Category: Press

Apr
29

News: Sebastian Stan Shares the Amusing Text He Got from Anthony Mackie Following Avengers: Doomsday Cast Announcement

People

Shortly after the star-studded Avengers: Doomsday lineup was announced on March 26, Sebastian Stan received a text from an old Marvel pal.

While speaking at a recent press junket for the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Thunderbolts*, Stan, 42, shared the message he received from his The Falcon and the Winter Soldier costar Anthony Mackie. Mackie portrays Sam Wilson/The Falcon while Stan plays Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier.

“I got a text that went, ‘What’s up player’ and I was like, um ‘Not much. How are you?’ ” Stan said, impersonating Mackie, 46, with a laugh.

“And he was like, ‘When you come in, where are you staying at?’ And I was like, uh, ‘I don’t know yet, Anthony. I don’t have my place yet,’ ” Stan added, saying his costar and friend responded with, “Don’t be like that.”

The two have co-starred in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. More recently, they reprised their respective superhero roles in the 2021 Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At the end of the series, Wilson assumes the role of Captain America from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers following the events of Avengers: Endgame.

When asked recently by Variety if he would appear in Captain America: Brave New World (Stan makes a brief cameo), Stan noted that he has been preoccupied filming Thunderbolts*.

“[Filming] Thunderbolts*, let me tell you, it was a much quieter year for me because I didn’t see Anthony Mackie,” the actor teased. “So, I’ll say that. Although I miss Anthony Mackie like daily, and it’s something I don’t like to admit.”

As for what Stan thinks of his latest Marvel project, the actor also shared with PEOPLE of the Thunderbolts* cast, “I knew that it was gonna be great just because we all got along.”

“You’re putting a new bunch of people together that you haven’t really tested out before. It’s different when you’re bringing people back and you know their strengths together,” Stan said. “But here we sort of had to figure it out and they were open to that.”

The Thunderbolts are comprised of Stan as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Olga Kurylenko as Antonio Dreykov/Taskmaster and Wyatt Russell as John Walker/U.S. Agent. Julia Louis-Dreyfus also stars as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the woman who gathers them together.

Apr
28

News: Fleeing Romania to being an Oscar nominee: Why Sebastian Stan is truly a star

India Today

Sebastian Stan’s journey to Hollywood isn’t your typical success story. He didn’t grow up in Los Angeles or come from a family in the business. Instead, his story starts in Romania – under a strict government, in a country still dealing with the impact of Communism. From there, he made his way to the United States, built a career on taking risks, and became one of the unique and respected actors in the industry.

Sebastian’s early life was filled with uncertainty. His father, Constantin Stan, worked on cargo ships and secretly helped people escape from Romania, where the government kept a tight grip on its citizens. “He was a bit of a hero in my town,” Sebastian told Vanity Fair in a recent interview. “My parents were part of the youth that were standing up to Communism. My father was helping people escape the country illegally, to the point where he was a wanted man. And he himself had to flee.”

Eventually, his father disappeared completely, going into exile in the United States. Sebastian stayed behind with his mother, Georgeta Orlovschi, a pianist. She first fled to Vienna to get settled, then brought Sebastian to join her. Not long after, they moved to the US to start over.

Even after all these years, Romania is still a big part of who Sebastian is. Growing up under a harsh government taught him to be aware of power and how it can be misused – something he still thinks about today in his life in America. He also understands the immigrant experience in a personal way. “I have always made the argument that immigrants, to some extent, are more patriotic than even the people that are born here because they don’t take things for granted,” he said in his Vanity Fair interview.

Sebastian’s acting career didn’t take off right away. He didn’t fit the usual Hollywood image, but that worked in his favour. He started taking on roles that were a little different – more complex, darker, and sometimes even a bit strange. From Bucky Barnes in the ‘Captain America’ films, to his performances in ‘I, Tonya’, ‘Pam and Tommy’, and ‘Fresh’, he’s always chosen characters that are interesting and unexpected.

