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- [00:01]
Sebastian Stan
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- [00:14]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Sebastian Stan is nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film the Apprentice. It begins in 1973, when Trump is 27, Stanley, still working for his father's real estate development company and trying to make a name for himself. The company is being sued for discriminating against black people in its rental units. Trump convinces his father to hire Roy Cohn as their attorney. Cohn was infamous for being the chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy's Senate investigation into suspected communists. Cohn becomes Trump's mentor, teaching him how to admit nothing and deny everything, go on the attack and intimidate through the threat of lawsuits or through actually filing lawsuits. Cohn is played by Jeremy Strong, who's also nominated for an Oscar. Last month, Stan won a Golden Globe for his starring role in A Different man, as a man who's disfigured by a genetic condition that has grown fleshy tumors on his face. The tumors disappear after taking a new drug and he emerges quite attractive, but remains alienated and withdrawn from other people. In the film I Tanya Sebastian, Stan played Tonya Harding's boyfriend who plots to disable her ice skating competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. In the miniseries Pam and Tommy, he played Tommy Lee, Motley Crue's drummer and Pamela Anderson's husband. A lot of Stan's fans know him from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes, a recurring character in the Captain America films. Let's start with a scene from the Apprentice. Trump is planning to build Trump Tower and is trying to convince New York City Mayor Ed Koch that it will be so extraordinary, Koch should give him tax breaks. It will be so good for New York. Roy Cohn is also in the room. You'll hear him jumping into the conversation.
- [02:05]
Sebastian Stan
I really think this is going to be one of the most exceptional buildings anywhere in the world. And frankly, there's never been anything like it. 68 stories tall, 28 sides, a million square feet. Every unit will have amenities like you wouldn't believe. And the high floors have exceptional views over Central Park. The lobby, the floors will all be marble, pink Paradiso marble from Italy. It will have the largest atrium in the World, a 60 foot waterfall spanned by shops and retail and restaurants. And I think it's going to be something very special. Frankly, there's never been anything and what Are you going to call it Trump Tower? Trump Tower.
- [02:39]
Terry Gross
Oh, this is interesting.
- [02:42]
Sebastian Stan
Look, he has a great track record. So we think this is a very reasonable ask. Well, as I frequently say about his buildings, the merits of fine. The thing is we're just not going.
- [02:52]
Terry Gross
To give you the tax breaks.
- [02:54]
Sebastian Stan
Why would we?
- [02:55]
Terry Gross
I mean, I can't let you get rich on the backs of the people of New York and they treasury.
- [03:00]
Sebastian Stan
Well, Mr. Mayor, first of all, look, Mr. Mayor, my clients. Well, you're not, you're not, Mr. Mayor, because I'm building a 68 story building that's going to employ 5,000 construction workers.
- [03:08]
Terry Gross
And we have heard stories about the.
- [03:10]
Sebastian Stan
Construction workers working on your projects.
- [03:12]
Terry Gross
They don't get paid. They have leons against you.
- [03:14]
Sebastian Stan
Donald, I'm trying to employ people in New York and turn us back around towards the future. And you're being a very unfair guy. Cause frankly, what do you know about me? What do you know about the amount of money that I made on my own? You don't know anything. To be perfectly honest, Mr. Mayor, you don't know me at all. But you will, you'll never forget me after this. Cause I won't forget what you just did. Trump Tower will be built with or without you. Okay. You're about to be sued. Mr. Mayor.
- [03:40]
Terry Gross
Sebastian. Stan, welcome to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. I think you're great.
- [03:45]
Sebastian Stan
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [03:47]
Terry Gross
So after choosing that clip, first of all, I should say some listeners were probably thinking he doesn't sound like Trump. What would you say to that?
