Sebastian Stan in 'The Batman Part II': 'Abdre's' Political Message and 'Transforming Himself on Screen'

The former and future Avenger tells IndieWire he will shave his head to play a religious father who fights the state in the film 'Fjord.'

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Sebastian Stan disappears into his roles, from his Oscar-nominated performance as Donald Trump in The Apprentice to the badass actor in A Different Man, which won him a Berlin Silver Bear and a Golden Globe for Comedy. Stan was also unrecognized as metal rocker Tommy Lee in the Emmy-nominated "Pam & Tommy."

Stan also changed his appearance dramatically, shaving his head in his latest incarnation in Christian Mungeau's Palme d'Or-winning film The Fjord, in which he plays the Romanian patriarch of a family of five, with his own "Different Man" actress Renate Rainseau as his Norwegian wife. After moving to a small town in Norway, they encounter significant cultural differences as the local child protective services take their children to investigate suspected physical abuse. RELATED STORIES Meet the versatile talent of the Fall 2026 Film Festivals. "Other Mom" ​​scares $27.5 million with better marketing than the movie. what now

Of course, Stan is best known for his nine Marvel movies and TV spin-offs as Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier. The minor character returns to theaters on December 18 in Avengers: Judgment Day. But we'll have to wait until February 2028 to see Stan again as Harvey Dent/Two-Face in DC's long-delayed Batman: Episode II.

Now, on a warm autumn day, Stan is talking about "the fjord" in his neon offices in lower Manhattan.

The interview below has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Anne Thompson: I don't know of any other actress who disappears like you. It's not like we know you're Sebastian Stan. We think of you as whoever you are playing. ok Is this what you want?

Sebastian Stan: I'm taking that path because a lot of people have said to me recently, like Chloe Zhao, "This is what you're doing now. You're not going to look like yourself." And the timing of these films back to back has been very good. I did not consciously choose to transform physically. I've been in this Marvel for years and I've been looking to one side, and I've seen my life get smaller on the streets here, walking around and feeling like I'm kind of pigeonholed into this thing.

So people know you as Bucky Barnes.

Yes, and it's still happening for that character, and it's encouraging, and it's amazing, and it's helped me to want to look for things that allow for something else. Because, as Christine Mongeau recently put it, it frees me and the viewer to do something without the judgment of, "Oh, that actor is doing that thing, you know." When I was a kid, nobody judged you for putting on a wig and stuff, you got up and there you were free and you walked different. That is, part of my relationship with trying to stay in love [making the film]. It's hard because so many things go wrong and things fall apart, you get rejected, or the movie is bad, or you become bad. There are so many things about this business that constantly want to throw you off track.

"The Disciple" had a strange path in different European and American reactions.

It had a bad reaction. It reminded me that it's not always about being loved, and it's not always about being safe, and you have to talk about this stuff for months, right, and promote it, and hope something happens. There's more to saying than "I love movies."

How did you and Mongio put your distinctive look together?

He was adamant that he didn't want Renate and I to be known in a way that detracted from this family or story. I said: Do whatever you want. I didn't think he wanted this bald head or anything. We went [to Romania] because he and I were rehearsing in January, February before we started filming in March, and we started going to the services of this religious cult, doing research, and integrating him into the Romanian culture. We tested the camera and tried on clothes and glasses, and then he said he wanted to shave his head.

I called the prosthetist who helped me with Trump's chin, and he did the Pam and Tommy thing, and he did some teeth for me, and that was it. The split favorite was supposed to be set on day one, and there's no hair or makeup. There is nothing: "Great!" We were right in it. It was very difficult. There is nothing attractive about the movie. No one had a special room or trailer. We all lived in this strange hotel where Henrik Ibsen used to go. We used to walk every day to enter this house, among these mountains. So isolation helped us stay in it. I was surrounded by Romanian people, so I always spoke Romanian and did the accent. I think it all helped.

This movie gave you a chance to go back to your roots.

One of the ways I got into this film was that I understood the children when I read it for the first time, because I left Romania when I was eight and went to Vienna with my mother. She was a single mother and then a pianist, then a piano teacher, remarried to an American in Vienna. We were there for four years and then I moved to the US when I was 12. I never wanted to speak Romanian. I didn't want to have an accent. I didn't want to be different. I even funny enough begged him to let me be named Christopher because I thought my name was weird. He named me after Sebastian Bach. I understood that children are different and the shame that comes from this self-awareness, and I felt that you should make allies instead of enemies. It made sense to me, even with my personality, the idea that you want to be left alone and not go out. And when you're a kid, it's brutal. You are either part of the rules of the playground or you are not

Outside New York City in Rockland County. I grew up in Safran and Nyack. I went to this camp, Stagedoor Manor in the Catskills, and that's where I met my manager, who I'm still with.

Did you feel comfortable meeting your Romanian team again?

