Category: Interviews
Sebastian is interviewed around the 2:09 mark. đ
You can check out Seb’s entire interview over at PLAYBILL.COM
How did Picnic come about for you? Were you actively looking for more theatre work?
Sebastian Stan: I actually met up with our director Sam Gold about two years ago â in L.A. of all places. I’d heard such great things about him. He didn’t know at the time when or if it was going to happen, but we started discussing Picnic. Then I read the play and thought it was great. I love the ’50s and grew up loving works from that time period and from those great playwrights. Fortunately, the timing worked out, and we were able to do the play together two years later.So you were already buffing up to reprise your role as Bucky Barnes in the “Captain America: The First Avenger” sequel, “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”
SS: Yeah. And it’s funny, because everyone’s had very different reactions to my physique. Somebody who came to see the show said to me, “Don’t you think you’re in too good of shape for this? No one looked like that in the 1950s.” But I watched a lot of movies from that time period. Because Paul Newman had been in the original Broadway production of Picnic, I watched a lot of Paul Newman movies like “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Long, Hot Summer,” where he played a homeless drifter, and he was in incredible shape â ripped, tan, and glistening. So I didn’t find myself to be out of line when I was physically preparing for the role.You were only 12 when you moved to the United States. That’s not exactly the most ideal age to be different.
SS: Yeah, it was an interesting time. I really didn’t want to be different at all. I lost my accent â although it still comes out every once in a while â but I just wanted to be like everyone else. It took me a few years to finally realize that I should actually embrace where I come from, because it’s something that sets me apart. In my head, that’s sort of what Hal’s trying to do too. Hal’s desperately trying to be someone he thinks he should be and someone he thinks will fit it. Finally, he comes across someone, Madge, who basically says, “Listen, dude, calm down and stop trying to be someone else, because I like you for you.” The peace of mind he discovers at the end of the play is that it’s OK to own who you are.
You can check out Sebastian’s full interview with Blackbook Magazine over at BLACKBOOKMAG.COM
On the subject of talented actors, in another interview you mentioned learning a lot from fellow cast member Ellen Burstyn. Can you tell me more?
As an actor, in terms of performing the same thing every night, the challenge is to rediscover that sense of truth and be as honest as possible, which is difficult. Being opposite her, thereâs always the element of surprise. Working with her leads to new discoveries. Sheâs a generous actress. She is such a presence that itâs very easy to work off of. Iâve become familiar with her book, which I urge everyone to read. Itâs tremendously inspiring what that woman has lived through. Her knowledge extends decades; about writers, actors, movies, books, and poems that have inspired her, so she shares some of that. Itâs almost like going to school and learning about all of these wonderful things again. Sheâs lived an incredible life.
Do you consider yourself a fairly grounded person?
Well, I feel the ground beneath my feet. [Laughs] There were times I wish I could have had a more normal upbringing, in terms of being in one place and going to the same school the entire time. Iâm very grateful for where I came from and the way things worked out. I already feel like Iâve come a long way. If this is whatâs happened so far, if I keep on the line Iâm going, then perhaps many other great things will happen. Itâs just the beginning.
So, did you have to get in shape for the role, or is that just your natural physique?
[Laughs] No, that is not my natural physique. Boy, would I love it to be. I did have to get into shape. While I can, I gotta answer some of these funny questions. People werenât in shape like that back then, no way. Thatâs so 21st Century. No one can be ripped like that in the 1950s. And for anyone that says that, I would say, go and look at Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke and The Long, Hot Summer. Just look at his physique in those films. That should answer the question. The play asks very specifically forâitâs gotta be physical. This is how I saw it and so did the director. At the same time, it became a great challenge to want to get into shape. But, it coincides with another little project where I have to be in shape, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
Youâve done TV, film, and stage acting. How do they compare, and do you have a favorite medium?
The biggest thing that sticks out for all three of them is the element of time. In TV, everything goes quick, quick, quick. You gotta shoot a lot in one day. In movies, you have the luxury of taking your time and shooting something over the span of a few months. And then, on stage, you get your rehearsal period, which you donât often get for TV and movies, so thatâs always a very amazing thing in itself, which I enjoy about stage. That being said, TV keeps you on your toes because you gotta go, go, go. You donât have time to think and reevaluate. In movies, which is ultimately the directorâs medium, thereâs opportunity for being a part of a really great project because you have the time to shoot the way you want to shoot. If youâre working with a good group of people and youâre enjoying the material, it really doesnât matter. The final thing Iâll say about stage is, everything you do is in the moment every night. What the audience sees is your creation. Itâs not edited. Itâs not chopped up. Itâs not one version of somebodyâs point of view. Itâs you up there that the audience sees.