- [03:58]
Sebastian Stan
Well, I mean, I would say that Trump did not sound like Trump when he was in his mid to late 30s, which is when that was sort of happening. And I think that I did make some conscious choices very carefully with the voice, not only just to honor the age and what he sounded like at the time, which to me sounded very different than today, but also to not lean into it as much as it's become popular to do. Because a big challenge with this role was obviously to avoid falling into caricature and into sort of the version of a cartoon that he's somewhat become, one would argue, even willingly on his own part, whether he's aware of that or not, because the voice, along with mannerisms and other physical characteristics that he has that we've become so accustomed to and we'd been so over saturated with, really had to be kind of very, I had to very carefully select and maneuver them and kind of earn them over the period of time of the movie, very much like he did as he grew into what we see today, but in part because I needed to bring audience in on this journey as opposed to alienating them from the beginning with what they've already sort of know and expect.
- [05:34]
Terry Gross
After choosing that clip, I read that you improvised some of that scene.
- [05:38]
Sebastian Stan
That whole clip actually was improvised, yes. The scene in the script, as it was written, it started out with, you know, it just said, donald finishes introducing Trump Tower, and he sits down and he goes, well, what do you think, Mr. Mayor? And he goes, oh, very fascinating. What do you call it? So. But in the. In the manner that we had been shooting, by the time we got to the scene, I was already prepared to sort of have something ready because our director was always encouraging, and really, the script was asking for this. You know, it was. It was always asking for. For the beginning and the end of. Of the scenes which weren't there. You know, we had a lot of the middle of the bulk of what we needed, right. That was written. But there were many times where we needed to kind of, like, find out about what surrounded it. And, you know, that was part of what I did to prepare many times the night before with this scene and other scenes where I would very kind of surgically construct an improvisation in his way of speaking that I would get from various interviews that I'd collected over time and things that he had said to Barbara Walters and Larry King and many things that he had said to Ed Koch and all kinds of footage that I'd placed together.
- [07:00]
Terry Gross
You made the film while Biden was president in between Trump's two terms. What's it like watching his second term after having played him?
- [07:10]
Sebastian Stan
Well, that's a really great question, and it's one where there's no real clear answer that I can give you. It's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag. I mean, a lot of ways, a lot of things look very predictable to me, especially having studied him for this film. The victimhood, blaming, the revenge tactics, all that we go in depth in the film that he had absorbed from Roy Cohn. You really do see, I think even if you look at the inauguration, I mean, and even at the debate, right, with Kamala Harris, I mean, you really see what we talk about in the movie of these sort of ways. He's learned to flip it around on the other person and kind of just always, just be denying reality and reshaping the truth as long as it fits his narrative. And the complete, utter lack of. Lack of acceptance for any criticism. Or any wrongdoing or anything whatsoever. So it's eerily familiar. It's predictable. It's also, I may say, tragic, because I guess for me, you know, I also feel like I saw a version of this overweight kid that was paranoid and insecure and desperate for attention that was made to pay a big price at daddy's big betrayal, sending him off to military school, where he had to kind of, you know, whatever happened there, that. That dehumanized him further and the revenge that he's been enacting out, you know, and at the same time, it's. It's. It's hard not to sort of find some of it upsetting as well, because I do feel so much of it is rage and anger that's been suppressed and undealt with that we're all having to kind of just, you know, deal with and pay a price for.
- [09:13]
Terry Gross
But playing him, I'm sure you had to be him and see things from his point of view, which requires you, the actor, to have empathy for Trump, the character that you're portraying.
- [09:27]
Sebastian Stan
Well, I think as an actor, you have to kind of go through a process where you look at what are the things here that I feel that are useful for me to do this in the right way, that it's asking of me, and what are the things that I feel that are gonna work against me. And then you have to sort of become an investigator, and you have to, in a way, be a bodyguard to the character you're playing. And I've wrestled with a degree of powerlessness as a child that I felt growing up as a result of a lot of change that happened very quickly in formative years where I didn't feel safe, and changing countries and changing schools and changing homes and caretakers coming and going and. And so on. And that's affected my life in a certain way, but I would argue nowhere near the degree of powerlessness that I feel he must have gone through in order to create such an ulterior ego to the extent that he has, because that's what I really see it's about. With him, it's always power and mistrust and paranoia, and everything is transactional. That's how he operates.
