In case you don’t watch Marvel films, you then don’t know Bucky Barnes, which suggests you solely know Sebastian Stan because the also-indie actor behind movies like 2024’s “A Totally different Man” and “The Apprentice.” Each films have put him within the awards race, and presumably the Oscar operating, particularly after his grimly humorous, pathos-spiked flip as a self-loathing, out-of-options actor with neurofibromatosis in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Totally different Man” received him a shock Golden Globe for Finest Actor in a Musical or Comedy. That evening, he was additionally nominated for Finest Actor in a Drama for “The Apprentice,” the place he performs a ’70s New York-era Donald Trump.
Had scheduling gone a unique path, he would’ve starred in Brady Corbet’s also-Oscar-contending “The Brutalist,” however Stan had loads on his plate final yr and into this one, setting him up for his greatest awards season run but. His transformative Trump efficiency in director Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” has been celebrated because the movie‘s 2024 Cannes premiere. High distributors shunned the movie till rookie releaser Briarcliff Leisure acquired on board in August 2024, billionaire investor Dan Snyder tried to wrangle inventive management and block the discharge, and, finally, Stan’s friends declined the prospect to talk with the American-Romanian actor in Selection’s standard Actors on Actors collection, a serious platform for awards contenders. Stan has been candid about not discovering a sparring companion for the publication’s viral program. Why not? Folks don’t wish to go close to a film concerning the incumbent president, together with American audiences ($4 million home).
Talking with IndieWire over the telephone, Stan mentioned that when he went public with why he wasn’t collaborating in Actors on Actors, “A whole lot of buddies known as me and mentioned, ‘Hey let’s go do that collectively.’ That was clearly very considerate and really form, however for us, Ali, Jeremy [Strong, who plays lawyer Roy Cohn], that was nothing actually new.” (Final November, Selection’s editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh informed IndieWire, “We invited [Stan] to take part in ‘Actors on Actors,’ the largest franchise of awards season, however different actors didn’t wish to pair with him as a result of they didn’t wish to discuss Donald Trump.”)
Stan continued, “We had been dealing with that sort of a factor since Cannes, whether or not it had even been picture shoots selling the movie, or sure folks that had been like, ‘We don’t wish to go close to this.’ Each interview since Cannes, we’ve been requested, ‘How’s the reception been? Why do you assume studios are apprenehsive?’ That is sadly the fact. Now we have lots of people who love this movie or say they do, however when it comes right down to leaping within the hearth just a little bit … hesitancy is comprehensible, to some extent.”
Whereas understanding the emotional element round not eager to see a film a couple of chief and convicted felon who’s on TV each second of the information day, Stan mentioned, “Nonetheless, round hesitancy, there’s additionally a slippery slope towards indifference, and that enhances worry. That’s the one distinction we’ve to maintain making an attempt to make. You may rightfully personal, ‘Hey, this isn’t for me,’ or ‘I don’t wish to go there.’ However when it comes to ‘I’m too fearful, I’m too scared, I don’t wish to get in sizzling water,’ then it’s like, what’s the subsequent factor that turns into OK to not wish to cope with it as a result of it’s uncomfortable? We didn’t perceive what was so uncomfortable concerning the film.”
“The Apprentice” obtained combined opinions at Cannes, although I keep in mind in my pageant screening being surrounded by European journalists laughing their heads off as a result of they see Trump as a comic book determine. Many Individuals don’t, and with “The Apprentice,” we don’t but get pleasure from hindsight as a result of we’re nonetheless dwelling within the Trump period.
“Normally what occurs is you take a look at films like ‘Nixon’ or the film ‘Downfall,’ which is about Hitler, [the movies] occur years later. We’ve had time to course of our feelings about it, and we’ve had a ways so we are able to return and take a look at what went incorrect or what we [believed] on the time,” Stan mentioned. “You don’t have that luxurious [with ‘The Apprentice’]. We don’t have the posh of not coping with this individual.”
Going again to his second profitable the Globe for “A Totally different Man,” it’s been a combined blessing for double nominee Stan.
“There was this unbelievable sort of second on the Globes that I by no means actually thought was ever going to occur, and you’ve got a short second of that, and instantly, something can flip,” he mentioned of L.A. going into panic mode proper after the Globes amid the continuing wildfires in Southern California. “By way of Mom Nature… on the finish of the day, it truly is simply folks. We’re all in the identical boat there. There’s nothing to distinguish or something. We’re all just about in the identical boat.”
