Category: Articles

Jan

News: Sebastian Stan Calls For Disability Advocacy In Golden Globe Win For ‘A Different Man’: “Our Ignorance And Discomfort Around Disability And Disfigurement Has To End”

A24’s A Different Man star Sebastian Stan won a Golden Globe on Sunday night for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

In a heartfelt speech, the actor acknowledged the rarity of substantial roles and equal access opportunities for disabled people onscreen. “Our ignorance and discomfort around disability and disfigurement has to end. We have to normalize it and continue to expose ourselves and our children to it. [We should] encourage acceptance,” he said.

Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, A24’s A Different Man stars Stan as Edward Lemuel, a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis, a condition causing tumors and facial disfigurement, who undergoes an experimental medical procedure to transform his appearance. He then adopts a new identity as Guy Moratz, claiming that his former self has died.

As he navigates his new life, he becomes obsessed with an actor (Adam Pearson who has the affliction in real life) of uncanny physical similarity to his former self, who is tapped to play him in a stage play based on his life.

“One way we can do that is by continuing to champion stories that are inclusive. This was not an easy movie to make. Neither is The Apprentice, the other film I was lucky to be a part of and I’m proud of being in,” Stan continued, noting the other film for which he was nominated tonight. “These are tough subject matters, but these films are real and they’re necessary and we can’t be afraid and look away.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Jan 06, 2025

A Different Man Articles Interviews Media Photos Press Videos

Jan

News/Video/Photo: Prosthetics Designer Mike Marino Talks Transforming Sebastian Stan Into ‘A Different Man,’ The “Soul” In Handmade Work That AI Could Never Replicate – The Process

Deadline

Note: For the screencaps in the gallery click here: The Process [Screen Captures]

Heading into work on A24’s A Different Man, a darkly comedic thriller for which he was both executive producer and star, Sebastian Stan had a problem.

He was “in dire need” of the best prosthetic makeup artist he could find, he recalls, without whom the project could very easily fall apart.

Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, pic has Stan playing a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis, a condition causing facial disfigurement, who undergoes an experimental medical procedure to transform his appearance. The character, Edward, then adopts a new identity as Guy Moratz, claiming that his former self has died. As he navigates his new life, he becomes obsessed with an actor (Adam Pearson) of uncanny physical similarity to his former self, who is tapped to play him in a stage play based on his life.

During the early conceptualization of makeup for A Different Man, Stan’s first call was to Mike Marino, an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated master of his craft who, over the course of his career, has done thousands of makeups, most recently drawing rave reviews for his transformative work with Colin Farrell on HBO’s The Penguin.

The circumstances around the job were intense. Marino would have two months or less to prep, while working simultaneously on the fifth and final season of Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and the shoot itself would last just 22 days. But fortunately for Stan and Schimberg, the artist was so well versed in all kinds of makeups and production scenarios that he committed to the A24 film without a second thought.

When Marino read the script for A Different Man — a surreal meditation on identity, transformation, and self-acceptance — he was instantly drawn to its “strange…original and intriguing” qualities. He “thought it was saying something unique,” he tells Stan in today’s edition of The Process. “It wasn’t in your face, what it was saying or what it was doing, but that’s the best kind of art.”

The script reminded Marino of some of his favorite films, including The Fly and the works of Charlie Kaufman — not to mention The Elephant Man, which was particularly influential for him early in life. “Not that this film is similar to that,” Marino says, “but I feel that it has an echo of that, in some sense. It has the empathy of that. And I had to do it.”

For Marino, the process of crafting Stan’s prosthetics began with lifecasts taken of his face and that of Pearson — a frequent collaborator of Schimberg’s, who actually has neurofibromatosis. Scanned into a computer, these served as a foundation for Marino’s sculpture process, ahead of the processes of molding, casting, and painting the prosthetics. The final outcome was that Stan, as Edward, looked nearly identical to Pearson, while wearing just a handful of pieces of makeup.