- [10:43]
Terry Gross
Trump sent a cease and desist letter to the filmmakers trying to prevent the film from opening in the U.S. he accused the film of defamation and interference in the election. The film was set to be released in the fall of 2024, a couple of months before the election. I'm wondering, with that cease and desist letter, if you felt like you were suddenly, or your film was suddenly the target of the same kind of tactics that you learned as Donald Trump in the film. So that you were living, you were living the tactics that are played out in the film. Except this time you weren't Trump. You were on the other end. You were on the receiving end of the threats.
- [11:23]
Sebastian Stan
Well, when the letter came in, it was about an hour after the movie had finished premiering at Cannes, and we were in such a place of exhilaration to have even gotten to Cannes and actually finally premiere the movie to what many who have witnessed standing ovations at Cannes told me was a really genuine seven to eight minute standing ovation. You know, we were in such a. We were such relief and just joy of even having gotten there with many obstacles coming, that when this letter came in, you know, it was almost pretty much on. On target, right? For, for what we were all expecting. I mean, no one that did the movie expected him not to, you know, behave that way. I mean, tremendous work by lawyers and fact checkers and everything were done on, on preparing for that. And so it was like, okay, well, here's this next sort of hurdle. Let's see if the movie will come out. Maybe it won't.
- [12:25]
Terry Gross
So regarding the film on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, he wrote, so sad. The human scum, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want to hurt a political movement which is far bigger than any of us. Maga 2024, when you came to America after growing up under communism in Romania, then moving to Vienna with your mother and then coming to the US I'm sure you didn't expect to become a famous actor. I'm really sure you didn't expect. Portray a former and now current American president and have the president see the whole film as an insult, try to stop it from opening, and call everybody involved with the film human scum?
- [13:10]
Sebastian Stan
No, definitely not.
- [13:13]
Terry Gross
So what did it feel like when that happened again?
- [13:17]
Sebastian Stan
It's like, it's so right. It's in line with the recent White House sort of little boy stomping their feet into the playground kind of crying wolf response about the film getting the nominations. I mean, so I think, I think it's important to look at that and ask oneself, if the movie is really just sort of so irrelevant, then why. Why warrant that reaction from him to begin with? And second of all, I mean, it might be because the truth hurts and there is something truthful to the movie. One of them probably Being that, you know, he doesn't like anyone else taking credit for the way he is. But I think it's also, it's very, it was very difficult to kind of minimize it also. Right. Because you're talking about the language and the words being used. Human scum. I mean, that's, that's something, you know, our writer received a lot of death threats, a lot of anti Semitic remarks, a lot of things. Right. As a result of that usage of words which, which are not dissimilar from words that have been used by dictators. Right. So there's, there's that.
- [14:40]
Terry Gross
Do you sense an element of fear in the entertainment industry now? I mean, Trump has promised retribution against his perceived enemies.
- [14:54]
Sebastian Stan
Yeah, I think there's a degree of fear, or I would argue, and I think also, as we've experienced it, some degree of confusion about how to feel and how to deal with his sort of him being president again, which is not a wrong response. It's a human response. I guess, as we see it, as long as fear, indifference, or ignorance is not what's driving things where they become sort of accepted, then as it pertains to art, then you should have whatever emotions you need to have.
