Talk Easy with Sam FragosoThe Year of Actor Sebastian Stan (‘The Apprentice’)
Actor Sebastian Stan has built a career out of shapeshifting.
This week, he joins us to discuss the process of transforming into Donald J. Trump in The Apprentice (8:27), his personal relationship to the American dream (15:35), and the extensive research that went into recreating 1970s-1980s New York City in the film (17:27). Then, we unpack Sebastian’s Romanian upbringing (29:00), the gift of his unconventional, nomadic childhood (34:40), and what the film represents in this post-Election moment (38:30).
On the back-half, we talk about the impact of the late director Jonathan Demme (50:45), Stan’s radical and stunning work in A Different Man (55:08), what both of his new films reveal about reality (59:14), and what the silencing of The Apprentice—and his Actors on Actors shutout—reveals about the entertainment industry (1:00:00). To close, a reflection about control and how Sebastian embraces everyday life (1:17:55).
Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at sf@talkeasypod.com.
Pushkin.
This is talk easy.
I'm standing for Goso. Welcome to the show today.
I am joined by actor Sebastian stand. In recent years, he's been widely recognized for his role as Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, nine films across thirteen years, dating back to Captain America, The First Avenger. What that robust a contract afforded Stan is something like a parallel career. It freed him up to take small but memorable parts in films like Black Swan, The Martian and Logan Lucky. It also allowed him to dive headfirst into a fruitful collaboration with director Craig Gillespie, first and I Tanya, where he played Tanya Harding's reviled ex husband Jeff Gloy, then in the hit limited series Pam and Tommy, where he transformed into infamous Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee. And Yet neither of those real life portrayals, both of which were excellent, by the way, could have possibly prepared him for the challenge he faced in his latest film, The Apprentice, where he plays Donald J. Trump. Set in nineteen seventies and eighties New York City, The story follows a young and hungry Trump in the early days of his career in Manhattan real estate. It's there that he encounters cutthroat attorney and political fixer Roy Kohne played by Jeremy strue Wrong, who sees him as a kind of perfect protege, someone with raw ambition, an insatiable desire for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. Here's a clip from the trailer.
Yes, Hello, this is Donald Trump from mister Cone. Thank you so much, Donald.
Who Roy Cone, Nice to meet you.
The Roy Cohne from all the papers.
Yeah, You're brutal, guilty is charged.
Roy Colin is a crook. It's been and dieted three times. I'm gonna let you in a little secret.
People.
They hire me because I'm a winner. How do you win? The first rule is the simplest attack, attack attack. That's going to be the finest building in the country, in the world. It's going to be spectacular. Rule too.
Admit nothing, deny everything.
I'm heard. You can beat the US. Rule three.
No matter what happens, you claim victory. I never admit the feat I record everything in case I need it. Silly you have to be willing to do anything to anyone to win.
There are two kinds of people. There are winners there. You're over leveraged and have dead up to your ears. I know on Park Kevin, look a good till you're getting ugly.
Don't you forget I made you?
We have a brand new campaign slogan, Let's make America great Again?
Oh I like the again?
Part That was from The Apprentice, now streaming on vod and playing in select theaters. After a series of challenges from financiers pulling out to the Hollywood Strike, to Trump himself attempting to block the film's release, it finally arrived this fall. But the response to the movie has been pretty varied. Both the left and the right have attacked the movie in equal measure. Democrats wary of any movie that humanizes Trump. Republicans wary of any movie that reveals his true nature. But The Apprentice, and in turn stands remarkable performance, is not what you think it's going to be. It's less a standard biopic and more and unsettling examination of what screenwriter Gabriel Sherman calls the dark art of getting power. Sebastian's rendition of Trump is different from the myriad of impressions we've seen online, as he embodies a soft spoken, insecure, opportunistic, in vain twenty somethter who's reinventing himself moment by moment. That constant reinvention in the pursuit of the American dream is familiar to Stan, who grew up in a Romanian family, living in three different countries by the age of twelve. We dive into that history early in this episode. We also discuss Sebastian's winding path through Hollywood, his radical and remarkable work in his other new film and one of the year's best, A Different Man, and what the silencing of The Apprentice and his actors on Actors shut Out reveals about the trickle down cowardice across the entertainment industry. For those of you that may be resistant of any film about our next president, trust me, you'll hear right at the top that I was on the same page as you. But that said, I do hope you give this conversation and these two movies in The Apprentice and A Different Man, a moment of your time, because they are both really special works of art and are the kinds of movies. We want this industry to continue making in the years ahead. So with that, here is my conversation with Sebastian Stan. Sebastian Stan, Welcome to the show.
How are you? Thank you for having me.
I'm all right.
How are you good? Not too bad?
Do you like being in Los Angeles?
I've learned to like being in Los Angeles. I like being Los Angeles in the morning. I'm also a morning person, so I don't know. I might have something to do with it.
What time are getting up?
Oh, I'm somewhere like between at least six and seven, seven thirty between there.
I want to start with an admission which I think may set the table for this conversation, and that is before this last election, I really didn't want to watch The Apprentice, which had nothing to do with you, your work dating back to Rachel getting married.
I'm glad you saw that film.
Man you haven't, but yeah, so I've been in your corner for a long time, so I had nothing to do with you. It wasn't personal, and I had everything to do with the fact that, like many people, I felt forced to watch Donald Trump TV. Yeah, for the past eight years, but then after Trump won and I saw how some in the industry were rejecting the film and your performance in it. I felt like I had to watch like I felt and now I needed to because it felt like my response was completely fear based. So I want to know, like, having seen the film, which is just so excellent, how have you come to understand why you wanted to play Donald Trump?
Like?
What in you propelled you toward this man?
I'm not sure. There was sort of a very definitive, one word, one sentence answer that I can give you, to be honest, but that's.
Why we're on a podcast. Yeah, you can have many sentences.
But I've been speaking about the film for a while. I think I've had some more time to digest the experience, even though we literally were shooting a year ago at this time. I think, for me, there are so many things that have happened in my life that I have felt I didn't have control over. And maybe that goes back to my journey from Romania to America and like moving and caretakers coming and going and leaving.
But even before you came to America, you had lived in three different countries by the age.
