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USAToday.com — It wasn’t long ago that most of the explosions in Sebastian Stan’s on-screen life were of the sort caused by catty teen girls on New York City’s Upper East Side.
The stage-trained actor has left the TV soap-opera drama of Gossip Girl behind. Now, he’s armed with a cool costume, heavy weaponry, an abundance of psychological issues and, well, a metal arm as the complicated antagonist of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Drawing from a Marvel Comics story line, Stan’s Winter Soldier character is actually Bucky Barnes, the best friend and former partner of Captain America (Chris Evans) from World War II.
Like Cap, Bucky was thought to be killed in the line of duty. But instead of being encased in ice for 70 years like his buddy, Bucky was brainwashed and turned into an assassin who now works for Hydra. His mission: Eliminate Cap, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and pretty much anyone who gets in Hydra’s way.
“Bucky had to essentially become like part machine,” says Stan, who reprises the role from 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.
While the Winter Soldier is essentially a new character, the actor revisited some aspects of Bucky he established in the first movie for continuity’s sake — which are important when Cap and his new foe figure out their connection in the heat of battle.
“Those are some meaty scenes, because it is a meaty concept,” Evans says. “Waking up 70 years later is heavy enough, and then seeing someone you thought was dead — that’s big. And he’s evil!” Continue reading
StudioSystemNews.com — Disney’s Marvel superhero movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier soared to record-breaking heights at the weekend box office.
The film, which is the sequel to 2011?s Captain America: First Avenger and the ninth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe earned a gripping $96.2 million. That qualifies as April’s biggest opening ever beating out the 2011 action film Fast & Furious 5 ($86.1 million). The number also tops this year’s The Lego Movie, which earned $69 million in February and Disney’s last Marvel superhero film 2013?s Thor: The Dark World, which premiered to an eye-popping 85.7 million.
The critics have been kind to The Winter Soldier, with 89 percent of reviewers recommending it. The film stars Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Anthony Mackie and features Robert Redford in a part that plays homage to his roles in 1970s thrillers such as Three Days of the Condor. Joe and Anthony Russo directed the movie, which cost $170 million to make and made its debuted in 3,938 theaters, many of which were 3D.
Its predecessor, Captain America: The First Avenger debuted to over $65 million and ultimately went on to earn $176.6 million.
Captain America is the latest to prosper from the 2012 comic book ensemble The Avengers, which earned $623 million in 2012 and has supported continuing tales from the all-star team, which includes Thor and Iron Man.
ClevelandMagazine.com — While actor Sebastian Stan completely changed his look for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, his character Bucky Barnes goes from being Captain America’s best friend to his arch-nemesis — the Winter Soldier. He opens up to us about the nuances of acting in a mask and the unprecedented access our city provided for the film.
It’s exciting to see my character take this turn and show more sides of him. But, at the same time, it was challenging. I felt like I had a lot of homework to do. This character is so complex and tragic in a way and there are so many sides to him that hopefully we will see in the future.
The Winter Soldier wears a mask for most of the film, which made it difficult for me to convey emotions. But it also kind of helped in a way. I felt when I was looking at myself in the mirror that I couldn’t recognize myself at all. I had to pay more attention to the way I behaved, the way I moved and the physicality of it all.
A lot of the close combat was very difficult for us to shoot. It was hard because your heart is racing and you’re trying to get it right. But you’re also going over it in your mind, because you have rehearsed it so many times and you’re concerned with not hurting the other person.
I did feel bad about shutting down the [West] Shoreway and the traffic problems that it caused, but I honestly never thought we would be granted that kind of access. Most times with these films you end up working with a green screen. I feel like you can really tell the difference with this one, because we didn’t.
As an actor, it helps so much to be able to turn up on set and see an actual highway be shut down and explosions everywhere. You get goosebumps.
You can read Sebastian’s interview in full over at MovieWeb.com
Going into Captain America: The First Avenger, I have to imagine you were hoping to get a chance to play Winter Soldier. Were they ever discussing plans for that during the first movie, or did they come to you with the story much later?
Sebastian Stan: The whole story was brought to me before we shot the first movie. I didn’t really know where they were going to take the sequel next, or even if we were going to have a sequel, at the time. We were still making the movie, which is why when people start talking about the next film now, it’s the same thing. The movie has to come out, so I didn’t really know, at all. In the script, there were certain things about Bucky Barnes, he wasn’t written linear. There were peaks and valleys and some dark undertones, and that kind of made me feel like this is a chance to show various colors of things, depending on how it’s going to go.
I read you really embraced the training aspects of this, especially with the knives. Even before I saw the movie, that knife fight part in the trailer was one of the coolest things I had seen in awhile.
Sebastian Stan: Yeah, you’ve got to credit our stunt guys. I had this amazing stuntman, James Young, and he was teaching me everything, in terms of the knife training. Yeah, we got into it, because we had the time and we really wanted to get it. It was fun. I mean, Chris (Evans) had been in a number of action movies, but I don’t think any of us had learned this type of sequenced, choreographed type of fighting. This was something that, if there was a shot that would take three minutes, we would break it up and it took awhile. We took advantage of trying to do as much as we could.
The Winter Soldier’s look is so menacing and awesome, and you know right away this guy is bad. It was like one of those Darth Vader moments, where you see this guy and you know he’s the real deal. Can you talk about the actual costume you had to wear and the arm. Was there a lot of bulk to it, or were you still able to move around in it rather well?
Sebastian Stan: There was a lot of bulk to it. The way that the costume came together is it was made from five different pieces, and flexibility was definitely an issues, one we couldn’t have really known, because we weren’t rehearsing with the costumes on. We just saw how flexible we were once we got on set. It was tough. We went through some periods where we ripped a bunch of the costumes, just flying by the seat of your pants, a little bit. The arm was very specific. There were a couple of them, some more mobile than others. The ones that were more immobile were actually the better looking ones that looked cooler, so I always wanted to have that one. By the end, we just really adjusted to that.
Sebastian was on Good Morning America this morning to promote Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which is in theaters now! You can watch his interview below, as well as view captures in the gallery!
A very big thank you to my friend Pedro of ChrisEvansHQ.com for the video!
Television Appearances > Good Morning America (April 4th, 2014)
TooFab.com — Bucky Barnes has gone to the dark side!
Sebastian Stan returns as Captain America’s BFF in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” but he’s got a whole new look and one baaaaad personality.
Though he was presumed dead after the events in “The First Avenger,” Barnes reappears in the present day as a ruthless, brainwashed assassin with a bionic arm.
toofab’s Brian Particelli sat down with Stan before the film’s US premiere, where they talked about his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, picking up the fast-paced fight choreography, and, most importantly, who had the best hair flip on set.
“Listen, in that department I think Black Widow’s got everybody beat,” Stan says with a laugh.
“Pretty much all of it was mine and it was a lot,” he adds, talking about his mane in the flick. “I actually kept a lot of it for a couple months afterwards for as long as I could. I felt like a whole other person and sometimes you want that.”
It’s true, he looks like a totally different person in this movie — sporting a costume straight out of the Marvel comics.
“Thank God I actually have a cool costume and it’s not like a weird one,” says Stan. “It helped everything because it was just such a transformation for me. There’s a little kid thing about it, because you’re like ‘Wow! You guys really took this off the page!'”
The 30-year-old actor says he didn’t find out his character would return until two years after “The First Avenger,” though he thinks Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige probably knew “maybe a week after the first one came out.”
He tells toofab he has a “really good time” playing this character — and loved doing the fight scenes for this sequel. Continue reading