One of the fundamental challenges of the project was ensuring that Stan’s performance would be able to come through, even behind layers of intensive makeup. “In this particular case, it’s rather thick of a sculpture and you’re not so much getting emotion through thick things like that,” Marino tells Stan. “But we did develop a silicone that was very lightweight and soft, and you were able to get very good expressions in it and drive the makeup through your own motions and things.”

Another big point of focus was Edward’s evolution from his original facial features to the visage he takes on following the medical experiment — one that ultimately mirrors Stan’s own. Transitional stages in this process were captured for the camera through the use of a material called methylcellulose, which allowed Stan to pull his face apart, à la Poltergeist.

Premiering at Sundance before screening in Berlin, where Stan won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance, A Different Man was released in September and recently made the Oscars shortlist for Makeup and Hairstyling, also bringing Stan a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Male Actor – Musical or Comedy. Remarkably, it was the second he earned this year, the other being for another transformative turn as a young Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice.

Elsewhere in their chat on The Process, Stan and Marino turn to the subject of AI, as it pertains to makeup, with the latter expressing the belief that the technology will never be able to replicate the “soul” that comes with handmade work. Marino also delves into the history of prosthetics, lessons from makeup titans like Dick Smith and Rob Bottin, his recent work on The Penguin, and the timelessness achieved with certain classic makeups from decades past.

View the conversation above . A time-lapse video depicting the prosthetic application process on A Different Man, along with a couple of clips from the film, can be found below. (Site Note: go to the deadline link for the videos etc)

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Published by Samantha

Published on Jan 04, 2025

A Different Man Articles Press

Dec

News/Photo: How Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson got under each other’s skin for ‘A Different Man’

LA Times

For accompanying photo: Session #133 – Sean Dougherty

When Adam Pearson was young, he rubbed elbows with celebrities. “I was at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, one of the best pediatric institutes in the world,” he recalls of the London facility, “and they often had famous people come in to meet the kids. I met Boyzone, a big Irish boy band in the ’90s. The other one was Princess Diana.” The British actor was 5 when he was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis Type 1, a condition that resulted in the growth of large tumors across his face. Those tumors would often cause passersby to gawk cruelly, which made Pearson feel an unlikely kinship with the notable figures who stopped by the hospital. “I was like, ‘Oh, these people get the same staring and pointing I do, but people seem to like them.’ I wasn’t resentful, it was just an observation I made as a 12-year-old: ‘Oh, OK, that’s fascinating.’”

Decades later, Pearson, who turns 40 in January, is on a Zoom call from London alongside his co-star Sebastian Stan, beaming in from New York, to discuss their thought-provoking, satirical film “A Different Man,” which is all about appearance and perception. Writer-director Aaron Schimberg introduces us to Edward (Stan), a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis who believes he’ll be happier once he undergoes an experimental procedure that removes his tumors, revealing the sexy man underneath. Later walking around New York with a new identity — that of the slick real estate agent Guy — he discovers that the aspiring playwright he pined for, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), has written a drama about his former self, who will be portrayed by Oswald (Pearson), a happy, charming man with neurofibromatosis. Guy looks on in horror as his old life is played with such flair by Oswald, who steals Ingrid away as well. Maybe it wasn’t his condition that had held him back — maybe it was just him.

Stan, 42, found two-time Oscar-nominated makeup artist Mike Marino to craft the realistic mask for Edward. But there was something even more important for Stan to get right. “I wanted to talk to Adam about how he was feeling about myself playing this part and having someone step into these shoes without neurofibromatosis,” he says. “Just really trying to be mindful and understand how I need to approach this so I can be of service to the character but also to somebody who actually has this condition.”

It was during those initial conversations that Pearson, who previously appeared in “Under the Skin” and starred in Schimberg’s 2018 drama “Chained for Life,” gave Stan, best known as the Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the insight that living with neurofibromatosis was not dissimilar to being famous. “They both come with certain levels of invasiveness,” Pearson explains. “You almost become public property. The public feels that you owe them something. So while Sebastian might not know the staring, the name-calling, the camera phones in a way I do, he certainly knows what it’s like to have people think [they] deserve to have a selfie with him.”

