The nominees for the 97th Academy Awards were revealed last week, and among the Best Actor crop was one Sebastian Stan, who made the cut for his groundbreaking portrayal of Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, a biopic centered on Trump’s relationship with his mentor, Roy Cohn. 3b5s4v

The nomination — alongside that of Jeremy Strong, who played Cohn in the film — is a big deal, not only because of how Stan’s presence in the category elevates the prestige of the Best Actor award, but because of the example that The Apprentice sets for the types of stories we could be telling. Funnily enough, the same could be said about another one of Stan’s films this past year, and it’s since established itself as a Max darling.

Per FlixPatrol, A Different Man is sitting pretty on the United States’ Max film charts in second place at the time of writing. Separating it from the top spot is the Tom Holland-led Uncharted film adaptation, while the equally-limp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets chomps at its heels from third place.

Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, A Different Man stars Sebastian Stan as Edward Lemuel, an actor who has neurofibromatosis (NF), which causes sizeable tumors to grow on his face. Believing it will fix his social anxiety, Edward volunteers for an experimental treatment to make his face “normal,” the success of which leads him to fake his own death and begin a new life with a new identity. His insecurities only exacerbate, however, when the charismatic Oswald (Adam Pearson) — another actor with NF — bursts onto the scene and begins winning hearts left and right.

Stan won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Male Actor – Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of Edward in A Different Man, and it’s not terribly difficult to see why. The antisocial sheen with which he carries Edward creates an engrossing friction with the world around him — one that, by all appearances, isn’t entirely innocent in Edward’s plight. And yet, we don’t fully empathize with Edward’s struggle, especially when Oswald comes along as living proof of the law of attraction.

Still, there are angles missing to A Different Man that weakens its otherwise mighty themes of the power we have in creating our personal realities, and the politics of erasure and representation. We never get to see how Oswald deals with bullies or antagonization or rejection, and it’s naive to think that Edward’s current personality wasn’t affected by his formative years as a person living with NF, even if the deciding factor of one’s outlook on life is exactly that — one’s outlook on life. The character Ingrid, Edward’s crush who seems progressive one minute and joyously ignorant the next, only complicates this matter even more.

Still, you’re not going to find a film quite as cerebrally unique as A Different Man, and Stan’s compellingly agonizing turn as the self-destructive Edward is among its finest assets. Together with The Apprentice, 2024 marked a slam-dunk of a year for not only the Marvel star, but also the landscape of crucially uncomfortable storytelling that he appears committed to.

Sebastian Stan took home the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his work on A Different Man. The movie tells the story of Edward, an aspiring actor suffering from a disfiguring facial condition called neurofibromatosis. He eventually undergoes surgery to change his appearance. When the procedure causes Edward to lose out on the role in an off-Broadway play based on his life, he becomes obsessed with the person who landed the part.

Although the film is billed as a black comedy, Stan made sure to draw attention to the stigma that often surrounds disabilities. “Our ignorance and discomfort around disability and disfigurement has to end now,” the actor said during his acceptance speech. “We have to normalize it and continue to expose ourselves to it – and our children. Encourage acceptance. One way we can do that is by continuing to champion stories that are inclusive.”

“This was not an easy movie to make,” Stan continued while giving a shout-out to his Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice. “These are tough subject matters, but these films are real, and they’re necessary, and we can’t be afraid and look away. The actor went on to thank the film’s director, Aaron Schimberg, and his co-star, Adam Pearson, who suffers from neurofibromatosis in real life. He also shared his appreciation for the management team and agent.

Stan calling for inclusivity when it comes to disabilities is completely in line with his personality. The actor is well-known for being an all-around good guy who cares about those in need. Long before his fame skyrocketed, Stan used to spend time on social media (mostly Instagram) interacting with fans, offering advice, and giving pep talks to those who needed it. Sadly, the actor has since paused his online activity and only surfaces to promote his work.

Stan dedicated his first-ever Golden Globe win to his mom, Georgeta Orlovschi, who relocated to New York in the early ’90s. “This is for my mom, who left Romania in search of a better life [and] gave me everything,” he said. The actor also paid tribute to his stepdad, saying, “For my stepfather Tony, who took on a single mom and a grown-up kid. Thank you for being a real man.” And, in a rare instance of publicly acknowledging a romantic partner, Stan expressed his love for his girlfriend, Annabelle Wallis.

According to the Daily Mail UK, Wallis, who was super ive of Stan during the ceremony, looked stunning in a shimmering pink dress. However, the person who was most proud of the Golden Globe winner was his MCU co-star Anthony Mackie. The Captain America: Brave New World actor was visibly thrilled whenever he spotted Stan. During the post-awards show interviews, Mackie hinted at a Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes reunion, saying, “Captain America and the Winter Soldier, we’re coming back.”