- [15:35]
Terry Gross
I want to move on to another new film of yours, which has been playing on HBO lately and I assume on Max, and that's a different man, for which you won a Golden Globe in January. And in this film, you're afflicted with neurofibromatosis, which is a genetic disease that creates fleshy tumors. And for you, fleshy tumors on the face. So you're kind of treated a bit like an outcast because people stare at you, they might move away. The character who you're attracted to, who seems to be very fond of you, just recoils when you try to touch her. So then you're part of a new drug, experimental trial, and the drug cures the condition. The tumors kind of fall away. And you're very attractive underneath. You have a beautiful face. It's your face, it's Sebastian Stan's face. But your character doesn't change. You're alienated, you're isolated, and that's not going to change. I'm wondering how much this film made you think about looks and how looks determine how people are treated in this world, which is something a lot of us think about all the time.
- [16:54]
Sebastian Stan
Well, of course. I mean, how could it? How could it not? I mean, there were, there were a couple parts to, to the film that I sort of related to. I mean, one, you know, I. I struggled with weight when I was a little kid. You know, I had my own. And obviously, coming from a different country and trying to learn a new language and fit in. Right. I had my own experiences where I felt alienated or where I felt people acted differently towards me because I was different or I sounded different or whatever. There was that piece. Then there was the piece of which actually I wasn't aware of, which Aaron Shinberg, the writer, director, and Adam Pearson, who also stars in the movie, who has neurofibromatosis, made me aware of, which was this piece about how as a recognizable person, recognizable actor on the street, I am sort of public property. Very much in the same way that somebody with a disability is. Actually, I have experienced that invasion of privacy. I experienced it daily when I walk around, or if I'm sitting at lunch, someone's filming without my consent or someone's whispering, or you feel people look at you, or sometimes I. You know, people come up and they tap you on the shoulder. And so these are all very similar things that Edward, or people that have had, you know, have stood out for various reasons, deal with all the time. And the third part of it was that once I got the prosthetics on, which were incredible, by this artist, Mike Marino, I went out on the street and I really walked around New York City and sort of experienced people's reactions firsthand. And I got to see how limited the narratives around disability and disfigurement are.
- [18:37]
Terry Gross
You know, tell me about what you experienced doing that.
- [18:41]
Sebastian Stan
Well, I mean, it was incredibly informative, obviously, for me as a character, in terms of the physicality that I discovered from it. I mean, for one, you know, I could only see out of one eye and hear out of one ear. That affected the way I walked. That affected the distance that I was taking from people, how I stood, how much I saw, you know, but. But also just looking down and. But in terms of the level of self awareness and the powerlessness and the isolation that I experienced, you know, standing on a street on a busy corner in Manhattan, you know, I don't think I ever experienced that in my life. And it was incredibly lonely. You know, I think I've spoken about this, but a lot of people just either ignored or jumped to this sort of degree of pity that they feel like they owe you sort of something. And the only people that I interacted with very briefly that actually seemed where the connection seemed genuine were kids. You know, I had this one moment with this little girl who seemed fascinated by the way I looked and it was just curiosity. And it's curiosity that sort of we lack or we're afraid of when we're dealing with sort of these differences.
- [20:03]
Terry Gross
Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan, and he's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film the Apprentice. And he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in A Different Man. We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH air.
- [20:20]
Sebastian Stan
This message comes from NPR sponsor Saatva founder and CEO Ron Rudson shares the story of how he got started creating Saatva. In 2007, 2008, I went out and I bought the most popular luxury mattresses. I tore them apart, and I realized, based on the raw materials, cost and the analysis that I had done, that I was able to sell that level mattress, but with a very affordable price. To learn more, go to saatva.com NPR.
- [20:53]
Terry Gross
You grew up in Romania, and when you were growing up, I think you lived there till what, the age of eight or nine?
- [20:59]
Sebastian Stan
Yeah, about eight. Yeah. Until right after the revolution.
- [21:02]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So you were very young during the end of communism in Romania when the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. He was the head of the Communist Party there. There were protests, there were violent confrontations between the protesters and police. In 1989, as Ceausescu and his wife tried to escape, they were captured. He stood trial, found guilty and was executed. How aware were you as a child of what was happening in the country you were living in?