The absolute honesty between the two actors was crucial for a film that is candid about the stigmas around disfigurement. Schimberg, who became friends with Pearson during “Chained for Life,” also drew from his own experience with a cleft palate. “Aaron is such an incredible writer — he’s set up these things that rope you in as a viewer to judge Edward because of his appearance,” Stan says. “We project these stereotypical thoughts: ‘He’s lonely, somebody’s taken pity on him.’”

But with Oswald, “We haven’t made the connection yet that someone like Adam could actually be OK with themselves — and not only that, incredibly confident and accepting of themselves as they are.”

Indeed, “A Different Man” toys with our expectations, depicting Oswald as the life of the party, while the conventionally handsome Guy is riddled with insecurity. Unsurprisingly, Stan and Pearson have noticed that viewers sometimes don’t know what to make of Schimberg’s acerbic sense of humor.

“I’m always looking around to see what’s landing and what isn’t landing, because I’ve never had an audience react the same way,” Pearson says, amused. “Everyone finds different things either funny or uncomfortable.”

“The film asks very important questions in terms of disability and disfigurement,” adds Stan, “but we can also offer people permission to experience the film as they might. It is funny. Aaron Schimberg has said, ‘If you think this is a comedy, that’s fine — if you think this is a tragedy, that’s fine too. It’s both.’”

Much has been made of Stan’s recent so-called risk-taking performances, including in the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice.” (He won Berlin’s lead actor trophy for “A Different Man.”) “One of the reasons I’ve lately gravitated more toward what I’d call ‘transformational’ roles is because they do make it easier to lose yourself and to stay in it for the entire time,” suggests Stan, who lived in Romania and Vienna as a child. “I wanted to be an actor because it saved my life. I grew up in a very weird, chaotic time. I was always searching for identity — I came to this country when I was 12, and it was a shocking experience. Acting was a way of release and communication — it was a language, in a way, and it allowed me to understand myself.”

Pearson understands that sentiment. “There’s something inherently terrifying about putting yourself out there,” he says. “When I first got into TV when I was 25, one of my friends gave me what we now lovingly call ‘the talk of doom.’ He was like, ‘You are going to go on TV, and people watch TV — if they don’t like you, they will tell you on whatever platforms you are on. Do you think you can handle that?’”

He could, and his work in “A Different Man” has only raised his profile. Now he’s the one who’s a celebrity, although he acknowledges those old anxieties remain.

“Even now, my friends are like, ‘Aren’t you just a little bit scared that people are going to [not like you]?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m always scared,”’ Pearson says. “Option A is, ‘Don’t do it,’ and then Option B is, ‘Do it scared.’ And I’d rather do it scared than not do it at all.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 23, 2024

A Different Man Articles Audio Interviews Media Photos Press The Apprentice Videos

Dec

News/Video/Photo: ‘Awards Magnet’: Sebastian Stan on Golden Globe nominations, fear of ‘The Apprentice,’ and Chris Evans ghosting him (w/ screencaps)

Gold Derby

Audio/Print version

Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2024 > Gold Derby [UHQ Screencaps]

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 19, 2024

A Different Man Articles Audio Interviews Media Press The Apprentice

Dec

News/Audio: ‘Awards Magnet’: Sebastian Stan on Golden Globe nominations, fear of ‘The Apprentice,’ and Chris Evans ghosting him

Gold Derby

Even if he tried, Sebastian Stan couldn’t have avoided thinking about getting not one but two Golden Globe nominations. The actor, who received bids for A Different Man and The Apprentice, was at a screening for the former the night before the announcement.

“People were just like, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,’” he recalls on this week’s episode of Awards Magnet. “It was a very surreal experience, but I was I was very grateful to obviously even be there once. And particularly with The Apprentice, it was even maybe more surprising because I just never know what to expect with that one.”

Stan is nominated for Best Comedy/Musical Actor for his turn as an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis in A Different Man — for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival — and for Best Drama Actor for playing a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. He’s the first actor to score nominations in these categories since Ryan Gosling achieved it in 2012 with Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Ides of March.

