Tag: interview

Sebastian Stan Just Likes to Watch

fysebastianstan:

“We used to come into the city a lot when I was a kid,” said Mr. Stan, 35, recalling the years when he lived with his mother and stepfather in Nyack, N.Y., and was a student at Rockland Country Day School. “Especially around the holidays, this was the best place to come.”

As he spoke and glanced quickly at the lunch menu, deciding on salmon tartare and sparkling water, a steady stream of nervous-looking skaters passed by, several tumbling to the ice. At one point, a young girl, swaddled in a bright-pink winter coat, stopped in front of the restaurant window, tightly gripped the railing and burst into tears as her mother gently — and unsuccessfully — tried to lure her back to the ice, Mr. Stan was asked if had skated here.

“I’ve never been ice skating, ever,” he said. “I’m traumatized by the idea of it. Look, see those kids out there, falling. I keep thinking that I’m going to fall, and then someone is going to come by and slash my wrists off with one of their blades. So I’m much happier on the sidelines, as a spectator.”

It’s a surprising admission from someone whose new film, “I, Tonya,” opening later this month, is all about the world of ice skating — in particular, the 1994 Winter Olympics, the toxic rivalry between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, and the famous kneecapping incident that sent Ms. Kerrigan to the floor, screaming, “Why me?”

Mr. Stan, perhaps best known to film audiences as Bucky Barnes (a.k.a. the Winter Soldier) in Marvel’s “Captain America” films and the coming “Avengers: Infinity War,” plays Jeff Gillooly, Ms. Harding’s husband at the time and one of the bumbling accomplices in the tabloid-ready crime. (In 1994, Mr. Gillooly was sentenced to two years in jail and fined $100,000 for his role in that incident; he was released in 1995. Ms. Harding was put on probation for three years and banned for life by the United States Skating Association.)

It is not a particularly sympathetic role. In fact, Mr. Stan, in character as Mr. Gillooly, is introduced to the film’s viewers in an early scene in which he looks directly into the camera and says: “At 27 I was the most hated man in America. Maybe the world — with a mustache I still can’t apologize enough for. My name was a verb. Like, if you bash someone in the kneecap, you ‘Gillooly’ them.” (Margot Robbie plays Tonya in the Oscar-buzzy movie, which was directed by Craig Gillespie.)

Was there any trepidation about taking on the role of this somewhat unsavory character, one who is not only a comically inept criminal but is also part of a mutually abusive relationship that the film portrays unflinchingly?

“I’ve gotten really good at not judging characters,” Mr. Stan said. “You have that fear of ‘God, I don’t know if I can do this.’ But the script was intriguing. And regardless of what I thought happened, and what judgments I had about all that, I just had to let it go, and trust the script. My job as an actor is to just tell the story as best I can, from my character’s point of view, and let the audience decide.” There was, however, one person who was puzzled that Mr. Stan had taken this role: Mr. Gillooly.

Shortly before filming began earlier this year, the two met at a restaurant in Portland, Ore., where Mr. Gillooly and Ms. Harding first met and where Mr. Gillooly still lives. As Mr. Stan recalled, “The first thing Jeff said to me, when I sat down, was, ‘Why would anyone want to do this? Who would want to see this thing?’” Mr. Stan’s answer? “I told him it was a really great script.”

Mr. Stan had spent the previous couple of months obsessively researching Mr. Gillooly, finding on YouTube a television interview that Mr. Gillooly had given several years ago, and also listening to the audiotape of a three-hour interview Mr. Gillooly had given to Steven Rogers, the film’s screenwriter. “Steve sent me that tape and I walked around the city over the holidays, listening to Jeff’s voice over and over and over again,” he said.

When the two finally met, Mr. Stan wasn’t particularly interested in probing for more details about the Kerrigan incident, or hearing Mr. Gillooly’s side of the story. Instead, he was looking for biographical details that would help him find his character. “There was an earlier Jeff in the script that I couldn’t find anything on,” Mr. Stan said. “How was he when he was in high school? Who was he back then? What did he want to be? How did he smile? When he got excited, how did he move his hands?”