- [21:36]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, I remember watching the execution on television.
- [21:39]
Terry Gross
They televised it.
- [21:40]
Sebastian Stan
I remember that happening. Yeah.
- [21:42]
Terry Gross
How was he executed?
- [21:43]
Sebastian Stan
They were shot against the wall. You know, I do remember that because we only had one hour of news a night. That was the tv. We had, you know, only one hour of television a day. Oh, that was it, with the exception of New Year's Eve, which, you know, had television all night long. And so I have these vivid memories about being able to stay up New Year's Eve and how it was this magical time. But TV was very limited. And, you know, propaganda was very specific. And there was always a degree of kind of awareness about what you talked about, even sometimes with your neighbors, because your neighbor could go and tell on you and so on and so forth. I mean, that's sort of like what I took from my my mom and my grandparents, you know, when when we were growing up. And it was only until later when I sort of learned a little bit more about my father, who had escaped Romania much earlier and so on and so forth, but I have these images like that on television and then also seeing the flag with a giant hole where the communist symbol had been cut out of flying on this dacha, which is the only car we were allowed to have. You know, everybody was allowed to have the same car across and these teenagers screaming.
- [23:03]
Terry Gross
So your father was able to get out of Romania before the communist government fell. And I know he helped other people get out as well. Was he still married to your mother at the time?
- [23:20]
Sebastian Stan
No, no, my father was part of that generation of young people that were really trying to find a way to live around communism and stand up to communism. And, you know, he had been in the navy, he'd worked on a cargo ship, and he had helped a lot of people escape the country. And there was, you know, he had created a lot of attention on him to the point where it was no longer safe for him to be in the country. And there was a degree of that that we knew and there's degree of that that we didn't know, you know, but I think in term, in some ways, and certainly a lot of people that I've spoken to years later about, who were his friends and who knew him, he was. He was heralded a hero in a way to them.
- [24:17]
Terry Gross
Is he still alive?
- [24:18]
Sebastian Stan
No, he's. He's no longer alive, no.
- [24:20]
Terry Gross
Were you ever able to talk to him about this?
- [24:23]
Sebastian Stan
I did, yeah. Yeah, he. He passed away recently. But we, we've had. We were able to sort of connect later in life, like basically more when I was 17, 18, and. And he was in California at the time. And it was actually, I was very lucky because I was trying to be an actor and I was coming out to la. I didn't live in la, I was living in New York. I just graduated from school, but I needed to come out to LA for pilot season and auditions and things like that. And I had no money and I was able to kind of go and live with him and go audition and, you know, use his car. And so that time we really, we really connected and I got to know him and I think by the end of his life, I think we really did become very close and that was important for me.
- [25:20]
Terry Gross
Were you surprised to hear some of the things he told you about his past?
- [25:27]
Sebastian Stan
Yes and no. But at the same time, you know, I think one of the things I didn't really understand is how much he loved America, how much he loved and how strongly he felt about America, you know, and the 80s and Ronald Reagan and what it meant, make America great again. And really, really was proud to have come here and been able to have had an opportunity to start a life, you know, and get his passport and work and earn a living and be free, you know. And these are all things I thought about when I was doing this movie. These are all things I thought about. And I mean, I had a degree of that that. I mean, it makes me emotional think about it, but, like, I had a degree of that that I always understood about, you know, that I was. When I came to New York and my mom and everything, and the amazing opportunity that I was blessed with to be able to come here, you know, I mean, for a kid from this country, there are many people that didn't make it, you know, and so the message was, what are you going to do with it? You know, what are you going to make out of yourself? You know, and there was great liberty in that and pressure and also. Right. That's the American dream. And that's what the movie to me is, the Apprentice. That was a lot of what I was trying to understand also, but questions I had about where my father came from, what did he see in this country and what did this country give us and how far you can go. I mean, there's a lot to talk about, but hopefully, you know what I.