While Aaron Schimberg‘s A Different Man, which Stan filmed in 2022, was delayed because of the Hollywood strikes, The Apprentice, which also netted a supporting actor bid for Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, faced an even steeper uphill battle from the beginning. The project had been in development for years before finally going into production a year ago. Detractors felt it’s too soon for a Trump film, especially in an election year. Despite getting good reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, the film, directed by Ali Abbasi, struggled to find a distributor as Trump’s team threatened legal action before Briarcliff Entertainment stepped up.

“I feel like Ali Abbasi — kind of the way he shot it and the way he’s made the film – it’s really kind of maybe the best version of what that film could have been, given all of the circumstances and the subject matter and everything,” Stan says. “So, even like both of us [nominated] was a big gratifying moment, obviously, because I feel so connected with him.”

Last month, Stan went viral after he revealed during a Q&A that he was unable to participate in our sister site Variety’s Actors on Actors because publicists did not want their clients to discuss Trump. Stan says he brought up “the Variety thing” in the Q&A to make a larger point about fear, adding that multiple distributors loved The Apprentice but were reluctant to pick it up.

“I guess there’s always been fear around movies … but this time it sort of feels obviously more raw because it’s all happening in real time. This movie is not a film that waited 10 years when we all got good and comfortable to look at [and question] choices we’ve made,” he says. “We’re being challenged to not be indifferent in a time where, for survival — mental and emotional — we’re leaning towards being indifferent. I think that’s the difficulty around it. And what we’ve been trying to talk about was that regardless of your point of view of the subject or him or whatever, or how you grew up or where you’re from, there is still the benefit of having an experience with a movie, which is what a movie is supposed to do. … You can go and have your own experience with this person for two hours, and there is an instinct there that you may have as a human being that will override whatever else.”

Earlier this month, the actor shared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that Steven Spielberg told him at the Governors Awards that he loved his performances in both films. “Other people, other actors” have expressed love and admiration for The Apprentice specifically in private to Stan, and he hopes nominations from the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Awards will give people “permission to just acknowledge the movie publicly.”

“Not only do we feel like it turned out the best it could have happened with what we were dealing with circumstantially, but then it does get validated when you get text messages and emails that your agents are forwarding you from people you’ve grown up with admiring that are like, ‘Hey, I just want to tell you this is my favorite thing I’ve seen,’” he says. “I don’t know if this will, in 10 years’ time, as we’ve had a moment in a distance to kind of look at it again, maybe it will be considered, but I do feel it will be talked about.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 19, 2024

A Different Man Articles Press The Apprentice

Dec

News/Photoshoot: The Actor Roundtable: Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo on Impostor Syndrome and the Dark Roles Women Love

The Hollywood Reporter – Adrien Brody, Sebastian Stan and Peter Sarsgaard bond over the pressures of delivering a standout performance: “I had a panic attack every night.”

Photoshoot: #151 –Session #151 – Beau Grealy

Former James Bond Daniel Craig, The Pianist Oscar winner Adrien Brody, Euphoria Emmy winner Colman Domingo, Marvel superhero turned Emmy nominee Sebastian Stan, consummate character actor Peter Sarsgaard and Oscar-nominated heartthrob Paul Mescal range in age from 28 (Mescal) to 56 (Craig); hail from around the world (America, England, Ireland and Romania); and forged very different paths to stardom. But they all share one thing in common: Each gave a standout performance in a 2024 film — or, in Stan’s case, two — that led to them congregating in mid-November at Soho House West Hollywood for THR‘s annual Actor Roundtable.

Their characters are unforgettable: a Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and comes to America (Brody in The Brutalist); a gay American addict in 1950s Mexico (Craig in Queer); an incarceree who finds purpose in art (Domingo in Sing Sing); an angry young man set on destroying the city that betrayed him (Mescal in Gladiator II); a TV exec who oversees live coverage of a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics (Sarsgaard in September 5); a disfigured actor who undergoes facial reconstructive surgery (Stan in A Different Man); and a striving young Donald Trump (Stan in The Apprentice). So, too, was their conversation.