Of twelve, Yes, exactly, Romania and then Vienna and then Rocking County, New York. And so I guess maybe this is where I'm like kind of getting to try to accept the fact that sometimes as much as I want a certain direction in life, where I've wanted certain things to happen my way a certain way, they didn't. And then yet other things, somehow seemingly have found their way into my life and had almost aggressively pursued me in some way. And I mean, the first meeting I had was this wonderful, amazing, incredible casting director Carmen Cuba called me in twenty nineteen and said, would you meet this director. There's a script he's doing. It's called The Apprentice, and you should read it and you should meet him. And yeah, oh yeah, by the way, it's about young Donald Trump. And twenty nineteen was a different world. I mean, we were deep into his presidency at that point. But so I pretty fixed ideas myself about the.
Person three years in pre pandemic.
Right, And so I actually responded with just more out of curiosity, like why me, you know, And then I read the script and I had this meeting with this director for two hours. Ali Abassi had watched his films. I was sort of interested and curious about the fact that a European filmmaker, someone who had fled Iran and was living in Copenhagen, who was very radical in his filmmaking, was interested in doing the story.
Whose last film the Iranian government did not like and correctively censored.
Yeah, and he was actively getting death threats and all kinds of things. So I was really curious and impressed with him and his lack of fear, but also was just genuinely curious why did he want to make this movie, what was interested to him about it? Because I think that would have been different if it was somebody from America. We had had vice, we had had films w We'd had many films in America made by Americans about American political figures, and so that was one thing. And the second thing was when I had read it, I mean, I hated to admit the fact that there was something that I was very intrigued about. Maybe it was because I didn't expect what I was reading. I didn't know really much about his beginnings. I also wasn't the script was reminding me of, you know, evolution of Michael Corleoni or something. It was somebody who seemingly started out one way and was losing their humanity and the process, and I don't know, there was something very different than what my perceptions were of this person. There was something almost desperate, almost paranoid, almost just totally opposite of what my impression was. And so anyway, we had the meeting and I thought, you know, if he's interested, then maybe we can keep talking. And then I just didn't hear from him, so I forgot about the movie, you know, And suddenly in twenty twenty two I got a call again about my interest in the film. And at the time I just thought, oh, it must be because nobody else wants to do this that I keep getting the call. And then I remember asking him, going, why are you calling me? And he said, you're you're just very good at, you know, humanizing horrible people. And I thought, I can't tell if that's a compliment or not, But.
Do you think it's a compliment.
Well, I guess maybe I suppose I guess I interpreted as maybe I'm okay at trying to, you know, create fully three dimensional characters. I mean, as I assume most people are, even though they don't seem like they are. Then I said to him, Okay, well, as long as you find the right roy Cone, then you know, maybe maybe I'm in. And then we found the right roy Cone, and then suddenly I was like, okay, well, let's just see if the movie comes together, you know, And then a small part of me was always hoping that it would never come together, and it kept falling apart and kept falling apart.
What part of you, my rational part I should say more about.
That, The part of me that you know wants to be an upstanding, polite citizen of the world and doesn't want to do anything crazy. The part that I don't particularly listen to, the part that I think is scared, you know. But I knew one thing that I said, look, for whatever reason, I can't abandon this film, and I will get to this answer with you. But like, but if it doesn't happen, it won't happen for me because because of other reasons before I outside of your control. Yeah, exactly, it won't be because I'm walking away from it. Because if I walk away from it, I'm always going to live with the fact that I just was too scared to go there or whatever. And that's not how I inherently feel. What I inherently feel is I actually want to know who the fuck this guy is, okay, And what I inherently feel is I actually feel like this is bigger than the guy. And more about America, yes, and more about the American dream, and more about this American dream that I was told about when I came.
To this country in nineteen ninety five.
Yes, exactly. And this is where everything comes to fruition for you, America. This is the land of the free, the opportunity and all that. And you got to make something of yourself. You got to be something. And that was the message I got. But I feel it now, and I have felt as i'd gotten older, I became more aware of the feeling that there's a real cost to this dream. And I can only speak from my small experience in my part of the world. But like I've been very lucky. Obviously, I'm sitting here with you today through many circumstances I didn't foresee. So fortunately, my mother remarried and I had a wonderful stepdad who stepped in and took on a single mom and a young kid, and I was able to come to America, and I worked hard, I, you know, I mean, we were a very humble class family. I didn't have anything handed to me at that point, but I was aware that I had to do something with myself. And I think, to some extent, I'm still haunted by that and this idea that no matter what you do, nothing is ever enough. And when I read that script, I saw something I understood, which was a desperation. What I didn't know whether it is the desperation in this man. Is is it the system or is it the person or is it a mix of both? What is it? I realized there was, you know, there was something worth exploring. And then and then finally the movie, I got a call saying we're actually going to do this.
So once you're told that you're finally going to do this. The film is set in nineteen seventies New York. Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn, and in that time Trump is in his twenties working under his real estate magnate father, but he yearned deep down to be something bigger, to make his own name for himself. And I don't think there's anyone in modern American life that has been portrayed or spoofed or satirized or mimicked more than Donald Trump. So when you begin to approach this character, what did you do to differentiate your performance? What was the research process?
Like, well, it's twofold. I mean I remember twenty twenty two. I remember after my fortieth birthday, I was reading The Art of the Deal. I sort of started with that book, and then I started with going back in time to the seventies and really looking at what were the first articles written about him in the New York Times where they did actually compare him to Robert Redford. What were the first few things that put him on the map? What was being said about him then? And I sort of worked my way from that down all the way through, you know, nineteen eighty six, and I sort of stepped away from the current time period and I just went from the seventies to the eighties. But even earlier than that, there were certain books I was reading, you know. I think Trump World and Confidence Man were two that I had read early on that were really fascinating to me. And there was another book that I found that was written by his roommate who had gone to military school with him, that spoke very in detail about the environment of that military school that he was sent to by his father. So I was doing that research while at the same time the technical kind of aspect of it, where you know, I would go and lock myself in a room for five to six hours a day and just on repeat, edit together whatever footage I could find on him, like as early as early as possible, all the way up today. And then you know, as if you're studying and practicing an instrument, like you're watching and you're listening, and you're watching, and you're listening, and you're recording and you're listening and until.
