Category: Press

Sep
17

Sebastian Stan On ‘The Martian’ And How He Wasn’t Sure He’d Be A Part Of ‘Captain America: Civil War’

I know you were born in Romania. But every time I remember that, I’m surprised because you play these “all-American”-type roles.

I know. I’m not quite sure how that ended up, but I’m happy that people look to me that way. But, yes, I’m not from here!

Bucky Barnes is the epitome of an “all-American guy.”

But you have to remember that The Winter Soldier has this weird Russian background and his own Eastern European kind of background — and so do I. So it’s a great fit I guess.

The Martian is the most fun movie about being stranded on a desolate death planet that I could ever imagine. It doesn’t wallow in its own misery, and it could have done that.

Of course! And I think that’s one of the great things about it. The movie knows how to make fun of itself a little bit. Like, you’re rooting with him and you’re always aware of the stakes. But, at the same time, there’s a fun balance of humor there, just letting you kind of remember just how ridiculous this situation is. The fact that this guy is farming in his own sh*t on a different planet. And the movie doesn’t shy away from kind of making fun of that.

In something like Cast Away, maybe it’s more frustrating to know there are other humans probably 100 miles away, as opposed to being on Mars where the situation is so extreme, a person might respond with more levity.

I was talking to a couple people last night and they were telling me about how they had three screenings for The Martian when they were editing it. The first screening, the people who watched the movie walked away from it going, “You know what? He makes fun of everything. I don’t buy it. It seems like he’s going to survive.” So, the stakes weren’t high enough. Then there was another screening where they took away the humor and it got really serious. And then the third version is the one where they merged the two and they found the right balance — which is why editing is amazing and the key. That’s why they are composers, in a way.

There has to be humor for us to relate. Your character in this movie is a genius. All the characters are geniuses.

Yeah, absolutely. And as actors, it’s funny, everyone keeps asking, “Did you do research? Did you talk to NASA?” And, yes, we did research and so on and did our best to learn…

So you’re all set if you get stranded in space.

Not… at… all. In fact, we all agreed on just how quickly we would die.

The lesson from all of this is, unless you’re an astronaut, do not go to space.

Yeah, maybe not. It’s just funny to read about all of these privately funded projects. You know, because there are people trying to go there with a one-way ticket. And I go, I hope you know what you’re signing up for. That’s six months of radiation for a one-way ticket.

It sounds like they want to try to colonize it, but it’s not really that easy.

I don’t even know if people think that far ahead, to be honest.

I don’t think that trip is ever going to happen. NASA will go someday.

Of course. And I think it will happen in our lifetime.

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Sep
16

Cast of ‘The Martian’ Talk to Space Station Crew Members, Receives Johnson Space Center Tour

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA took time out of their work schedule to talk to Sebastian Stan and Mackenzie Davis, cast members of the new movie “The Martian”, during a visit they made to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center, Houston Sept. 15. They were joined by JSC Director Ellen Ochoa. Kelly is at the midway point of a year-long mission aboard the orbital laboratory with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), gathering valuable biomedical data that will be used in the formulation of a future human mission to Mars. Lindgren, who is a medical doctor, is beginning the third month of a five-month mission on the outpost.

Mackenzie Davis and Sebastian Stan, stars of 20th Century Fox’s Film “The Martian”, got a tour from Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa. News media followed the tour taking a peek at what NASA’s “Real Martians” are working on.

Sep
16

KHOU: ‘Martian’ actors meet real-life counterparts at Johnson Space Center

Sep
15

Cast From ‘The Martian’ Compares Notes With NASA Astronauts

It’s the half-way point of a special one-year mission on the International Space Station. NASA is testing the limits of extended stays in outer space. That’s as a new movie about an extended stay on Mars is about to premiere.

“This will come as quite a shock to my crew mates — and to NASA — and to the entire world — but I’m still alive. Surprise!” said Mark Watney, Matt Damon’s character in “The Martian.”

“The Martian” centers on one astronaut’s survival on planet Mars. He is believed to be dead, but proves otherwise, and then needs to be rescued.

Actors from the movie visited the Johnson Space Center to compare notes with astronauts and crew members.

It was a chance for Sebastian Stan and Mackenzie Davis to meet ISS astronaut Mike Hopkins.

Mackenzie Davis: “Well, how long is a spacewalk?”

Mike Hopkins: “Spacewalks typically are about six hours.”

Davis: “Six hours!”

Hopkins: “Six hours, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a long procedure on getting into the suit.”

Sebastian Stan: “Forty-five minutes, right, it takes you, or more?”

Hopkins: “No, it’s even more than that. Yeah, it’s five or six hours from when we start preparing to when we’re actually going out the hatch. And all of a sudden it’s six hours later and you’re coming in after completing a space walk.”

For realism when making films about space, Hollywood often collaborates with NASA.

Sebastian Stan talked about one problem in making the film.

Stan: “I should mention, by the way, that when they made our astronaut suits, they did not, like, think about us going on pee breaks, at all!”

Hopkins: “Ditto! Yeah! That’s … it’s the same!”

“The Martian” opens in theaters on October 2nd.

Source: houstonpublicmedia.org

Sep
13

‘The Martian’ Cast at Variety Studio

Sep
12

Sebastian Stan On Set Interview for ‘The Martian’

Aug
28

Captain America: Civil War Promo Art Reveals Captain America & Iron Man’s Teams

“Captain America: Civil War” picks up where “Avengers: Age of Ultron” left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.