First of all, 80% of the crew was Romanian, and I already know my bullshit. They were supposed to smell me with the accent and everything. I have always spoken this language fluently. I had this accent because I was not from there. Christine Mongeau is like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg. He can cast anyone to play the role, and he goes and casts the kid who went and became an American. I didn't know if I was going to be judged for it or not.

It was quite the opposite: they welcomed me and hugged me. They were throwing flags at me. I was worried about when this movie will be released in Romania, which has not been released yet. I never thought that I would somehow go back. My mom hasn't seen the movie, she's going to see it for the first time on Sunday, and the way I met Christine was at her movie, The Graduation, in 2016 at the New York Film Festival with my mom. So Sunday is going to be a funny moment when we're all together.

The Romanian father is reserved and reserved. You are not trying to make us like you.

People have strong feelings about movies. I love a good backlash because I always feel like it means it's getting to the truth that it's not exploring. We've talked about film, and I keep referring to Christian's films, this idea of ​​cinema to express rather than impress, right? And I feel the same with the actors.

Our job is not to use any melodrama or emotion to manipulate or work the audience into the situation. He also doesn't do a lot of close-ups, and he does these long takes of one shot, multiple shots, just one shot, no cutscenes. I have never worked like this before. I was also getting away from playing these larger-than-life characters, and I wanted to find something more nuanced and restrained. It's a very different character reaction than you or I would if your kids were taken away.

Both Renate and I instinctively wanted to "drop us in there." But there is a belief system for these people. And there is a magnifying glass on them, so everything they do is watched, and there are charges against them. There is a reason they behave the way they do. One of them is this belief system that no matter what happens, you know that there is a higher power, a higher spirit that will reveal itself. You have to trust, and you have to control your emotions, and you can't try to manipulate the situation. Just be as zen about it as you can.

And did you understand culturally what are the rules of the parents' game with this family and with this man?

Now it feels that the timing should be right for these particular roles and films. I have a kid now. I was already in my mid-40s when we shot this. I was with a partner. We had discussed with the children that I had lost my father a few years ago. I had gotten to the point where I could look forward and see back as I could see ahead. And I would ask myself, "What is it that I inherited from my parents? What do I want to pass on to my child? What works? What doesn't work?" And so I was in a space where I could understand what was going on here. Because I think the movie is about children. How to raise children today? This is how I saw it

Looking at the faces of the Romanian man, my father and I also grew up with my grandfather. They were strict, strict, emotionless, restrained. Failure to express male affection was not considered. I'm not like that, I wouldn't do that to my child. But I have also had treatment. I am creative in this space. I never got beat up or anything. I was lucky because I grew up mostly with women. I was not in an environment where I experienced that level of strictness.

The reaction to this film, starting with Cannes, fascinates me. On the one hand, you get the Palme d'Or, which was a surprise?

100% that day, all that was said was that Christian was asked to stay, and I thought that meant he won the director or the script. And Renate said, "Well, let's go anyway," and I said, "Okay." I knew what was happening in real time.

But other reactions about how people everywhere interpreted the film aren't trying to make points, they're trying to open up questions.

There are two things, one is that we now have to look at our tolerance level, and what facilities do we have for more questions? Because it seems with what's going on in the world, maybe what people want sometimes, you could argue, is escapism, or they want positivity, or they want nostalgia. They want to look back on the "good old days", but only with selective thinking. I hear all this stuff about the 90s, but people forget how in the 90s we could still have conversations and disagree, and still be able to find nuances in perspective and issues. And the fact that it is eroded is scary.

The film ages well. Maybe the film actually needs a certain self-analysis, which I don't know if people are willing to do or not. What I'm reacting to is the absolutism that applies to anything, whether it's a belief system or a particular difference we see in another person that doesn't fit the rest of us. This video shows its case. I suspect this is for one reason: that we all understand, at a basic level, that it is wrong to remove children from their families.

Whether it's in Norway and their nursing baby, whether it's from a "religious family" in Norway, whether it's on the Mexican border, Gaza, or wherever, it's easy to go, "Oh, they're conservative. I'm done, I'm out." The film shows me that we are now so programmed to immediately see it as black or white, red or blue, and we don't see the thread that is for children. But I feel that the family must also evolve.

Well, to recognize how to adapt to cultural differences. But the film is a little vague about what the father might have actually done.

This is on purpose. I mean, for a viewer, depending on their situation, it's an interpretive thing, it's better to leave it at that.

Are you going back to Marvel? Is there more to come?

I know there's this other movie coming out next year, but I haven't heard anything about it. A lot of people are waiting to see when it's going to happen. I don't know if it is still in the program or not.

And if that happens, you're good.

I value loyalty a lot. Maybe it's because I'm a Leo. I am grateful for what that world has done for me. It gave me consistency and gave me stability for many years. I never made it to the original top five. I have always been on the bench. I think it gave me a longer life there. And then he let me go and play for other teams.