I've heard you call the process a psychotic experience. Is that what the psychosis looks like?
Yes, well it is psychotic because what happens is, you know, it's like a song. I mean, if you keep listening to the same song, you're gonna know it, You're going to memorize, and then you're humming it all the time, no matter what situation you're in, You're wherever you're walking, you're hearing it, hearing it, hearing it. So he's in my head at that point all the time. I could be in the car and I'm listening to him. I could be at a restaurant, and I'm hearing him still in my head because I'd just been hearing him for hours.
He was in your head, but he was also on your iPhone. You had over one hundred and thirty videos of his physicality, another five hundred and sixty two videos pulled from pictures.
Well I had. Yeah, I mean, you know what happens is, it's like a process of elimination. I just like gather everything I can, everything I can, and then as I get closer and closer, I select, like I make the There's a great app it's called Splice. I edded sort of little twelve to twenty minute maybe thirty minute videos that I've put of different scene, different interviews and things of him doing things that I do. And then I would have that in my back pocket when I'm sitting in the hair and makeup in the morning and it's like a two hour process and they're working on me, I can just look at those like the last cheat sheets that I need or the But again, I'm I'm a firm believer, and not just with acting to exposure therapy. I think it works.
You told variety of that. I quote slept with him, By the way, I know how that sounds. But while I fell asleep, i'd hear him in my ear. What was it like to sleep with Donald Trump?
Well, look, I mean, you know, you don't want to judge your your character, right, It sounds bizarre, but you're basically in a relationship. I mean, that's how I describe it. You know, you're you're monogamous. Yeah, it's pretty pretty monogamous because at that point, I'm not reading any other thing for pleasure. I'm not I'm not watching if I'm watching any movies, I'm doing it because my loved ones are like, I need you to fucking be with me right now and not be looking at Donald Trump. Shit. Yeah, there are many nights when I would go to bed, you know, and my girlfriend's lying next to me, and we're like watching Netflix, but I've got one air earbud in my ear away from her that's still playing.
Him just the toughest of pillow talk.
Well, there isn't much of a pillow talk because because then she would, you know, because sometimes she'd be like, what do you are you doing? Why are you talking like that? You know, I'm like, but but look, I mean I think I think you know that's I don't know. Some of it is OCD. I mean with this situation. Honestly, I felt such panic all the time because once we got the Sagwaiver, I mean, it was which I thought was insane. I thought we were never getting a sagwaver for this film. But basically I would start work over the last three years and then I would stop because we've the financing would fall off. And then September is when they said we're going. We're going by Thanksgivings. So then it was just like I'm going to I had the gun to the head. I'm like, every second is going to be about this. And then I realized that even the panic that I was feeling was going to be working for me, because the more I was learning about the man, the more I realized that he actually lives with panic all the time. You know, most narcissists, like even malignant narcissists, which I would say he's like he falls under is our deeply paranoid individuals because they're always constantly trying to figure out whether you're with them or against them. But it's very clear that there was a lot of betrayal that had happened with this person very early in life that that trust is never going to be is something he's never going to trust anybody. I mean, I mean, it's very clear to me because a lot of that comes from from no trust, and a lot of it comes from I need to have some something over you in order to let you into my life. So but that that doesn't create for me, that doesn't create a confident person. That's not a secure, stable person that is maybe going to be able to make objective decisions, non emotional decisions. That's someone that always has to filter life people and any experience through their own wound that they haven't dealt with for them, you know. And I was, I was trying to understand what was driving everything for this person. At the same time, we're talking about a much younger guy, and when you're looking at the seventies and the eighties, just because he hadn't aged, he also just didn't sound like it does today.
I think we should play a little bit from a nineteen eighty interview he did with Rona Barrett. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, And in this clip he sounds like, as you say, a different guy.
Everything I've read about you, listening to you speak, as I think I said in the very beginning.
Work apparently is your love? Is that true?
Well, work is something that I enjoy very much. I can't say that it's my love. I mean I have a lot of other things that you know are very dear and very dear to me. But I certainly do enjoy work, and it is certainly a love.
I was going to ask you, is there a room for a wife and a child in your list or on your list of priorities?
But sure, I mean marriage is a very important thing for people. I fully believe it. I think that having the home and having the stability, and I've had it all different ways. I mean I've had it the other way, and I've had it the marriage way, and I think that marriage is a very important. Having a good wife and having a nice family is are very very important. There is no substitute for it. Frankly, there really is no substitute for it.
Are you friends? Yes?
Absolutely?
With my wife?
Absolutely, is it important.
I think it's I think it's the most important thing. I mean, you have to be best friends. If you're not going to be best friends, and the marriage cannot work. No matter what the other ingredients are, the marriage, you really can't work.
What do you make watching that? Now?
To me, it's it's bizarre. It's it's it's it's it's bizarre because I think that what comes to my mind now is sort of being a little bit removed from it is I don't know, I want to say wasted potential. There is there is something hopeful to me about about watching that, but there's also I mean, it's like, I'm not a behavioral psychologist. I don't have a fucking PhD in psychology or therapy or whatever, but like, I guess that's like my job is to just like try and understand behavior and people like, I don't know, there seems something very practiced as well about family. You know, he's repeated that for quite a while.
But you feel there's a wasted potential.
For me personally when I think of what kind of an example this man could could have ultimately have become. And again I say that full known net. To a lot of people, he's a great example. I mean, he represents a pillar of strength and patriotism and all these things. But to me, I guess, by.
The way, and to you and to a lot of people listening to this right now, they will hear you say this and go, wow, this is awfully sentimental for a guy whose policies are profoundly inhumane.
A lot of people see different things in them. I don't see, like I said, I don't see strength, I don't see confidence, I don't see I don't see any of those things. I see somebody that you know, eventually lost whatever humanity that was still left in this video to the point where I don't feel he cares for very much other than himself. Ultimately, you know, but you asked me what I felt watching that video, and again, as someone who went to try to study this person too and really come at it from an investigative place rather than than you know, I would say, that's what I see in that video. I see I still see some humanity.
Yeah, there's a person there.
There's a person there that I don't see anymore.