But he said the face-to-face meeting was a bit unnerving: “I had spent so much time listening to him, and watching him, and now here he was in person. It’s almost like you are doing a double take.”

Next up for Mr. Stan is “Destroyer,” by the director Karyn Kusama, also starring Nicole Kidman and Tatiana Maslany, which he begins filming in January. He has also become something of a fashion world favorite (perhaps a result of him having played a memorably shirtless drifter in the 2013 Broadway revival of “Picnic”). He has been invited to the Public School shows, accompanied Todd Snyder to the CFDA Awards and was profiled in a GQ Style fashion shoot.

On this afternoon, he was wearing a black IRO coat, a dark green Theory T-shirt, black A Gold E jeans and weathered Frye boots that he said were taken from the set of the “Avengers” movie.

Though born in Romania and raised by a single mother in Vienna before she married an American and the family moved to Rockland County, N.Y., Mr. Stan considers himself a New Yorker. His first apartment after graduating from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2005 was a two-bedroom on a grim stretch of West 42nd Street opposite the Port Authority. (“My share was just $800 a month!” he said, almost in wonder.) And he has never left the city since, moving to several different neighborhoods before settling down in his current apartment in SoHo.

He was headed there after the lunch at the Sea Grill, and as he began to gather up his things, he looked out one last time at the rink. At that moment, a middle-aged man in a Canada Goose parka came whizzing by, a look of panic on his face, and then crashed, spread-eagled.

Said Mr. Stan: “That’s exactly why I am not on the ice today.”

Sebastian Stan Just Likes to Watch

He plays the Winter Soldier, but Sebastian Stan may have found his toughest role: Tonya Harding’s husband

justwintersebby:

When actor Sebastian Stan first read the script for “I, Tonya,” the eccentric biopic about former figure-skating champion Tonya Harding, he felt terrified.

Stan was considering the part of Jeff Gillooly, Harding’s abusive ex-husband who was convicted in 1994 for the attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. “How could I ever play this?” Stan wondered. There were scenes showing Gillooly physically abusing Harding, manipulating her after the Kerrigan attack, and ultimately ruining her skating career.

But there were also moments of raw passion between them and a protective, vulnerable side to Gillooly that was at odds with the punchline that he became: “To Gillooly” meant “to kneecap someone.”

“I know there are a lot of really disturbing things that are happening in the movie,” Stan said in an interview. “Looking at the script, without trying to make any other judgments on the real people, what really came across to me was someone who was in love with this person to perhaps obsessive points, to a point where it was not healthy necessarily. But the same unhealthy, toxic love was coming from her towards him.”

“I, Tonya,” directed by Craig Gillespie from a screenplay by Steven Rogers, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend and quickly became the most buzzed-about film as audiences cheered the eccentric, empathetic performances by Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, Allison Janney as her caustic mother, and Stan as Gillooly. The film was reportedly picked up by Neon and 30West for about $5 million.

Stan, 35 years old, also plays Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) in Marvel’s “Captain America” films co-starring Chris Evans, and he’ll reprise the role in the upcoming “Avengers: Infinity War.” He’ll also star in upcoming political drama “The Last Full Measure”.

He sat with MarketWatch to discuss “I, Tonya,” his indulgence in chocolate and books about space, and Bucky’s future in “Captain America.”

How did you approach Jeff Gillooly as a character? It seems easy to look down on these people, but you had to find the empathy for him.

The script had funny moments in it, it had scary moments, tragic moments. When I read the script I was like, “this cannot really be true.” I listened to the interviews that [screenwriter] Steven Rogers had with Tonya and Jeff, and I realized, “Oh my God, a lot of what was in the interviews is actually in the script.” Craig had a lot to do with it – the idea of tone, which was right from the beginning, the idea of something Fargo-esque about it. The sensationalism of it all. We had to play that along with finding anything that was grounding and that made it real. Things like breaking the fourth wall, talking to the camera, making the documentary-style approach – that helped a lot.

What were your thoughts on masculinity while playing him? There are times it seems he was trying to protect Tonya, even if his way of doing that was destructive.

