’ve certainly been the inspiration for my films, horror films, and so-called genre films are certainly in my DNA, at least to some extent. So it’s been always normal that my films [played at genre festivals], even my first one premiered at a genre festival. Chained For Life had some of its best screenings at Fantastic Fest.
A Different Man premiered almost 10 months ago, and so I just sort of assumed by now that we would have played it at some genre festivals. But it never did because we played at a few very prestigious festivals, but we haven’t played a lot of other festivals on purpose. I guess I’ve been lying low with the film. But I just always assumed it would at some point. And so I’m glad it’s happening now and I hope that people like it.
DC: So do you mean to make a Poltergeist reference at a certain moment?
AS: I’ve never seen Poltergeist.
DC: Really?
Sebastian Stan: I’ve never seen it, either.
AS: It’s like one of these few horror classics that for some reason, I never saw. Maybe bits of it on TV when I was a kid?
DC: Because there’s a point where Edward’s looking in the mirror and he’s pulling all parts of his face, and there’s a part in Poltergeist where he’s literally pulling off his face in a mirror. So it was cool to see that moment.
AS: Interesting. I didn’t know Poltergeist was that bloody. I always assumed it was not that graphic
DC: It’s more graphic than you’d expect!
Adam Pearson: It’s a lot.
DC: Sebastian, you mentioned at the Q&A last night how the prosthetics that you wore really helped to inform your performance. I wanted to hear more about that and what that was like working with prosthetics.
SS: Well, just even from a foundational level, when you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror, then there’s a weird permission, sort of like a freedom. You start to get the confidence and the courage to lean into certain things that maybe you wouldn’t have, right? Then you just sort of stay open, I think, to what comes. So then in a way, the way I was moving, interacting, walking, all of that came from the prosthetics.
Then the second step was going around New York and being around real people, people that weren’t doubting. I was an actor in prosthetics and I mean, they weren’t doubting me. They weren’t thinking I was an actor in prosthetics. So I could feel firsthand how somebody was regarding me or not regarding me or how their energy was shifting around me or when they got uncomfortable. And I think all of that was very helpful for me to just get some understanding. It was a massive piece to the performance. Even after they were off, I discovered I was able to take things I learned with me.
DC: Well, your physicality, even when you don’t have the prosthetics, you’re still a little bit hunched over.
SS: One of the things that I was noticing, and again, this is just me with my limited experience, but when I was walking down the street, I was only able to see out of one eye. So I just naturally started to avoid eye contact.
Aaron and I talked a lot about eye contact and how much could he hold eye contact, which was not a lot. But I was already looking down when I was walking, so that was already pushing me forward in a way. But just because you get a haircut or shave your head, it’s not going to change how you are carrying what you’re carrying on your shoulders, whatever, emotionally and mentally for the last 30 years, it’s still going to be there. I sometimes get a little crazy about it, like, “Oh, how did not everything change?” There’s no easy fix for years upon years of learned behavior, muscle memory, many, many factors. It doesn’t change overnight, but yet we try to get, that quick dopamine hit.
DC: We sure do. I mean, I’m covered with tattoos and piercings. I know it’s way smaller and so different, but I can see what you mean by changing your body for a quick rush.
SS: Definitely. That’s a way of expressing, right? I mean, that’s a way of saying, this is me or so. You’re much more courageous than me. I don’t have any tattoos.
When my grandmother died who was a big part of my life, I thought about a tattoo because I wanted to have something to always remember her by. I respond to things that are immediate to me. So I look at it that way.
DC: Adam, what was your first reaction to reading the script for A Different Man? How excited were you to get to play this character of Oswald?
AP: I loved it, and I’ve worked with Aaron before. I know how he thinks and how he writes and how he directs. So I took one pass [at the script] and then I think the only note I sent you back was, “Oh so I need to learn to yodel.” [Laughs]
DC: Obviously you’re defying genre here, but I’m a horror person and kept thinking about the horror aspects of A Different Man. What are your relationships with the horror genre?
AP: I love the horror genre, and it’s masochistic in a way. I like the sick thrill of being made to feel uncomfortable for hours and hours at a time. My first horror film I saw by accident because I was a stupid child. I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder and then I was looking on the shelves at my mate’s house to borrow a VHS. I saw a Candyman and thought, “Oh, that sounds similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” So I went and watched that, and it wasn’t similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at all, but it was incredible.
DC: How old were you, do you remember?
AP: I think I was 8.
DC: Wow.
AP: Then there’s The Hills Have Hills, The Exorcist, I watched The Omen way too young. I found the Saw films hysterically funny.
DC: Really?
AP: Oh, I think they’re hilarious.
DC: What’s your favorite one?
AP: I really like Saw III, because one of my friends, Tom hates anything to do with eyes. So when they did that thing when they sewed one guy’s mouth shut and one guy’s eyes shut, he went, “Nope” and got up.
DC: That was me, too, in Saw II with the syringes.
AP: Those films are great. I also think Saw III also has the dumbest protagonist ever. He just does everything really slowly and really badly.
SS: Can I ask you a question as a horror person?
DC: Absolutely.
SS: I’ve been thinking about this. I get an actual physically sick feeling from that thing in Alien. What is the thing that jumps on your face?
DC: The face hugger.
SS: The face huggers! Even when I see a poster of a face hugger, I immediately feel it in my stomach. I mean this thing that comes in and you’re, it totally takes over you with it. And I mean, that was an amazing concept. So in the horror world, what is the best horror film in the last, let’s say, three years?
I take a long pause to think.
DC: Talk To Me. That’s the one that had the biggest effect, I think culturally.
SS: The A24 movie?
AS: Where they have the hand?
DC: Yeah. That to me, I think is one of the scariest ones. Horror in the High Desert is for me, the scariest. But that’s a tiny found footage movie that no one’s seen.
AS: Was A Different Man horror enough?
DC: I think it was more than I expected, actually. I was impressed with how horrific the film gets. Also, the music reminded me of a fucked up horror sitcom, and I was really into that. And I love how you guys play with body horror in a way that you don’t expect. I tweeted this would be a really good double feature with The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s new movie.
AS: Excellent.