Aug
13

Happy 33rd Birthday Sebastian!

seb-birthday
I’d like to wish Sebastion a very wonderful birthday today as he celebrates his thirty-third birthday! Happy Birthday Seb!!

Jul
10

Winter Soldier To Be Featured in End Credit Scene of ‘Ant-Man’

That’s right – not even in theaters until next July 17, 2015, the mid and end credit scenes for the movie has already been unveiled (well, what will happen in it, at least). According to comicbookmovie.com:

In the mid-credits scene for Ant-Man, “Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) gives the Wasp costume with wings to Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly)” and “Hank explains to Hope what happened to Hope’s mother Janet Van Dyne.” As for the post-credits scene, “Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) have located The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) to a remote location where The Winter Soldier is tied up.” Falcon asks Cap, “Should I call Stark?” He replied “No,” before Falcon says, “I know who to call,” referring to Ant-Man. Falcon appears in key scenes in the movie.

Adding credibility to the above descriptions, the finalized Ant-Man cast list confirms that Anthony Mackie is definitely in the movie while Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan have “uncredited” roles. Evidently, they all, including Paul Rudd, return in Captain America: Civil War.

Source: moviepilot.com

Jul
08

JoBlo.com’s Exclusive Set Visit with ‘The Martian’ Cast

Can you talk about the characters that you play in THE MARTIAN?

Kate Mara: I play Beth Johanssen. She’s basically the hacker of the group. She’s much smarter than I am. She’s definitely the computer wiz of the crew.

Sebastian Stan: I play Chris Beck. He’s a doctor which is kind of funny to me. I can’t imagine anyone entrusting their life to me. These are all very specifically trained astronauts and my character’s background is in medicine. But they do trade off certain tasks across the day and just help each other out.

We’ve heard a lot that NASA has been closely involved with giving advice. Have you guys experienced any training?

KM: I wish! I’m sure if we had to have had it, we would have found a way but a bunch of us came straight from other jobs. I really wanted to go visit NASA with Jessica. She went right before we came out here. I was stuck in New Orleans finishing a movie there and I couldn’t make it out. But I really knew nothing about space or NASA or anything of the subject. I’ve just been trying every day to go on their website and read about women in space and the history there. I had no information to go off of. When we got here, I read the book, which I hadn’t before reading the script. I know that NASA is really involved and really supportive of the whole thing. That’s always really nice to hear because it’s very rare.

SS: I concur. (laughs) No, that’s what I heard as well. I heard they were very excited and supportive. Obviously, all of the research I’ve done was from my apartment. I didn’t get to go to Houston or JPL or any of those places unfortunately. I wish I would have had the time to do that. All of the stuff I’ve found, not surprisingly, is close to a lot of the details that are in the book. Reading the book definitely helped. I feel like we’re on a new wave of interest for NASA and space, particularly Mars. There’s a lot of campaigns going on that are independent of NASA. Popularity is rising. I feel like we’re going to see this actually happen in our lifetimes. You sort of end up pinching yourself as you’re shooting this stuff. A lot of what happens in the book follows closely these theories that you can find on YouTube.

The set seems like a really challenging environment to shoot in.

KM: Yeah. The first two days, Sebastian and I didn’t have anything in our costumes, which are brilliant and really incredibly designed but so hard to wear.

SS: I refer to it as a car. Every day there’s a part of it that works better than another. Some parts have issues.

KM: The incredible set we’re on, obviously you can’t make everything work perfectly. We need to be able to take the helmets off quickly and put them on. They’re lit perfectly. But because of that, we have some problems with all the dust getting in our eyes and not being able to breathe. There’s a lot of panic involved when you can’t breathe and you can’t see and you’re trying to stay in it. It is helping with the scenes. It’s been wearing us down.

SS: We were talking about getting here. We leave the hotel during night because the sun doesn’t rise until 7:30. We leave at 5:30, 6 a.m. We get here, barely see the day while shooting, then get into the car and it’s night again already. So it kind of feels like isolation.

KM: We constantly feel like we’re in our own little bubbles. People are watching us and talking at us and we can’t hear a thing they’re saying. All we can hear is what all the other astronauts are saying. At first it’s a little jarring but then you get used to it. Again, that helps to stay in it.

What’s it like working with Ridley Scott?

SS: For me, it’s like having a front seat education to acting. You think, “I get to go to work with these types of people” and that’s enough for me.

Do you think he gets enough credit for the performances in his films? He’s seen as a big spectacle director but he gets great performances.

KM: As an actor, I know actors that know that and recognize that.

SS: A lot of his films are very character-based. I think there’s storytelling there and a focus on character. How many amazing characters have come from his movies?

KM: That’s one of the things I love about his movies is that they are epic in scale but they –

SS: There’s always a part at the core of it that sort of grounds the whole situation. He just sees something in a way an actor likes. He sees how they shine the brightest and how to translate that to film.

What’s it like being on Mars? Is it nice to have a practical set and scenery around you rather than it being all green-screened around you?

KM: It’s crazy.

SS: Oh my God, it helps so much. It’s funny, there is some green in there somewhere but –

KM: We don’t ever see it. We were shocked when we showed up on set and found out that’s what we had to play with.

SS: Half the time, I don’t even know where the cameras are.

KM: That’s another bonus. There’s five cameras going and we all have cameras on our helmets, which, we were just told, are also going at all times.

SS: It’s cool though because it keeps the momentum going. It’s kind of like a play that way.

Source: joblo.com