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 17, 2024

A Different Man Articles Interviews Photos Press The Apprentice

Dec

News: The Actors Roundtable: The fear factor behind great art – LA Times

LA Times

Once an actor finds his name popping up in Oscar conversations, he’s pretty much arrived in the industry, right? Actually, no, not necessarily, says Jeremy Strong, who plays unscrupulous lawyer and Donald Trump mentor Roy Cohn to much acclaim in “The Apprentice.”

“There’s a thing called ‘arrival fallacy,’ which is that the horizon is just always receding. You don’t arrive. I mean, I’ve never felt like I’ve arrived. It’s just a search, and you’re on the frontier of uncertainty and doubt, and taking risks.”

“And then the bottom falls out, and you keep looking,” adds Adrien Brody, who plays the Holocaust survivor and visionary architect at the heart of Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.”

“That frontier just keeps moving,” Strong agrees.

Even now, with this season’s breakout performances and glowing reviews, a conversation among several actors shows they share the same fears and doubts as the rest of us.

“I don’t think I ever looked at the next job and went, ‘All right, it’s coming and here we go.’ I think it’s always just the terror of, ‘OK, I got the job. Am I going to ruin it?’ The fear of, ‘I’m wrong for it,’” says Kieran Culkin, who stars in the affecting “A Real Pain” with the film’s writer-director, Jesse Eisenberg.

These three actors — along with Peter Sarsgaard, who stars in “September 5,” about the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics; Colman Domingo, who plays an incarcerated man who discovers the transformative power of art in “Sing Sing”; and Sebastian Stan, who not only plays the future president in “The Apprentice” with Strong but also stars in “A Different Man,” a cautionary story of inner discovery — got together last month for The Envelope Actors Roundtable moderated by Spectrum News 1 host Kelvin Washington. They shared their thoughts on auditioning, responding to fear and the hard truths of the world around us.

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 10, 2024

A Different Man Articles Buring Rainbow Farm Let The Evil Go West Press The Apprentice

Dec

News: Sebastian Stan Talks ‘The Apprentice’s Uphill Battle, Double Golden Globe Nomination, Lily James Reteam ‘Let The Evil Go West’ & Upcoming Cristian Mungiu & Justin Kurzel Projects

Deadline

On Monday, Sebastian Stan pulled off a rare feat, scoring Golden Globe nominations for Lead Actor in both Drama and Musical/Comedy categories. Following the announcement, Stan got candid about upcoming projects with Cristian Mungiu, Christian Tafdrup and Justin Kurzel, his experience on the awards circuit with his nominated turn as Donald Trump in The Apprentice, and more.

In discussing his upcoming slate, Stan seemed particularly excited about a project not yet announced with Cristian Mungiu, the Romanian filmmaker behind Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which he expects to shoot next year.

“I was born in Romania. I still speak the language, and I’ve been trying to find a project where I can go back and tap back into that history that I have,” said the actor, “so I’m excited about working with him, and hopefully that’s going to come together.”

A second project on the docket is Let the Evil Go West, a horror thriller from buzzy Danish filmmaker Christian Tafdrup, which reunites him with Pam & Tommy‘s Lily James. The film centers on a railroad worker driven to madness after coming upon a fortune, and his wife, who believes an evil presence has attached itself to their family.

Stan came to the project after seeing Tafdrup’s “unbelievable” horror thriller Speak No Evil, which Universal just remade. “This is a project that’s been going on for a while, and it always gets tricky. It’s about finding the right scheduling and the right time to do it,” said the actor. “But that’s something I’m really excited about.”

While he didn’t get into details, Stan also confirmed that he’s attached to star in Burning Rainbow Farm, a film that The Order‘s Justin Kurzel has in development. Plot details are unconfirmed, but we hear it’s inspired by true events, involving two marijuana advocates who face off against the FBI in a tense five-day standoff in Michigan, culminating in tragedy just days before 9/11.

Stan’s Globe nominations this morning came for Briarcliff’s The Apprentice, which examines Trump’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s New York real estate scene, as well as A24’s A Different Man. Hailing from filmmaker Aaron Schimberg, that title has him playing a man with a disfigurement who undergoes an experimental facial reconstruction surgery, before spiraling into a psychological crisis.