I wanted to play it because I also see a person in that clip, and I hadn't seen it until I heard you talk about it in the research process. And it is staggering and shocking to watch to see how far he's come. But ultimately the story of Trump does feel like a story about constant reinvention, which is something you know a lot about and you alluded to this earlier, but growing up in three different countries before the age of twelve, you come of age in nineteen eighties communist Romania, where you said quote, it seemed to me it was always demanded that I reinvent and reshape my identity before you came to America. How did you go about doing that and who demanded it of you?
Well, I probably wouldn't have become an actor if I wasn't, you know, like constantly kind of trying to understand myself or where I come from or who I am. I think, you know, I just I was just trying to fit in. I guess, you know, like I said, I I didn't grow up really with my parents. I mean, my my mom was around, but my earliest memories even has her leaving and having to leave the country because after the revolution it was chaos in Romania. It was like you know, if you if you have a pitbull that that's always on, you know, on a chain, and you suddenly let them loose like that's it was chaos in Romania. So she left. She was able to have an opportunity to go to Vienna and to teach piano and play piano as a pianist. And then I was with my grandparents there for a while. And then you know, my dad was long gone. And then she came and took me and we went to Vienna and we moved. You know, I went to a German public school. I didn't even speak German. You know, I was learning like German as Austrian, i should say, or you know, as as I was like living in Vienna at eight or nine years old, I was taking the trolley, you know, like you see in that great movie before Sun Sunrise, you know, Ethan Hawk and stuff like, like they're in Vienna that was shot. It's I was taken that home by myself. I would never you know, let my kid like kind of like take that, you know, at nine years old, go home from school anyway.
But it's an unbelievable image. I can I can see it.
Yeah, so and and and yet when I was trying to when I finally, you know, when she met my stepdad, I transferred to an American international school there. So I was learning English at the same time as I was learning German. And look, I mean I'm here today sitting with you talking so but all of that. I feel if I were to like look back, probably you know, after a lot of therapy, I would say, you're able to do a lot of things when when when it's about survival, you know, you're able to adapt really really quickly. But I also didn't have a choice in that. I guess what I'm getting at is like I was told you're living here, now, you're going to this school now, and then guess what I was told tomorrow, we're moving to America. So a lot of these choices. Didn't feel that I was making my own choice. Somebody was making you know.
Did you think at the time, when you're looking back on it, whether it's in your own time or in therapy or wherever, did you think, Oh, I have pretty strong survival instincts. I'm pretty good at fitting in and figuring out how to be in a place. Or was that something you had to learn quickly?
I think at the time, you know, you're just kids just want to feel safe, right, you know, and you didn't feel safe.
Yeah.
I don't think a lot of times I felt safe, even though at the you know, even looking back, like I remember being a little kid and knowing that the next morning we were taking a flight to America and not going back to Vienna. And we had we had visited America a couple of times, just you know, trips here and there, yeah, and going to the Twin Towers. But when I remember being told that the next day we're moving to America for good, and crying, like literally being like like petrified with fear because I didn't understand what that meant, even though it turned out to be the greatest thing that happened to me, you know, So, but you.
Remember those days leading up to leaving.
Of course, I mean we all have certain right, like, we all have certain moments that kind of felt really.
Yeah, what are the images that come to mind?
I mean, don't make me cry on the show or anything, but like, are you in therapy? Okay, I guess that's good, right for all, for any of us in't therapy. But they always say right, like you got to learn to be a parent to the little child in you, you know. But I you know, I have images like even in Vienna. You know, my mom before she met my stepdad, you know, she was teaching piano, and she was running around teaching at a school and then private lessons and I would come home from school and I would be waiting for her to get home alone. And there were many times where I would sit by this windowsill and like I could see downstairs, like from our apartment into the entrance, and I just was praying and nothing terrible was going to happen to her, you know, and that she was going to come home. And I have had a lot of times in my life where I waited, you know, and that stuff, you know, like stays with you and then you have to you have to. When you're an adult, you kind of become aware of it. You know. You got to. You got to know how to self care of that part, you know. But I have those images of really not knowing what was going to happen, you know.
The waiting of it all seems to be the thing that I can feel. I mean, I'm looking at you and I can hear it. It brings up a lot of a lot of shit.
I mean a lot of these things we're discussing have also been huge gifts ultimately to me, because I really don't know, like if I would be here with you right now if things had gone differently. I don't know if I had had more of like a conventional childhood where you know, like I remember growing up and when I finally started watching movies like and seeing Father of the Bride, you know that movie and Karen Colkin's in it, and he's like running to the fence and they have like that white fence and the house and the basketball hoop. And I used to love basketball, and I was like, oh my god, like that must be amazing. And I did eventually, when we finally moved and I was going to high school in Rocken County, I did finally have that house, you know, like that suburban house in the basketball hoop, but not none in the beginning. So so, but I also just don't know if I had had that level of safety or perhaps predictability to my in those early years, if I would have been as motivated to you know, or as vulnerable or as sensitive in ways to try to want to understand not just myself, but but what is it about us as people that makes us the way we are?
You know, we had Jesse Eisenberg on the show.
One of the smartest and most incredible.
People, and we were talking about his movie A Real Pain with Kernan Culkin, and he was opening up about his childhood and how he was like, you know, it all makes me stronger and better, and then he's like, well, actually I don't really know if that's true. I know, and you're saying the same thing, which is these things formed me as a performer, they shaped who I am, they shaped me as an artist. But in some ways, like we always have this tendency that we have to assign value to things that were painful and bad so that they don't just exist as painful and bad things, but actually are stepping stones to a redemptive story.
And G think that's a we do that out of a coping mechanism or is this survival or is it like out of guilt you think, or because.
We I don't know. I go back and forth. I think we like to tell ourselves stories, and the stories tend to have a redemptive arc to them. I think we just want to have a story that feels triumphant.