After he’s completed with awards season duties, Stan expects to move to Europe in March to movie the brand new movie from Palme d’Or-winning auteur Cristian Mungiu, which brings the “4 Months, 3 Weeks and a pair of Days” filmmaker’s typical ethical ambiguity right into a real-life case of abuse in Romania. He’ll be reuniting with “A Totally different Man” star Renate Reinsve for the movie, which can shoot in Romanian, English, and Norwegian.
“With all of those smaller indies, I all the time really feel even whereas I’m on the aircraft going there, I’m all the time fearful, ‘Is the financing going to come back by? It’s on its manner,” Stan mentioned. “He’s been up there with me for a couple of years with filmmakers from Romania the place I’ve been calling him looking for a strategy to work with him, the place I can converse Romanian as effectively. We lastly discovered this story, which is a couple of Romanian household who’s moved to Norway after which leads to this very difficult trial. There’s a system [that] investigates instances if there’s ever been bodily abuse within the family between the dad and mom or the youngsters. They go investigating the household for an incident, and it results in this trial. It occurred earlier than the pandemic, and it turned nationwide information. There have been loads of spiritual communities that got here to their aspect, and it’s actually fascinating and fairly difficult.”
Stan has additionally been instrumental in shepherding the subsequent movie from Australian “The Order” director Justin Kurzel, “Burning Rainbow,” a couple of true Waco-style FBI standoff that introduced down a pro-marijuana campground in Michigan every week earlier than 9/11. He’s connected to star within the story of Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm, a homosexual couple defending their land amid police investigations linked to a Rainbow Farm festival-associated killing and their marijuana vegetation.
“They had been elevating a baby as effectively,” Stan mentioned. “They had been actual activists in some methods, they usually had been very controversial as effectively as a result of they had been operating this Rainbow Farm, which was like the beginning of this Woodstock-style pageant that was bringing all these folks collectively, advocating for legalizing marijuana. It was additionally such a loving place. They had been attracting loads of consideration from native authorities, and loads of controversies had been happening down there. All of it occurred earlier than 9/11, so there are various individuals who don’t know this story. However I’ve identified about it for six years or one thing. I’ve been monitoring it by totally different evolutions, and it lastly landed with Justin. I used to be monitoring him now for 2 years to mainly give me an opportunity, and eventually, I believe we’ve acquired to go and discover all the opposite folks.”
As for “The Brutalist,” Stan was introduced to star in Brady Corbet’s Golden Globe Finest Image winner in 2019, however scheduling modifications on “The Apprentice” interfered. (“The Brutalist” shot in early 2023; “The Apprentice” didn’t movie till that fall after a couple of false begins.) Stan would’ve performed Joe Alwyn’s function, Harry Lee Van Buren, the pompous son of Man Pearce’s moneyed industrialist who exploits Adrien Brody’s Jewish-Hungarian architect.
“I’m glad that the timing [didn’t work out] … The issue of that film is astounding. What they had been capable of obtain. A few of us can be connected. I used to be kind of the final one, however then [Corbet] began to go. As a result of ‘Apprentice’ saved getting pushed, these two began to overlap at one level. I wasn’t obtainable for it, however having seen the film, Joe is wonderful in it, and I’d have been too previous by that time anyway. I really feel prefer it labored out for the most effective. It makes complete sense with Man being his father,” Stan mentioned.
As for a way Stan’s indie roles match into the Marvel orbit, particularly as he’ll be seen in “Thunderbolts” this spring once more as Bucky Barnes, he mentioned, “If I hadn’t had so many alternatives with Marvel with that character alone and creatively what I acquired to do, I don’t know if I’d have been as pushed to go on this different path as effectively and attempt to discover issues that I’m not all the time on the prime of thoughts for. I consider, like Brady Corbet, movies are a administrators’ medium. It’s concerning the filmmaker. Now we have to belief the filmmakers. The very best movies to me, in my experiences, had been with actually sturdy administrators with these sturdy factors of view. It’s been wonderful to observe Brady. I used to be connected to that movie for a very long time, going again to 2019, so I’ve identified of that film and have identified Brady since we had been youngsters auditioning. I’d see him at casting calls, him and his mother. Even watching him up there on Sunday felt like I’d been weirdly connected to that story as effectively.”
The 82nd Golden Globe Awards had been held Sunday, January 6 on the Beverly Hilton Resort in Los Angeles, CA. They aired on CBS and streamed by way of Paramount+. Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media firm. PMC can be IndieWire’s guardian firm.