Sebastian Stans talks The Apprentice, A Different Man, and more with Variety

6 Min Read
Sebastian Stan for Variety
Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety

In a new cover story from VARIETY, actor Sebastian Stan speaks with Chief Correspondent Daniel Dโ€™Addario about portraying Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Stan also discusses the filmโ€™s divisiveness in Hollywood, A Different Man, his time on Gossip Girl, Marvelโ€™s contributions to Hollywood, and more.

Sebastian Stan for Variety
Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety

Stan on preparing to play Trump:

โ€œI had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone. And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periodsโ€”from the โ€™70s all the way to todayโ€”so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him. [Director Ali Abbasi] could come in on the second take and say, โ€˜Why donโ€™t you talk a little bit about the taxes and how you donโ€™t want to pay?โ€™ So I had to know what charities they were going to in 1983. Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali was going to take thisโ€ฆI started to realize that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way. A lot of that came from the consonants. If Iโ€™m talking, Iโ€™m moving forward. The consonants naturally forced your lips forward.โ€

Sebastian Stan for Variety
Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety

On The Apprenticeโ€™s divisiveness in Hollywood:

โ€œThe Apprenticeโ€ didnโ€™t sell for months after Cannes partly because Trumpโ€™s legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter attempting to block the filmโ€™s release in the U.S. while the fest was still ongoing. Entertainment corporations from Netflix to Disney would be severely inconvenienced if the next president came into office with a grudge against them. The film was finally sold to Briarcliff Entertainment, a distributor so small that the production has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money so that it will be able to stay in theaters. Stan chalks up the filmโ€™s divisiveness to a siloed online environment.

โ€œEverything with this film has been one day at a time. There are a lot of people who love reading the [filmโ€™s] Wikipedia page and throwing out their opinions. But they donโ€™t actually know what theyโ€™re talking about. Thatโ€™s a popular sport now online, apparently.โ€

Unprompted, Stan brings up the idea that Trump is so widely known that some might think a biographical film about him serves no purpose.

โ€œWhen someone says, โ€˜Why do we need this movie? We know all this,โ€™ Iโ€™ll say, โ€˜Maybe you do, but you havenโ€™t experienced it. The experience of those two hours is visceral. Itโ€™s something you can hopefully feelโ€”if you still have feelings.โ€™โ€

Sebastian Stan for Variety
Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety

On walking around New York City with the prosthetics for A Different Man:

In โ€œA Different Man,โ€ Stan plays a man afflicted with a disfiguring tumor disorder, which required his face to be hidden behind extensive prosthetics. The days were particularly long because prosthetics artist Michael Marino was only able to apply Stanโ€™s makeup in the early morning.

โ€œEven though I wasnโ€™t shooting until 11 a.m., I would go at like 5 in the morning to his studio, or his apartment,โ€ Stan recalls. The hidden advantage was that Stan had hours to kill while made up like his character, the kind of person the world looks past. โ€œI wanted to walk around the city and see what happened. On Broadway, one of the busiest streets in New York, no oneโ€™s looking at me. Itโ€™s as if Iโ€™m not even there.โ€ The other reaction was worse: โ€œSomebody would immediately stop and very blatantly hit their friend, point, take a picture.โ€

On his Gossip Girl days:

โ€œIt was the first time I was in serious love with somebody,โ€ he says. (He dated the seriesโ€™ star, Leighton Meester, from 2008 to 2010.) โ€œWalking around the city, seeing these same buildings and streetsโ€”life seemed simpler.โ€

Sebastian Stan for Variety
Photo Credit: Heather Hazzan for Variety

On Marvelโ€™s contributions to Hollywood:

โ€œItโ€™s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films]. And thatโ€™s fine. Everyoneโ€™s got an opinion. But theyโ€™re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well. This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery thatโ€™s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge. Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really fucking good. Itโ€™s just fucking hard to make a good movie over and over againโ€ฆIn the last couple of years. Iโ€™ve gotten much more aggressive about pursuing things that I want, and Iโ€™m constantly looking for different ways of challenging myself.โ€

Read the full Sebastian Stan Variety interview here.


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