In 2024, he gave the people two big films – ‘A Different Man’ and ‘The Apprentice’. For the first film, he received a Golden Globe for Best Actor. For the second one, he became an Oscar-nominated actor.

After years of hard work and quietly building an impressive career, Sebastian is finally getting the attention he deserves. In 2025, he was honoured at the Golden Globes, a moment that felt long overdue for fans and critics alike.

For a long time, Sebastian Stan was best known as Bucky Barnes – the Winter Soldier – in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). His work across the ‘Captain America’ films and beyond earned him a loyal fan base, but let’s be honest: most of the spotlight was on Chris Evans as Captain America. And fair enough – Evans nailed that role and became the face of a franchise.

But that often meant Stan didn’t get quite the credit he deserved. His version of Bucky was intense, emotional, and complex – a man struggling with trauma, guilt, and identity. It wasn’t just a supporting role; it was a masterclass in subtle, layered acting.

And outside of Marvel? Stan’s really shown what he’s capable of. He’s taken on a wide range of roles, proving he’s not just a superhero sidekick but a seriously talented lead. In ‘I, Tonya’, he transformed into Jeff Gillooly with both awkwardness and edge. In ‘Pam and Tommy’, he completely disappeared into the role of Tommy Lee. Then there’s the twisted charm of ‘Fresh’, the creepy intensity of ‘The Devil All the Time’, and the quiet mystery of ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’.

He’s also not afraid to take risks. Whether he’s playing a real-life figure like Donald Trump in ‘The Apprentice’, or diving into dark, psychologically challenging roles, Stan always brings a level of depth and commitment that makes you sit up and pay attention.

Sebastian Stan didn’t follow the traditional path to stardom. He carved out his own path, breaking through cultural and industry expectations along the way. His story is a powerful reminder that where you start doesn’t have to define where you end up – and that being different can be your biggest strength.

Apr
28

News: ‘Thunderbolts’: Sebastian Stan and Wyatt Russell Talk Marvel’s Most Unexpected Story and Wanting to Disprove Naysayers

The Hollywood Reporter

Russell says his background in sports fueled his desire for the movie to be so good that it proves doubters wrong: “I want to make you eat your words.”

There’s a scene in Jake Schreier’s Thunderbolts* where Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes ruins an illusion that Wyatt Russell’s John Walker has been trying to uphold. Walker proceeds to give such a vulnerable look to Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova that you might find yourself reevaluating how you feel about the disgraced former Captain America from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Disney+ series. It’s one of the many unexpected moments in, arguably, Marvel Studios’ most unexpected superhero tale to date.

Stan and Russell recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss some of the other unanticipated components of the film, starting with Congressman Barnes, something that was first set up in Captain America: Brave New World. Bucky visited the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), at a moment when he needed his friend most, and the then-former Winter Soldier had to cut their reunion short due to a “stupid” campaign fundraiser.

Well, Thunderbolts* picks back up with Bucky now elected and known as Congressman Barnes, and Stan likens his role to a retired athlete who is brought back by their most tenured team to serve as an ambassador. They don’t have a major impact on the team’s day-to-day, but it makes fans feel good to see their past icons hanging around still. However, as Thunderbolts’ marketing campaign reveals in the form of Stan’s homage to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Bucky can only put the (non-brainwashed) Winter Soldier on ice for so long.

“He’s also had his own suspicions about [Julia Louis-Dreyfus’] Valentina, so I think [congress] is his way of trying to, in the legal and moral way, keep track of her. And then he realizes, ‘I can just do this in my way, the way that I’ve always done it [as The Winter Soldier],’” Stans tells THR in support of Thunderbolts’ May 2 theatrical release.

In December 2023, Russell teased to THR that Thunderbolts* would not be your tried-and-true Marvel superhero film, and it’s now come to light that the film is genuinely about mental health. Louis-Dreyfus’ CIA director, Valentine Allegra de Fontaine, has positioned a number of MCU loners and rejects — such as Yelena, Walker, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and newcomer “Bob” (Lewis Pullman) — to kill each other for her own nefarious reasons. But they instead decide to team up in response to the obvious setup.