I’m thrilled to hear that’s something you felt. I was sort of hoping for that. He was generally setting out to try and do the right thing but unfortunately was perhaps hindered and incapable by not having the tools to be able to do that in the right way. I think sometimes in life, we take things for granted. Not everybody has a psychologist in their mind that sits there and goes, “Do this, don’t do that.” Both of them are incredibly emotionally impulsive. It’s really unfortunate that sometimes, as is the case with Tonya obviously, we always tend to reflect the love that we get when we’re children. If you’re getting abandonment, if you’re getting abuse as a child, if you’re getting uncertainty when you’re a child, unfortunately you tend to look for that in your life later on and you think that’s love.

“You could say that they love too much. Sometimes maybe Jeff was coming from a place of, you love the thing that you have so much you’re squeezing it too hard. You gotta let it go. So anyway, that was a way in for me to something as opposed to trying to judge it and go “oh well, he’s a f-ing asshole and let’s just call it!”

Did you have to suspend judgment and just inhabit him?

There’s no judgment. You can’t judge a character, and you’re never going to always play characters that are morally sound or know right from wrong. Oftentimes it’s more entertaining to play characters that are living on the edge somewhere. With the exception of some of the villains on “Game of Thrones,” and a couple serial killers in our lifetime, people that even do horrible things tend to come from a place of serious need for love and care.

Are you a “Game of Thrones” fan?

I do like “Game of Thrones.” I really like it. I’m caught up. Now I gotta wait another year. What are they going to do? It’s so insane.

Is the vibe of “Avengers: Infinity War” different because so many characters from the universe are in it?

It’s always moving a year to two ahead, so everyone’s always growing. Which works because we grow as people also. So I would say they’re all a little bit different than when you’ve last seen them. The main players don’t go away. For me at least, having done two movies with [directors Joe and Anthony Russo] I feel like there’s a familiarity. I just come back and it kind of all still seems in the family.

You’ve played Bucky since 2010. There are rumors he’ll become Captain America.

It’s out of my hands. It’s out of my jurisdiction and that’s fine. But whatever decision they’ve got up next for me, I’m happy to comply.

What does the film “I, Tonya” mean to you at this point in your career?

If people are able to see past some preconceived ideas and find something relatable, something that they understand about the character, then I feel like my job is done. It’s always an exploration of trying to get better and trying to get deeper and commit more and challenge yourself. It just means more of going out there and finding the next thing that looks scary and terrifying.

What was your first job before acting?

Oh my god! My first job was in a movie theater. I worked at Cinema 6 in New City, New York. I was an usher. I sold popcorn. And then I moved into working for H&M (laughs).

What’s something you indulge in now?

Chocolate. I can’t ever get that out of my system. Really dark, German chocolate cake. Pizza’s pretty great, too. I buy a lot of books. I’m not as fast of a reader – I don’t get through them necessarily as fast as I should, but I like buying books. It’s been mainly non-fiction for the last couple years. Whether it’s history or biographies, I like learning about people and how they get to where they get. I like a lot of space stuff (laughs), stuff on how did the universe come to be? I’m definitely a nerd about [that].

From marketwatch.com 

EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Mackie’s Career Comes Full Circle: ‘Every Stepping Stone Starts With Detroit’

maxiekat:

In 2013, Mackie joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Falcon, realizing a childhood dream. “When I got into the business, I went to the first meeting with my agent and said I wanted to be a superhero,” he revealed when ET visited the set of Captain America: Winter Soldier. “I had no idea [which one]. I said I wanted to create one or I wanted to be like Blade remixed.”

Mackie
has reveled in every moment of the superhero experience over the years,
from embracing spandex suits to playing with his action figure with his
kids, and even teasing fans with prospects of a Falcon/Winter Soldier
crossover with co-star Sebastian Stan, joking earlier this summer that
“we wrote a short. We shot it together. Then we pitched it to the
studio.”

EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Mackie’s Career Comes Full Circle: ‘Every Stepping Stone Starts With Detroit’