RELATED: Hollywood A-Listers Afraid Of Donald Trump’s Wrath Over ‘The Apprentice’, Sebastian Stan Says

“Stunned and incredibly ecstatic,” Stan shared that the nominations are gratifying given the risks he took with each project and the uphill battles faced with each — The Apprentice, in particular, which struggled to secure financing, and later, distribution, amid the threat of a lawsuit from Trump himself. The project is one Hollywood didn’t seem to know what to do with, both leading up to and in the aftermath of a polarizing, pivotal election.

Sharing that he had “extreme trepidations” about playing Trump — in part, because many in the industry advised him not to — Stan reflected this morning about a disclosure of his that went viral: that while he intended to appear on Variety’s video series Actors on Actors in support of The Apprentice, no actor would step up to talk with him about his project, presumably out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

“For me, the Variety thing was just unfortunately another example of the uphill battle that the movie had been facing since Cannes, that there was some hesitancy and some fear around it…But it wasn’t my intention to point a finger or blame anybody else,” Stan said. “It was just simply saying, ‘Hey, we should be mindful of things that feel fearful.’ Because as artists, we have to hold ourselves as sort of the ambassadors of the truth, in a way…Today, of course, is a big day, in terms of hopefully allowing people to feel like they have permission, to talk about this film, and look at the work and have a conversation about it.”

From Stan’s perspective, we as a society need “all kinds of movies” and “have to try to not ever discriminate against any movie,” even if it’s something as polarizing as The Apprentice. In terms of the current climate of fear among Hollywood stars, when it comes to addressing certain topics, Stan’s feeling is that “there’s always a conversation that we can have about the work and what goes into it.”

A recent speech on Stan’s mind, when it comes to this, is the one given by honoree Richard Curtis at the Governors Awards. “He went up there and said, ‘Look, I am grateful to be standing up here and be recognized this evening. Buts also, I want to say, we love good ideas and we love embracing good ideas, but we also have to follow through on the action of it, even when you get to the last one-yard line, trying to get past it,’” the actor recalls. “Because I know the intentions are always good, and I believe that movies can inspire. I think they can reveal things sometimes that we have a hard time maybe understanding or communicating about in day-to-day life.”

In reflecting on the bold and diverse resume he’s carved out over the last decade-plus, Stan gave credit to his “Marvel family” for being an “incredibly supportive,” consistent presence in his life over the last 15 years, which has allowed him to “go out there and find other projects that allow me to kind of change it up and challenge myself.”

This, he says, is what he wants more than anything. “I’ve always tried to find other actors to learn from and grow from, and I want to be part of something meaningful,” Stan says, “and maybe that’s just me getting older. You want the work to have meaning and to stand for something.”

It’s hard to come up with an example of another actor who has scored lead actor nominations in both Drama and Musical/Comedy in the same year. Leonardo DiCaprio won twice in 2007, for Blood Diamond and The Departed, but both of those noms were in Lead Actor Drama. More commonly, an actor nabs one nomination in Lead and one in Supporting — for example, Kate Winslet, who did so with Revolutionary Road (Lead) and The Reader (Supporting) in 2009, winning both. Winslet also scored a pair of Globe noms in 2012 for Mildred Pierce and Carnage, though both noms were in Lead categories. Interestingly, the actress is again in the running with a pair of projects this season — those being feature Lee and series The Regime.

Other examples of multiple nominees across Lead and Supporting categories in a single year include Al Pacino (Glengarry Glen Ross & Scent of a Woman, 1993) and Jamie Foxx (Collateral & Ray, 2005). This year’s Golden Globes are set to take place on January 5.

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 09, 2024

A Different Man Articles Press The Apprentice

Dec

News: Sebastian Stan Is “Still Shaking” After Getting Two 2025 Golden Globe Nominations

Vanity Fair – On the heels of recognition for both The Apprentice and A Different Man, Stan speaks to Vanity Fair about his “surreal” journey to awards recognition, as well as being nominated in the same year as Pamela Anderson.