Okay, And can I just ask you that? And perhaps it's around here where for insightful people like yourself, who are taking that not comfortable step towards trying to dissect what you just said in yourself. Perhaps it's for people like you and me where we're fascinated with somebody, like the Trumps of the world who don't seem pained or suffering from that r who are unburdened by that, and the lack of the lack of I don't know whether it's self interest or but also the lack of empathy or remorse or the lack of guilt, the lack of right because even when you're turning on the TV now, it's like you see all these true crime like you see it like I think a lot about because I played this guy at one time, which was like a cannibal or whatever, so I ended up doing all this reagonal like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer and all Night Stalker and all these people, and it's like they're getting love letters. It's like, where's a fascination with these people? Because to some extent we end up fucking electing them and we end up putting them in positions because there is this weird fascination of power or strength or whatever or and then the sensitive guys is kind of left on the curb, right, like, but like, what do you think about that?
I think one of the reasons I wanted to do this with you is because only a curious and sympathetic person could play an incurious and unsympathetic person. And the larger story, which we'll get into towards the end of this, And like where we started this conversation, my aversion to watching this movie to wanting to talk to you nothing to do with you as an actor whose work I've liked for a while. Like I said, it has everything to do with my aversion to him and what he represents, and I felt after the election, I can no longer avoid it.
Well, I appreciate that, but also, you know, it's interesting, like we was talking to Ali at one point about like that, we always end up try to do the movies on the Hitler's and the Nixons, and long after they're gone, you know, when we've we've gotten quite comfortable with we've picked apart what we did or we didn't do, and we're in a place of like, let's go back now now that we don't have to deal with the imminent threat of reassessing what went wrong, And here we are actually having for the first time doing that and having the opportunity of confronting certain things on as they're happening. But also I think that see this, this is the tricky part, like should we subject ourselves to something that sometimes gives us complicated feelings? Like and I think yes, because because if anything that the election sort of proved is that, at least to some people in this country, this person is more than just that SNL impression, you know, the soundbites and these things. And it's a very difficult thing to look back at like the eighties and the seventies and try to pick apart what why, why this person even got to where they got at the time, and why they were putting all these covers of the magazines and whatever, and what was a fascination with this person? Where is the charm? Where are these things? Because it's just much easier to kind of distance and call something one thing, and because then we don't feel like we have any part in it, you know, we're not. And by understanding him in a deeper way, perhaps we can understand what is it that appeals to certain people about him, you.
Know, after the break more from Sebastian stand One of the things he represented in the eighties for a lot of people is this idea of this elusive idea of an American dream of ambition of total self made even though those things are not exactly true when it comes to him. And you have this quote where you said, from and the moment I came to America, I've been haunted by the American dream as you went about trying to make something of yourself, first in high school, then college and Rutgers, finally in New York as a young actor. How did this American dream haunt you?
Well, I mean it's like I can recognize so many things that I'm I'm grateful for and how lucky I even just going through yesterday and even having one movie work you know, nevermind too or you know, turn out okay, whatever, Like, even though I can recognize all these things, I'm still there's still a part of me that remains unsettled. There's still a part that kind of remains, you know, that's focused on the next thing, the next mountain, getting the next situation. Well, oh yeah, that was great, But it's not that it's not what that person had has It's not good enough. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. Like that, I think is.
When you look at your career, you think it's not good enough.
It's not that I see it as it's not good enough. But is that I see it that it's that could be more right.
You don't see a finish line.
Personally, I think creatively, I'm learning more and more as there is no finish line. That's the fucking you know, that's yours. It's a ghost you're chasing, like round and round in circles like there isn't And and speaking of who you had on who I think is Jesse Eisenberg. You know, he said this quote. I saw the movie I tell you right, and then he did a Q and A and I thought it was amazing what he said. It's like, I don't want to manage what I'm doing by my accomplishments. I want to manage what I'm doing by productivity. He said, I don't want to look back at this one great thing I did ten years ago. I want to you know. And that's the thing I'm still hanging on to. I want to keep looking forward at what I'm trying, what I'm what I'm attempting, you know. And I think he's amazing that. I mean, he's doing all of it, and I'm sure he probably feels it's not enough or it's like it's scary to kind of you know, throw your feet up and say I'm good, because then what then you're gonna have to face the facts that you're gonna die.
When you signed a nine film contract to Marvel. What did your mom think.
Uh, not much because she probably was like yeah because her response was yeah, but what if something happens. But you know, it's also a very Eastern European raised under communist mentality like oh something good happened, something bad could happen. Now you know, it's like you're like fuck, But I don't necessarily see it as bad because at the same time, I've learned to discern people pretty well now, and part of that is because sometimes I'm looking too much, and some would probably argue that I have some degree of OCD or or neuroticism.
I would say, you mentioned the OCD twice.
Yeah, But again, that also really helps me in my work because when I put my you know, when I see the target and I put my head down, I won't leave until like it's it's done and completed. So I find it's an asset in that way, yes, But in my own personal life sometimes I don't necessarily need to analyze what the cashiers really experiencing when they're giving me, you know, my groceries. It's a disaster, you know, whether or not they're looking at me with judgment or pity or it's a disaster or if I'm walking yeah the street, is that person like could they kill someone or not? You know? I mean it's like so it goes both ways. Do you have any of that? Yes? But maybe that's good. Are you serious?
I know the year you moved here. How much time I've spent?
Oh that was fascinating.
You do?
I know that you played two parts in Rachel getting married. You're just dancing in the second part in a wedding. The agent you found the stage door. Then you went to Rutgers and then she said no, you should go to college, but you didn't want to go to college, and you stayed in college.
Of course.
I fucking know. It is exhausting.
Wow, listen, How well do you sleep at night?
Not well?
But you'll be awake from when the end happens, which.
Will come earlier because I don't sleep.
I had a friend who could sleep in a nightclub not drunk, like literally was able to take a nap anywhere, anytime, And I just I'm like, ignorance is bliss. But then I also think he'd be the first die, you know, character to die in a movie.
He would yeah and so and you would live and it'd be.
Fine, one would think.
I think, like a few times now, I keep alluding to your early work and Rachel Getting Man. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, which is just one of my favorite favorite movies, and the director of that film is the late Johnathan Demi. Yeah, I was thinking, did that role in his influence? Did it open you up to movies like a different man?