Stan will next be seen in the Marvel Studios film, Thunderbolts*. The movie, which also stars Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Edward Pierce, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is directed by Jake Schreier from a script by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, and Joanna Calo. Per the official synopsis, “the story follows a group of antiheroes that go on missions for the government.”

Sebastian “Winter Soldier” Stan gained 15 pounds to play a young Donald Trump in the new movie The Apprentice and even disfigured his face with makeup for another movie Stan stars in this year, A Different Man. Despite those physical changes, however, a recent Stan Variety photoshoot left us gasping, “Have mercy, zaddy!“

One photograph shows Stan’s MCU-toned arms on full display in a black tank top. Another, Stan looks brooding and introspective in a grey cardigan and white shorts with headphones on and a Walkman cassette player. Denim on denim is in this year, and Stan reclines in another Variety picture wearing a Canadian tuxedo, barefoot on white sheets. Stan shows up off those guns attached to his shoulders again in a white t-shirt, staring intently at the camera. It’s all hot enough to make us get over our ick at the idea Stan plays DonOld Dump.

We weren’t the only ones to temperature-check Stan’s photospread, either. Comments on Variety‘s X post included the following,

“I mean there’s so many things that I can say about these photos but I’ll keep it clean and just say I absolutely LOVE the Walkman,” another comment added. Meanwhile, another comment summed up what we were all thinking with no words at all.

Trump’s “smarter” than people think he is, Stan said 1c3ir

Speaking to Variety about his Donald Trump role, Sebastian Stan said the former president is smarter than people give him credit for. The Apprentice, with Jeremy Strong (Succession) as Trump fixer Roy Cohn, is set in the 1970s and `80s, when Trump was still an up-and-coming real estate mogul in New York, long before he switched to reality TV, or ran for office. The Apprentice is expected in theaters on Oct. 11.

While preparing for the role, Stan said he studied Trump photographs and audio recordings of younger Trump to perfect his distinctive voice and physical mannerisms. “I started to realize that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way,” Stan said. “I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone, and 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods — from the ’70s all the way to today — so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him.”

Don’t call Stan’s Different Man character a “beast” 6p2m22

Trump role aside, Sebastian Stan fans are in for a treat this year, as he also stars in A Different Man, in theaters Sept. 20. In it, Stan underwent a significant appearance change in the role of a man named Edward with a disfigured face who undergoes surgery to restore his Stan-style good looks. Stan told a reporter who referred to the character pre-surgery as a “beast,” ” … ‘beast’ isn’t the word,” Stan said. And I think, ultimately, it’s just interesting to hear this word because I think that’s one of the things the film is saying — we have these preconceived ideas and we’re not really educated on how to understand this experience in particular.”

On his Different Man transformation, Stan told Vanity Fair, “And it really did affect everything else: my body, physicality, my perception of the world, the world’s perception of me walking around New York as Edward.” And on becoming Trump, Stan told VF, “I had two hours in the [makeup] chair in the morning and then another hour to get out of everything and then another hour to drive home at night.” Ok, we’ll it it, we’d watch Sebastian Stan play almost any role even when his smoldering handsome face is obscured by pounds of makeup, or underneath Trump’s bizarre blonde hairdo.

Sebastian Stan is once again undergoing a significant transformation for his movie project, A Different Man. Stan is known for altering his look for projects, as any good actor does, but this is a particular case — the word unrecognizable doesn’t seem to cut it.

The reason for his big change? The name of the film sort of gives it away; Stan undergoes a process of becoming a different man throughout the film, as he thinks it’ll change his life. He soon finds out that the procedure leaves him with a new obsession — and it’s not healthy.

Set photos shared on Twitter show the transformation, and a few clips are floating around too. With the potential for those to be spoilers, so we won’t be sharing them here, but you can find them with a quick Twitter search if you’d like to see more.

Collider provided the following synopsis for A Different Man:

“Stan will star as Edward, a man seeking a new life and a fresh start after he undergoes facial reconstructive surgery. However, Edward will find it harder to get a fresh start than he had initially hoped after he becomes fixated on the man starring as him in his former life in a stage production.”

Starring alongside Stan is Adam Pearson, who lives with the condition known as neurofibromatosis, which affects his appearance. While it’s not yet known if Stan will have the same diagnosis in the film, it’s likely the case. Pearson works with several organizations set to bring awareness to facial and other physical differences, including Face Equality and Changing Faces.

Pearson has been sharing several snaps and video clips of his time on set, where he sings Stan’s praises and shares excitement to be part of the project and living in the city.

It goes without saying that a central theme of this film will have to do with self-acceptance and accepting others, so having Pearson in the movie as an actor and someone to the other cast as they take on their characters is a critical component of the filmmaking process.

Stan’s character, Edward, will undeniably undergo a physical change, but it’s evident from the synopsis that the emotional and mental changes will take a toll on him.

There’s no release date set for A Different Man yet, but principal photography is happening now, and you can keep up with Pearson on his social media channels to find out more about the project and his charity organizations.