It’s not every day that an actor earns a Golden Globe nomination, much less two in the same morning. But Sebastian Stan joined the likes of Selena Gomez and Kate Winslet on Monday by getting dual 2025 Globe nominations. “It’s certainly surreal,” he tells Vanity Fair, adding he’s “still sort of shaking from it.”

Stan secured recognition for both his dramatic turn as Donald Trump in The Apprentice and his more comedic performance as a tormented aspiring actor named Edward in A Different Man. It is the first time that a male performer has pulled off double nominations in the lead acting categories since Ryan Gosling managed to do it back in 2012. “Listen, one of my favorite actors of all time,” Stan says. “I’d be very glad to be in that little stat with him.”

In the early hours of nomination morning, Stan was getting some shuteye—or, at least attempting to. “I actually woke up in the middle of the night at 4:00, and was like, Oh, okay, there’s an hour and a half. I fell asleep again, and then I got a call from my publicist,” he tells VF. Since then, “I’ve been sending a lot of pictures to my mom.”

Some excitement is to be expected, especially when considering what it took to get both of Stan’s nominated films to the screen. “I never would’ve dreamt that I was going to be going to the Globes with both of these films, I never would’ve dreamt that both of the films would’ve come out in the same year,” he says.

Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man sat in limbo for two years before debuting on the festival circuit this year. At the Sundance Film Festival, it was acquired by A24 for a fall release. The film then screened in Berlin, where Stan won the Silver Bear for best lead performance. Meanwhile, The Apprentice, directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Vanity Fair special contributor Gabriel Sherman, premiered at May’s Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews. But the film faced a treacherous road to distribution in the days before the 2024 presidential election.

“To even be in one room with both films is not something that’s ever crossed my mind,” Stan says. “So, I’ll be digesting that probably throughout the holiday season.” The recognition for each movie feels extra gratifying because “they both felt really challenging in terms of what the roles we’re requiring,” he says, “obviously one being one of the most famous people in the world, with a lot of people having very strong feelings about [him], and many, many impressions having been done. How do you go in there and find something new, or try to offer a different perspective?”

As it turns out, bringing a young Trump to life during the dawn of his fortuitous relationship with Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong, now Globe-nominated for best supporting actor in a feature film) was only half the fight. Stan recently opened up about the struggle to promote The Apprentice in the wake of Trump’s reelection, including having to pass on Variety’s Actors on Actors because other participants were reluctant to talk about the president-elect.

“The movie has had a really uphill battle since Cannes,” says Stan, who also recently nabbed an Independent Spirit Award nomination for the movie. “It’s been hard for people to have permission to express how they feel about the movie, and today feels very gratifying in terms of having the Golden Globes recognize the film, and the work. It feels like hopefully going forward people can feel okay talking about it, and see it.”

Stan earned his first Globes nomination for playing Tommy Lee in 2022’s similarly controversial based-on-a-true-story project, Pam & Tommy. How does he feel to be nominated in the same year as the real-life Pamela Anderson, who became a first-time nominee for The Last Showgirl? “I’m so happy for her, and [it’s] so well deserved. It’s a beautiful film and a beautiful performance,” says Stan. “From our end, this was always part of the goal and the intention [of the series]—to somehow shine a light where it hasn’t been shined before, and hopefully contribute in a way [to her success]. So yeah, I’m ecstatic for her.”

Stan is also rooting for many of his other fellow nominees. “My two favorite films of the year are Sing Sing and A Real Pain,” says the actor, who then praises one of his competitors in the musical/comedy lead actor race. “Jesse Eisenberg, I want to say congratulations to him because he’s somebody I worked with years ago, in 2006 [via Fred Durst’s feature directorial debut, The Education of Charlie Banks], and the man’s a genius. I love that movie so much.”

He also spotlights The Substance, a film that, along with a release date, also shares themes with A Different Man—more specifically, issues of transformation and fixation on physical appearance. “There were a lot of articles that kind of put us together, in terms of the themes of the movies,” says Stan. “But they’re unique in the sense that they are original. Sing Sing, A Real Pain, I should say Anora while I’m at it—to be able to have films that are standing on their own without any IP, or anything about them that we know but their true original film storytelling, is amazing.”