- [27:05]
Terry Gross
Mean, when you came here, you had already lived in Romania. You had to learn German from scratch when you and your mother moved to Vienna. And I think. Were you. How old were you when you came.
- [27:16]
Sebastian Stan
To the U.S. i came when I was officially. We moved in 95 when I was 12. We had visited us a couple times before that, and then we moved in 95, summer of 95.
- [27:29]
Terry Gross
Okay. So you grow up in Romania, where there's an hour of TV a night, and it's probably just propaganda. And then you move to America, where everybody just, like, watches TV and goes to the movies. And this is before, probably before the heavy days of the Internet and social media.
- [27:46]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, yeah, there was none of that. None of that. I remember my first movies in a theater were Jurassic park and Mrs. Doubtfire. I mean, that, like, that was. Blew my mind, you know, and you.
- [27:58]
Terry Gross
Say it blew your mind, but I can imagine that a lot of pop culture did because you weren't a part of it. You didn't get to grow up with it the way everybody around you in America did.
- [28:09]
Sebastian Stan
No, it's true. And actually, I was always behind as a result, like, for instance, with the Beatles or things that people kind of like, just know Second nature. I was always discovering them like too late. So I was never a cool kid in high school because of that, you know, I was kind of trailing behind.
- [28:25]
Terry Gross
What'd you do to try to catch up?
- [28:28]
Sebastian Stan
Well, I think, you know, the survive mechanism is like you don't want to be different, you know, you want to just fit in. I was, I remember being even like really insecure about my name Sebastian, that it was such a different name. Everybody in my high school was, even in middle school, I mean, was named Anthony, Christopher, you know, Sam, whatever. Like there was all these names and there was a part of me even wanting to be named different. So I was petrified about being different, you know. Right. It was like the late 90s. And so you try to wear, you know, the jeans everybody was wearing. I remember these Jenko jeans or whatever. It was like every skater guy had these baggy, baggy jeans. I wanted to get a pair of that. You know, I'd cut my hair like NSYNC or Backstreet Boys. It was like that mushroom haircut that DiCaprio had in Titanic. You know, like you just, you just wanted to be. You just want to look like what everybody else is doing.
- [29:26]
Terry Gross
It seems like you spent part of your early life in hiding. You know, literally you had. Watch what you said in Romania, in Vienna, you had to learn German to fit in and you know, you had to learn that from scratch. You come to America, you try to be like other teens, even though you had a totally different background than American teens did. So there's a lot that you had to acquire and a lot probably that you had to hide.
- [29:54]
Sebastian Stan
Yeah, no, I, Well, I, I think you're right, but I think this is what acting did for me. Acting liberated me from that. I mean, I. It was really around the same time that I. That I found acting basically in high school, kind of when I was 14, something like that, and doing a school play. And then I went to this Stage Door Manor acting camp, which was a very pretty well known acting camp, met friends there. And I just, I don't know, it just. It was the first thing that never. That just allowed me or gave me permission to sort of kind of have more confidence and courage. And so as a result, I think the work has always been, no matter what it is, you know, no matter how scary it might be or unknown to me might be, it's always liberated me. It's never hindered me.
- [30:50]
Terry Gross
We need to take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film the Apprentice. And he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in A Different Man. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air. So retracing your path again, so you grow up in Romania, when you're eight or nine, you move to Vienna where your mother is is your mother still alive?
- [31:18]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, yeah, my mother is. Yeah. She was a pianist and is a pianist, I mean, not doesn't play concertos anymore. But then also became a piano teacher.
- [31:27]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So she took you and moved to Vienna. And there in Vienna, she met a man who she fell in love with who was the headmaster of a private school in Rockland County, New York, on the Hudson River.
- [31:41]
Sebastian Stan
Well, actually, at the time, he was the headmaster of an American international school, AIs in Vienna.
- [31:48]
Terry Gross
Oh, okay.