So him in that movie I think gave me an important lesson basically, which yeah, I think it all, all of it contributed to a different man. But the thing about him was he came to see me in a play and then he wrote, this, you didn't have a part in that movie. And then he gave me that part at the beginning of the movie. And then he said, I feel so bad that it's not a bigger part, like you should just come back in the wedding, and then that's what I did. But it influenced me at that point, going you know what, it doesn't really matter at this point how big the part is. I just have to work with people that I admire and I inspired me. And from there I went on to do you know these little parts in like Black Swan and The Martian, and you know, I just wanted to surround myself with good people, and that was a lesson I got from him. I feel that no matter how great of a job you're doing in a movie, as a performance, I think you can't really entirely save the movie if the movie isn't working or you know, if there's inherent problems that are bigger than you in the script or in the directing. Whereas I think that you as a performance could be you know, not that great, but be made very okay by great directing editing.
So when it comes to this film, you were nominated for two Golden Globes this week, one for The Apprentice, which we've been talking about, and one in the comedy section for a Different Man. For those who haven't seen it, how would you describe the movie?
I literally describe it as being John Malkovich meets Hannah and her sisters.
That's incredible. I mean, explain that, yeah, explain that intersection.
Charlie Kaufman esque kind of sort of esoteric, existential experience filtered through a witty Allen lens shot in very highly elevated, witty dialogue and long takes shot on film to very particular score. But I describe it mainly as what happens when we lie to ourselves. You know, what happens when you lose yourself. You know when when the lie becomes bigger than yourself and when the bubble pops, meaning when you can't there's no more lying to do. You have to fucking face it.
You're playing a man with a severe facial disfigurement.
Correct neurofibromatosis, which is a which is a real thing, which is what Adam Pearson who's in the movie has.
And some may remember Adam from his performance and Under the Skin, which was unbelievable.
It was unbelievable, But more so than that was his performance and Chained for Life, which is the movie he did with Aaron Schimberg before this film that I saw and I was fucking blown away by. In that film, there is a scene where an able bodied actor and Adam are playing this acting game where they name emotions back and forth to each other and they are both quote acting it, and she's doing all of these expressions with her face, and then when it cuts back to Adam, you know he's doing his version, and I swear to god, you feel every single emotion that they're trying fifty thousand times more when you're watching Adam than when you're watching the other actor. And this is not to say anything about the performance of the other actor or anything like that, but it's just how brilliant the writing is. Because part of what that movie's about is that a lot of the stuff that we think we feel about people, or we think about people, is really just our own projection of that, and when we're hand at certain circumstances to view a person differently, you will see the thing that you're supposed to see.
Tell me what you saw as an actor who looks like you. You are a let's just say, classically handsome man, thank you, who had to wake up at five in the morning to do hair and makeup and would undergo the prosthetic work necessary and the hair and makeup, et cetera, and would have a few hours in between that work being done and your call time on set.
Yeah, for one thing, when I get up in the morning, I don't necessarily see it. You know, classically handsome. Man. I still see a kid that was eating a lot of Snickers and was a little pudgy teenager, you know whatever, like I have. You know, we all see certain things that not other people see.
What was the last time you had a Snickers?
Oh?
God, like a like a freezer Snickers. No, it was, it was definitely on least ten years era, maybe even before that. But I'm like, yeah, that the prosthetics experience was of course illuminating, but also extremely isolating and depressing because it was it was. I mean, I feel a degree of self consciousness when I walk around New York City because and this is what one thing that Adam and Aaron made me aware of. They were like, for this part, you should be thinking about what it's like to be recognizable, because it's very similar in the sense that your public property in the same way that someone who stands out is someone who's disfigured or you know, like people just look at you and then they and then they just feel that they have every right in the world to either tape you or at will or say whatever or whatever. That uncomfortability around it in a way translates behavior wise similarly, so I was aware of that, but but not I never felt the degree of vulnerability as I did walking around as Edward in New York City.
What were the responses?
It was in the extremes, it was either totally complete ignorance. You know, I could be I could be a foot away from somebody at a stoplight who I was blatantly staring directly at, and they were not going to address that I existed next to them, you know. I mean it's just like when you're waving a flag and it's just they don't see it. And I had somebody who would you know, immediately be like very vocally kind of excitable, like oh shit, oh my god, you know, like you know, there's the there's the elephant. Man, Wow, look at that, you know, like let me take a picture. Let me you know, like look at that, you know, like let me nudge my friend, let me you know, or it was pity, you know, which is which is? You know, like I remember going to coffee shop and they were taking my order, but they were talking a lot louder. Now someone's talking louder. Now everybody's looking right like it just becomes a scene and all you want to do is just like dig into your own navel, like you just want to go like fold into yourself or whatever. And all of that was very obviously revealing in terms of Edward. You know, how he was walking, how he was standing, how he was talking. There's things that you're just learning from that, and now is very important to carrying them into the second half of the movie because those things are in your blood and in your system no matter how whatever you change, if you're someone that's been sugjected to that and you've created those habits in those patterns for twenty years whatever. But in terms of the experience, like, yeah, it's very isolating, I mean, which is, you know a lot of people that I researched, that I researched who have disfigurement, and you know that I found on YouTube and so on and so forth speak very openly about being abandoned and having grown up as orphans, you know, and that was very different than Adam's experience, who actually had a very supportive family system.
Both of these films are about self abandonment and denial of reality, and.
I'm glad you're saying that about both of them because it's true.
It's true, and the way a different Man gets at society's unwillingness to treat people with disabilities fairly, to treat them as human beings. Not to mention, it's also a comment about our own vanity and dissatisfaction with our own looks. It's really such a special movie, but the way it gets at that is moving and powerful. And also The Apprentice shares some of that critique about vanity and this inability we seem to have with facing what's in front of us. And I want to hit on this as we go, this denial of reality. Yeah, this is a very real thing right now this film. One of the reasons I reached out to your team was because I saw that Variety, who does this big Actors on Actors series, invited you to take part in this program. And it's kind of the thing everyone does when your awards hopping and you know, whatever you're buying for attention, whatever the hell it is, and it's silly and it's not that big of a deal. I mean, none of this is that big of a deal. But true, you couldn't find an actor who would agree to talk to you about playing Donald Trump. And the moment I read that, I thought, this is insane. I mean, this is how we got.