Along the way, each antihero is forced to confront the most unpleasant corners of their mind, and Russell, as a former accomplished hockey player, was eager to disprove anyone who wrote Thunderbolts* off as just another superhero team-up.

“We came to this as a group of people who were like, ‘Let’s make this our own thing, let’s make it great and let’s make people put their foot in their mouths,’” Russell says. “I have a little bit of an athletic background, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to make you eat your words if you’re like, “This movie’s going to blow, I don’t want to go see it.”’”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Stan and Russell also discuss the highly collaborative nature of the Thunderbolts set.
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Apr
22

Video/Photo: Sebastian Stan Picks What to Watch in Any Situation | Vanity Fair (w/ screencaps) + ‘Thunderbolts*’ Dossier Comic Scans

Apr
21

Photo/News: How Sebastian Stan Survived Communism and Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter

Vanity Fair

For photos from this interview click here: Session #61 – Norman Jean Roy

This windblown Monday in late February would have been his late father’s 70th birthday, and before the day is gone, he is determined to light a candle and say a prayer in the old man’s memory at a place that had meaning for them both. Stan was born and raised in Romania, where faith and superstition became rooted together for him. “Whenever I’m in a church, I have to go like this three times,” he says, making the sign of the cross with his right hand. “I have to do it. And I have to do it three times before I get on a plane.”
Just before we arrived at this Southern California church in pursuit of the sacred, Stan was indulging the profane. Is there another way to describe an encounter with a remote-controlled talking penis? The actor is based in New York, so when he visits LA, as he’s doing now to attend the Academy Awards, he has a full to-do list. Today, that includes a visit to the makeup studio Autonomous FX, which won an Emmy for transforming Stan and Lily James into Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson for the Hulu series Pam & Tommy. The whole day is a microcosm of what has established Stan as one of the more daring and endearing actors working today. He thinks deeply but has a wild side too.

We’ll get back to the robo-penis later.

It’s getting late, and Stan has to hurry through rush-hour traffic to get right with God for his father’s birthday. The Biserica Ortodox? Român? Sfânta Treime (or Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church) that he wants to visit to light the tribute to his father is meaningful to the Romanian immigrants who founded it, but it’s no soaring cathedral. It’s tiny, a single-story white stucco structure with a squat steeple that’s hidden behind much taller trees. Across the street is the headquarters of the Bilt-Well Roofing company, which is a comparatively much bigger operation.
Stan left Romania more than three decades ago, but it’s still a core part of him. So is the uncertainty of growing up in a place where the government dominated and demoralized its own citizens—which makes him especially attuned to authoritarianism in his adopted country of the United States. His old accent is gone, of course. Few who have seen him onscreen as the Winter Soldier in a decade and a half of Marvel movies—including the upcoming outcast team-up adventure Thunderbolts*—could find a trace of it. Stan’s character of Bucky Barnes is as all-American as his closest friend, Captain America. The character was a Brooklyn native, but Stan took on a neighboring Queens inflection for another famous (or infamous) performance, playing young Donald Trump in the scathing true-life drama The Apprentice. The role earned him both a best-actor Oscar nomination this year and the enduring rage of a vengeful, unchecked president.

New faces and new voices were exactly what drew Stan to acting in high school. He moved to the US in the 1990s, and—as an immigrant kid still struggling to adapt to the language and culture—it was a lot more fun to be Bum Number Two in a production of Little Shop of Horrors than it was to be himself. “I just remember how fun it was to try to change everything,” he says.

Being onstage turned a shy kid into a scene-stealing extrovert— and he was good at it. His mother sent him to summer theater camp not far from their new home just outside New York City, and by the end of high school, he was being cast as the lead in Cyrano de Bergerac. He was a good-looking kid, but he still loved hiding his face beneath Cyrano’s oversized nose. “You’re dress ing up, you’re putting on fake beards, you’re walking differently, you’re changing,” he tells me. “You take big swings. You take bigger swings than you do when you’re a young actor coming to LA to go on pilot season auditions and they try to cast you as yourself—and you’re only allowed to play yourself.”