You definitely know Sebastian Stan. The 29-year-old rising star turned in memorable TV performances on Once Upon a Time, Gossip Girl and Political Animals, and heâs graced the movie screen in hits like Black Swan and Captain America. On top of that, Stan is an accomplished theater actor, having appeared on Broadway in 2007 in the Tony-nominated revival of Talk Radio. Nowadays heâs heating up the stage as a handsome, troubled drifter in Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Picnic. Broadway.com chatted with Stan about learning lessons from Ellen Burstyn, growing up in theater and finding what it takes to make it on Broadway.
You play a classic “bad boy” in Picnic. What drew you to the role of Hal?
When I was studying acting at Rutgers, I was obsessed with actors from the â50s. I wanted to emulate them, the Montgomery Clifts and James Deans of the world. Everything they did seemed so iconic and so romantic in some broken, terrible way. And this play is, at first glance, an opportunity to explore that world. The challenge was to make that real.You and Maggie Grace just ooze chemistry. Did that come naturally?
I would say so. Maggieâs incredibly sweet, very generous and thereâs a very open communicative relationship between the two of us about what it is that we need to do every night. I can say the same about the rest of the group. I feel very lucky that itâs a welcoming, warm, friendly group. You donât always get that.Do you see yourself as the sexy, shirtless type?
[Laughs.] Donât we all try and think of ourselves like that at some point in time?You grew up doing theater, and you went to [the famous summer camp] Stagedoor Manor. Would you describe yourself as a “theater kid”?
Oh, for sure! I went to a tiny, tiny high school where kids werenât competing with each other for a part in the musical because there werenât enough people. It was Stagedoor Manor that advanced what I thought doing theater wasâthe process, the rehearsal, the costumes and what goes on backstage and everybodyâs part in it.What is it about theater that you fell in love with?
Thereâs something very arousing about having an immediate response from people, right then and there. Theater really is much more of an actorâs medium because youâre in control of the editing of what the audience is going to see. Youâre the one making those choices. There isnât somebody else up there cutting the moment together for you.Youâre also gearing up to play the amped-up role of Bucky Barnes in Captain America: Winter Soldier. Excited?
Iâm completely excited to venture down that path. This is why January 1, 2013, was a glorious day to wake up to [laughs]. Iâm very grateful and very lucky for whatâs going on right now. I think you have to allow yourself to be excited about the magnitude of something like [Captain America].
Check out Sebastian’s entire interview over at BROADWAY.COM
Entering stage left: The best abs on Broadway.
The well-tended washboard belongs to Sebastian Stan, who plays Hal Carter in William Ingeâs 1953 drama, âPicnic.â
Hal is the horndog drifter who wears his ripe, ever-ready sexuality on his sleeve.
When heâs got sleeves, that is.
Hal spends much of the first act without a shirt.
âItâs so important to the story,â says Stan, when asked about all the beefcake. âItâs about a small town in the â50s and the repression.â
The role of Hal required the 29-year-old actor, who got hooked on theater growing up in Rockland County, to get in the shape of his life.
âThe job presented a nice opportunity to push myself in a big way,â says Stan. âIâve always been fit, but have never been to this point.â
He credits help from trainers Don Saladino and Ryan Johnson at Drive495 in SoHo for whipping him into shape.
The workout regimen included a mix of high-intensity cardio, weight training, plenty of shuteye and an eating plan that centers mostly on lean protein. Picnic fare, like potato salad swimming in mayo, wasnât on the menu.
âI eat eight times a day,â says Stan. âBetween the time the play ends and I take a bow, I down a protein drink.â
Saladino, who specializes in getting actors ready for a role, applauds Stanâs âunbelievableâ dedication.âWhen Sebastian took his shirt off,â he says, âhe wanted peopleâs mouths to drop open.â
Or their eyes to pop out. And that includes the elderly woman played by Ellen Burstyn. She and other characters stare at the half-naked Hal like a starving lioness eyeing a hobbled antelope.
Whispers of approval have been heard in the audience too.
The actor takes it in stride. âItâs fun,â he says. âIâm lucky that this is part of my work.â
Stanâs role as Hal wraps on Feb. 24, when the show ends its run at the American Airlines Theatre. He starts filming the sequel to âCaptain Americaâ in April. And he says his workouts will go on. âI told my trainers that theyâre stuck with me for life.â