To this point. I mean, I guess the thing that was crazy where I felt, you know, sort of like bad about was more that I also couldn't talk about this movie because yeah, it's not like that was the only movie I had, and you know, I'd done actors on actors. I did it with Jennifer. Yeah, and it was so amazing, and it was it was it was great. It's it's actually and by.
The way, I feel so sorry that you've gone from Jennifer Aniston to me. I really don't worry.
No, no, no, no problem. But but yeah, it's a great opportunity obviously to discuss with another actor, like the process and like what it goes into, and to learn from someone else like how do you get there? How do you approach these things? It's very insightful and you get to know the person a little bit and and you connect with them. And so the thing about the whole thing was it's just it wasn't so much necessarily about oh, no one wanted to do this, or you know, pointing a finger or pointing a blame or anything. It was it was really just to highlight like the fear around even approaching the subject, which is like, it's not like we were going to be sitting there and talking about extensively as we have on this podcast about Trump, but like, you know, but it was really I was like, wow, like this is really you're telling me, like this is actually there's a hesitancy around this now. And I guess like we've been facing hesitancy like that from a number of people with the film, going back to can.
Going back to twenty nineteen when you first got the script.
To twenty nineteen. But the only thing that's different now really with the Independent Spirit Awards and the Globes was the acknowledgment of the film, even as it's from a work standpoint, but also as an attempt at at something and in a public way, in a way that we can we can kind of feel okay to acknowl or address it or talk about, you know, because it is being talked about. And that's the thing. There's many conversations and have been many conversations about the movie privately, yes, you know, there's been many distributor heads and executives in charge who loved the film right had an expressed full on well, let's.
Give context us because it's been a long road to this week for you, Like it's been a long road to having that feeling, because when the film premiered at cann it received a nice standing ovation. Yeah, and the moment you walked out of the theater, there was a cease and desist letter from Trump's attorney to stop the film's release the moment the film premiered.
Right, But everyone, I guess on our side predicted that.
Of course, and he called it, quote a fake and classless movie written about me, called The Apprentice that will hopefully bomb. He said, it's a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatch job put out right before the twenty twenty four presidential election. And yes, you may have expected that that was gonna happen. I'm sure you did. But Gabriel Sherman, who wrote the film, said in one interview that the fallout of that cease and desist was that every single Hollywood studio and streamer refused to buy the movie. How did you make sense of that response after all that you folks had put into the film.
But at that point, the journey right with going back to twenty nineteen up until can I mean we didn't even know we were going to get to Can. Like that's why a lot of times we've been saying, it's like the fact that we're here talking about it and it's been recognized in this way is already such an achievement, But like, I still don't know what will happen next because we never knew, right, So even getting to Can itself was a win. But then it felt like the movie is on a path on its own and we have no control over it, right, So I mean it's like you want to try and control the thing, but you can't. I mean, there's no If Tom Oldenberg hadn't stepped up, you know, the movie would not have gotten distribution, you know, even even though there were many people who had seen it who could have given a distribution, that loved it and were like and who were very happy to see that the movie finally got distribution, but didn't want to be the ones doing it.
Gabriel Sherman said that the word I got back was that they worried that if Trump became president, he would use the regulatory state to punish their companies.
Sounds like communists remain to me. I Mean, that's kind of.
The point I'm making is like when you hear that, you go, well, wait a minute. Hollywood is endlessly typecast by the right as this bastion of democracy, this very liberal place, and yet not one studio thought it would be advantageou is to put out a film about a guy who was running for president. When we talk about The Apprentice, everyone in your life said to you, don't do this movie.
Well, my mom actually says something else.
Your mom said, you'll finally get the shave. Yes, yeah, well done, well done. But a CEO told you you'll alienate half the country. And I'm sitting with you here in this moment. It's the first long form interview you've done since I said.
I said, well, they might like the first half. That's true. That's true.
You know that's true. But by the way, more than half the country voted for this person, and so we do have to hold him, and we do have to hold your portrayal of him. In one interview, you said, you know, Trump is one of us. He is made by us. He's part of us, whether we like it or not. And I wondered, since he's been elected, if your feelings about humanizing him have changed it all.
I've always felt that this movie is a movie that will still be talked about ten twenty years from now. I may be wrong, but my instinct, in my feeling is that it is. It will be looked at and it will be talked about, and as we know with history, there is a time that comes around where there's that moment of facing the facts and looking at and going, wait a minute, what did we do, What was the right thing to do, what could have been done and all that, And regardless of what happens, I will feel that doing this movie for me was the right thing to do, and him trying to kind of censor it, which is the antithesis of free speech. That's consistently kind of like the cheap car that you pull out, and I keep everybody keeps pulling out this free speech thing. Like I heard something that Elon Musk, you know, you know, talking to Joe Rogan or something. It's like free speech. I'm like, as it pertains to you, right, like free speech as it is pertains to you. But free speech like which should be all of all of it as it encompasses like is another thing. So I think it feels like being able to look at something, particularly that is sensitive or or was really trying to get at something that that maybe people are uncomfortable with, will stand the test of time.
That discomfort to hold that for a moment, as we end give it. All the time you spend in this guy's skin, researching him, thinking about him, what do you understand about him that you think people listening ought to understand if they don't already.