The Globes are seen as something of a precursor on the way to potential Oscar gold—but Stan isn’t getting ahead of himself. “The fact that we’re here today in itself is such a massive step, but it is very much a one-day-at-a-time experience,” says the 42-year-old. “As an actor in this community, besides the work that you do on the day, when you go home at night and feel like you’ve left it all on the field, there’s nothing more gratifying than the actual recognition of your peers. I’ve been doing this for 20-some odd years, and I’m pretty grateful. So, knock on wood, and whatever happens next happens—but we’ve already won in a major way.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Dec 09, 2024

A Different Man Articles Interviews Press The Apprentice

Nov

News: Sebastian Stan on playing Donald Trump in ‘The Apprentice’ and a disfigured actor in ‘A Different Man’: ‘The margin of error for me was very small’

Gold Derby

Sebastian Stan is receiving major awards buzz for two films this year. In Ali Abbasi‘s “The Apprentice,” he plays a young Donald Trump as he starts his real-estate business in 1970s and ’80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy M. Cohn (Jeremy Strong). In Aaron Schimberg‘s dark comedy “A Different Man,” Stan plays a disfigured aspiring actor who undergoes a radical medical procedure to transform his appearance. Stan chats with Gold Derby about both roles in the video interview above.

The actor says “fear” and his “lack of actual knowledge about this person” inspired him to take on the role of Trump. “Like everybody else, I’ve been inundated with a constant influx of information online, ‘SNL’ impressions, headlines, horrific soundbites of his, and I had maybe had my own ideas about the guy,” he explains. “I actually feel like I really didn’t know who he was, or how did he become what he became?”

“As an actor, you’re hoping to find projects that challenge you, but also truly ask very important, uncomfortable questions,” Stan says. “We’re talking about someone who has affected all of our lives. I felt there was a responsibility to really try to hold a mirror up to nature.” Stan likens his preparation for the role to “learning an instrument.” He had to master Trump’s mannerisms and speech, which were drastically different in the 1970s.

Stan reveals, “You study footage and listen to audio for hours on end. Basically it takes over your life. It takes a long time, and then eventually you can just do it in your sleep and not think about it. You want it to feel organic, and you want it to feel earned so it’s not something you’re conscious of. The caricature, the cartoon, the ‘SNL’ impression were always going to be a mountain to climb. Everyone’s got some back pocket impression of him…The margin of error for me was very small.”

The actor plays the real estate mogul and then-future president in the 1970s and 80s, and Stan explains how much Trump has changed since then. “He didn’t start out to be this character,” he says. “He’s actually been inventing himself every 10 years, arguably. It’s quite fascinating because people change, but we don’t all change that much or that drastically. He’s had very different points in his life that led him to this. The building of Trump Tower, Atlantic City was another point for him, and then really ‘The Apprentice,’ which is the version we’ve been living with. This character he’s learned pretty well and shaped in that show. For our purposes, when you go back in time, there was a guy that was really not that sure of himself.”

Stan plays another man with deep insecurities in “A Different Man.” His character, Edward, suffers from neurofibromatosis, a condition that causes tumors to grow on his face. “It was such a unique, different film,” he says. “Not just in terms of how unbelievably unpredictable the movie is. It’s funny, it’s tragic. It’s exciting for an actor and you actually feel surprised by the material.”

“There’s this underlying message of about identity and self-truth,” he continues. “Not just how it pertains to disability and disfigurement, and how we don’t really have a relationship with that at all. We are curious, but afraid to rely on our curiosity, and therefore we manage to walk away without any education or awareness about someone’s experience in those shoes. It really is about something we’re all facing now, which is, who am I? And who am I separately from how I look to other people?”

Stan stars with Adam Pearson, an actor who actually has neurofibromatosis. “It was a very tricky line to walk,” Stan says. “The prosthetics by Mike Marino were so great, that at times, people don’t even know if it’s me or him. It’s so cleverly and expertly woven together by Aaron, and it’s about what happens to this person that has denied himself for so long, and then when he thinks he gets this life he’s always wanted, he finds out that the cost he paid was his true self.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Nov 22, 2024