While we’ve been watching Sebastian Stan a long time (shoutout Carter Baizen!), in the last few years, he has really levelled up. He was early on the Marvel train, getting in the door during Phase 1 playing Captain America’s childhood pal turned brainwashed super-assassin, and in between franchise gigs, he appeared in a slew of impressive films like The Martian, Logan Lucky, I, Tonya, and Destroyer (he also made a pitstop on Broadway during this time). It felt like every interesting filmmaker had Stan on speed dial, never mind that his number resides in the Marvel rolodex. And in the last three years, he’s been nominated for an Oscar, an Emmy, and a BAFTA, and he won a Golden Globe.
Now, though, he’s returning to Marvel, this time as the front man of his own superhero team. Bucky Barnes is the anchor character of Thunderbolts*, making Sebastian Stan a hero after nearly 15 years of playing a sidekick. With Thunderbolts* just two weeks away—the UK premiere was last night—Stan covers Vanity Fair for the first time.
Just for fun, I looked through the VF archive for Stan’s first appearance, which was a digital piece in 2014 by Joanna Robinson explaining the significance of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier end-credit scenes. Ah, the 2010s, when we cared about what Marvel movies were coming out next. It was a simpler time. In 2016, following the summer of Captain America: Civil War, VF ran a piece about Stan becoming “Tumblr’s boyfriend”, which gives you an idea of Stan’s slow burn rise to cover-profile fame.
The profile is solid, written by Anthony Breznican and conducted in part over Oscar weekend, when Stan was nominated for portraying Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Stan put his own Oscar odds at “0.0000 percent” and says he “would put money down [Trump has] seen it 100 f-cking times, of course, because he’s a narcissist”. Stan also acknowledges that Trump probably likes that a handsome guy played him on film. Yeah, that was my issue with The Apprentice from the beginning, it doesn’t matter how good or scathing the film is, Trump will get off on 1) having a movie made about him, and 2) being played by a hot guy.
Enough about that. Cleanse your palate with the photoshoot:
More interesting in the profile is that at one point Stan tried to get into a Romanian church to light a candle for his late father. Stan grew up in Communist Romania and emigrated to the US as a child. He talks about that experience and how his father had to leave because he was wanted for helping people escape Romania, and how his mother left, too, and eventually brought him to the US (by way of Vienna). Of immigrants Stan says, “I have always made the argument that immigrants to some extent are more patriotic than even the people that are born here because they don’t take things for granted.”
Stan has never hidden his roots, but he also hasn’t talked in depth about his history, and the best part of this profile is when he talks about his experience moving to America, eventually settling in suburban New York, and how acting became a path to finding a self that fit as an outsider kid with an accent. Sure, everyone gives soundbites about how Sebastian Stan isn’t like other actors, he’ll play a bad guy, but really, the most illuminating thing is Stan talking about joining school plays because he got a chance to, essentially, hide.
Far from resting on his laurels or enjoying his post-Oscar moment, by the end of the profile, Stan is already back at work, collaborating with Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu on a new film. (He missed the Thunderbolts* UK premiere because he’s still working.) Bouncing between Marvel and largely indie fare, Stan has built an enviable career and a reputation as a meticulous craftsman who thrives playing difficult characters. It might have taken him a minute to get here, but now that he is, Sebastian Stan: Leading Man isn’t going anywhere.
Click here for more on Sebastian Stan in VF.