I think it's very easy to become him, and that's what we have to be careful of. I think it's very easy to lose empathy and lose humanity and suppress and quote unquote, you know, discard your weakness and validate nastiness, validate whatever behavior. It's already happened. It's already happening on internet, but also people in life. It's not just online. I mean, people are feeling more unhinged and more and more empowered and entitled to just behave terribly to other people, to certainly towards women, towards anyone that is different. I think what he's already proven, and that's why I go back to that waste of potential because as an example, if you're going to be up there and call yourself the leader of the free world. Okay, And I'm not I sit here fully, fully fucking admitting that I have no place or to stand on here to say that I know what's what side is better for this country or whatever. At this point, I'm just simply saying, like, if you're going to be the leader of the free world, and you and you want to call yourself that, and and I think we have the right to hold you accountable. I think we have the right to look at you in all the ways you don't want to, you don't want us to see you. But I think, I think the damage it's about highlighting the damage that that that he's able to do in the sense of what he's able to do to pass on to other people, which is which is the lack of humanity. And part of the thing that art quote unquote is supposed to do. It's supposed to highlight the things that we can't always communicate one to one. It's supposed to go deeper than that on an instinctive level that we either have with each other or not, right like like man human to human and go do I trust this person? Is this person? Where's where is the human being? Where or the lack thereof you know. And in in order for us to understand the values that we are supposed to be upholding, the things that we refer to as virtues, morality, grace, depth, empathy, and all of these things, we have to know what its opposite are. It's not just all you know, black or white. I mean, that's the thing, you know. It's not just good versus evil. It just doesn't go. I wish it was like that, but it's just much more gray, you know, I think, and people are much more gray and he is. And if anything, we if we're not able to sustain that, if we're not able to take that in emotionally because we're too sensitive or it's too much, or it's too uncomfortable, then we are robbing ourselves of like actually living fucking life, because living life is not this robot existence, which is where we're heading. If you just want to be on that phone all day long and you want to not be triggered by anything left or right, yeah, you're just a You're just a snowflake floating endlessly until you into the ocean and then you're just disintegrated. But like that's not what life is. Life is is right, Like life is a mix of fucking uncomfortable things and truths that we don't have the answers to, you know, the answers to, but at least it's the truth, Like, it's not this fantasy that you're afraid is gonna pop open one day, and when it does, which is which is what happens in a different man, you're suddenly ill equipped to deal with it because you've been suppressing all of these things all your life. So I guess that's why, at the end of the day, it's about awareness and seeing everything from from all perspective, otherwise we lose.
We're right back with actor Sebastian Stan. We've been talking about Trump so urgently in this conversation, but I think the thing that we're actually talking about, remember, the thing that's at least guiding my line of questioning, is this fear about what's next and the lack of control that we have over what's to come. And that idea of control has been kind of the through line of our whole conversation, like dating back to you growing up in three countries before twelve, and that image of you waiting for your mom at the windowsill, feeling like I have no control over what happens next, and entering a Hollywood system where I mean, forget about it. Control is like no one has control here, and so I just keep thinking about what that means for you moving forward. When you talked about not having control earlier, you were emotional about that and you felt it. Don't seem like you were upset thinking about it. I guess at forty two, do you feel you've made some peace with that?
You know? I'm at a point now where I guess like I've learned how to have a more constructive, I think, healthy relationship with that kid that was really just waiting for his caretakers to sort of like tell him where to go and what to do. But I have an empathy for that kid now, I have so when I and I if I get you know, sad or that when I was talking about it was more like, oh I can I can go to that sadness now in a healthy way where I couldn't when when it was happening. And that's what therapy is, right, I mean, it's like it's like we can feel, we can learn to feel the things that we weren't that we weren't able to feel or understand how to feel them in those traumatic experiences and not to fucking bring it back again to you know who. But there is a question to be had whether if only someone had taught him to understand what weakness really is, because weakness, like failure, could be a fucking asset. It's like if the things you can recognize about yourself, if you can recognize what you don't know or where you stand to learn, or what scares you or what hurts you or what saddens you, or if you can come into contact with the parts of you that where you're lying to yourself to please other people, and then actually confront that guilt in yourself rather than shove it in the corner, then then maybe there's a different way of doing it. Maybe there's a there's a there's a way of not growing up and dumping it on other people and vomiting it on other people. Right, I mean that just that's like humanity. That's that's the thing we all do. And and in terms of control, I think what I've learned and maybe this is what we can all do is it also reminds me of this, Uh do you remember Christopher Hitchins. Yeah, I've been reading that book a little bit of like Letters to a Young Contrarian, and it's really interesting, you know, and it talks a lot about if you're going to be an opposist, then you're going to have to just know that your life is going to be difficult, you know, and and it's going to be a thankless situation. And that did come to my mind a lot with this movie, you know, going into it, because because there was always going to be and it may continue to be, but already it's different, but a path of a thankless job, like it's not. But I think there's something to that. And I think there's one letter where it talks about like, okay, well, how do you deal with these things that you know when all this other stuff is happening? And he refers to he gives him advice about like you have to go to the as if scenario, you know, and you have to look at your life and go, well, what if it was as if this was happening? How would I live my life? You know? And I think there's some value in that, as there is in stoicism, right, which is like we don't know what's going to happen, but what we do have control over is our day to day. You know, you have control over getting here today, and you have control over you know, what you feed your mind, and you have control I think over your thoughts and your feelings and sometimes sometimes right if you're OCD right, But like even then, you know there's a way of learning of going like that doesn't serve me. So I think about that. I think in terms of control. I think in terms of what happened, was has happened. But I'm here today, I can have control over this moment, and therefore I can also have control over what I allow to affect me.
Well, I just want to say thank you for allowing a whole lot into this conversation, because we have brought in just about everything at this point, and your ability over and over again, but especially in a different man in the Apprentice, both of which I hope people see your ability to inch closer and closer towards things that are uncomfortable and messy and frustrating. It's impressive and it is so so needed right now. So I thank you for that, and I thank you for the time.
Well listen, it's been great, man, Thank you so much. I am really grateful to have been here. And I think I'll be thinking about this for the rest of the day. Oh that's good, Sebastian Stan Say It travels.
Thanks, and that's our show.
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On social media at tag us at talk easy pod, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Really, all of this helps us continue making the program each and every Sunday. I want to give us special thanks this week to the teams at Relevant pr Obscure Pictures A twenty four and of course our guest today, Sebastian stand His new film The Apprentice and A Different Man are both now available to watch at home and in some cities still in select eaters. You can find links to both of them on our website at talk easypod dot com. For more episodes like this one, I'd recommend our talks with Jesse Eisenberg, Joaquin Phoenix, and Tom Hanks. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk Easypod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs for the holidays, they come in cream or navy, you can do so at talk easypod dot com slash shop Talk easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is jenek Sa Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Matt Sasaki and mixed by Andrew Bastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Krisia Shanoy. Photographs today are by Julius Cheu. I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries and Richmond Kerry Brodie, Jacob Smith, Eric Sandler, Cura Posey, Jorna mcmiller, Amy Hagadorn, Sarah Bruguer, Owen Miller, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.