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Apr
17

News: How Jacob Elordi Physically Transformed for Justin Kurzel’s Piercing War Story ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’

Indiewire

While Kurzel said he is no longer associated with the Laura Dern and Benedict Cumberbatch sci-fi drama “Morning,” he is about to begin production on another adaptation. Kurzel has replaced “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson to helm Cory Finley’s adaptation of “Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke,” journalist Dean Kuipers’ account of a five-day standoff between marijuana advocates and the FBI. As an indication of the regard in which he is held by actors, Kurzel was brought onto the project by its star Sebastian Stan, a gesture that speaks to the collaborative spirit he fosters on set.

Apr
15

Photos: ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Screen Captures + Photoshoot Upgrades (Corina Marie Howell + Austin Hargrave)

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ is now out on digital release. I’ve added 500+ screen captures of Sebastian’s cameo as Bucky to the gallery. I’ve also added upgraded and untagged photos from two photoshoots from Corina Marie Howell + Austin Hargrave. Thanks to Sandra for the photoshoot assistance.

Apr
04

News: How Sebastian Stan Finally Brought Hollywood to His Homeland With Romanian Festival Hopeful ‘A River’s Gaze’

Variety

It’s hard to imagine Sebastian Stan fighting for any part in Hollywood.

The Academy Award nominee has proven he’s as bankable in high-brow indies like “The Apprentice” and “A Different Man” as he is in soaring commercial fare like his continuing role as Marvel’s Bucky Barnes (next appearing in “Thunderbolts”).

But a cinematic homecoming that has eluded him over his career. Born in Constan?a, Romania, Stan has been trying to find a way to bring his day job back to his birth country and highlight talent in the region. Stan told Variety that’s been looking for the right Romanian script to act in for the for the better part of 15 years. Now, he’s found a way to represent behind the camera as a producer on “A River’s Gaze,” a Romanian-set drama from director Andreea Bortun.

It’s a story close to his own upbringing, Stan says. His single mom Georgeta raised him across multiple countries while forging her own artistic and academic path. Bortun, whose work is a blend of anthropology and visual art, has sent successful shorts to festivals like Cannes (where her collaboration with Stan has submitted for inclusion this year).

“A River’s Gaze” tells the story of Lavinia, a single mom herself whose ambitions of a better life for her 14-year-old son often eclipse his urgent emotional needs in the moment. Told over four seasons in rural Romania, Stan and Bortun caught up with Variety to discuss the artistic trip home.

Sebastian, how did you attach as a producer to this project?

Sebastian Stan: This came from a lot of conversations I’ve had with her over the years about my desire to be more involved with Romania creatively. A mutual friend who we both admire and respect spoke highly of Andrea and sent me her short, which had gone to Cannes. I was immediately blown away. I’ve wanted to act in a Romanian film for a very long time. I’ve tried and it hasn’t come about, but I realized that I can also help behind the camera. Andrea’s script spoke to me personally. At the center is this very specific, intimate relationship between a mother and a son growing up in Romania under particular conditions, which I feel are not always reflected much to the rest of the world. I had my own journey with my mom growing up there and leaving the country. I felt there were things about it that really rang true to me, and that was great, because it only incentivized me to want to be involved further in helping her craft this vision.
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Apr
03

Photos/Video: ‘Thunderbolts*’ Ticket Ad & Making Of Featurette (w/ screen captures)

Marvel has released a new ad preparing tickets for Thunderbolts to go on sale this coming Monday. They’ve also released a short making of featurette to view, I’ve added them both below as well as screencaps into the gallery, enjoy.



Apr
02

Photos: I, Tonya Premiere + EE British Awards (New/Old) & Thunderbolts Promotional Designs

I’ve added 16 more new UHQ photos from various public events including the I, Tonya Premiere and the British Academy Film Awards to the gallery. Thanks to Sandra for the assistance. I’ve also added some promotional design artwork from Thunderbolts and a SoHo House photo to the gallery.