- [31:50]
Sebastian Stan
But I started in German public school, and then I went to the American International School where they also spoke English.
- [31:58]
Terry Gross
And that's how your mother met your stepfather?
- [32:00]
Sebastian Stan
Yeah, my mom was my mom was teaching piano there. And then they've met and his name was Anthony, and he also is no longer around. But, you know, I think to this day, I mean, I sort of touched about it in the Globe speech. I've always thought, you know, of being up there at some point, if I'm ever up there, you know, of thanking him because it was not easy, I think, for someone to take on, you know, a single mom with a kid that's not just a kid. He's a he's like growing and he's, you know, 9, 10 at that point and and sort of becoming a father figure. And but he was hugely instrumental in my learning English, coming to America, I mean, learning which spoon and fork to use like in Titanic, you know, like that was being a gentleman. I mean, there was he was a really, really smart man who spoke five, six languages. He would read every newspaper and every language in different languages every morning. I mean, it was he was a real example of to me.
- [33:08]
Terry Gross
So then he got a job as a headmaster of a private school in Rockland County, New York, on the Hudson river. And you all moved to America and you became a student at his school. How did that affect your status with teachers and classmates?
- [33:28]
Sebastian Stan
Well, again, it was interesting, right, because I sort of felt socially was awkward for me because I couldn't, you know, nobody wanted to go hang out at the headmaster's kid's house over the weekend. So not to mention with the crazy European mother that cooked weird meals.
- [33:49]
Terry Gross
So you started acting in high school. Were you in musicals?
- [33:54]
Sebastian Stan
Yes. That's all I was in at the beginning. Yeah, I did Grease. Sweet Charity.
- [34:00]
Terry Gross
Oh, I love the idea of you doing Greece because you didn't really know what American teenagers were like and you were trying to be an American teenager. And here you are in Grease.
- [34:09]
Sebastian Stan
Yeah. And west side Story was another one, but really a big, again, another definitive moment for me was this camp Stage Door Manor. I remember I called the owner at the time was like Carl Samuelsson. And he got on the phone with me. He didn't know anything about me. He just wanted to know, why do you want to be an actor? And it was expensive and I couldn't really afford to go there. But you could talk to him. And you decided to give me a scholarship to go there. Basically you would go there for two weeks at a time, but you would do and work on a play or a musical. And he listened to me and somehow realized that, okay, I'm passionate about acting. I went there over the summer and that summer really changed my life because I got out of the cocoon of the little private school and I could be away from my headmaster, stepdad and my mom. And I was with Kids from LaGuardia in New York City and kids that were, you know, really well trained and doing musicals. And that's where I did Grease. And. And also that's also where my met my manager, who I'm still with for 27 years at this point, who came scouting that, that one summer and sort of saw me and told me to go meet with her.
- [35:23]
Terry Gross
So you were 21 when you got your breakthrough role in Law and order, playing a 15 year old boy. This was in the Jerry Orbach Sam Waterston era. And so you played a 15 year old who's kidnapped when he's very little. His kidnapper told him that his parents were dead and raised him as if he was really the father. And the kid believed like, this is my father. And the father or kidnapper is accused of murder of being a sniper. And it's discovered that it was really the kid who did it. Do I have that right?
- [36:02]
Sebastian Stan
Well, that they did it together. It was actually based on a real father. Son shooters.
- [36:07]
Terry Gross
Okay, so at some point the kid's actual mother, who he believes is dead, and his sister, who he's never met, I don't think are brought in to meet the boy. And the boy does not have a very good reaction to it. So let's hear that scene.
- [36:31]
Sebastian Stan
Oh my God, Justin. Who is this? It's us, Justin. Jenny and mom. Where's my dad. Dad died, Justin. What? What is she talking about?
- [36:56]
Terry Gross
Your real father?
- [36:58]
Sebastian Stan
Herman Capshaw is my real father. I don't know these people, Justin.
- [37:06]
Terry Gross
I. I don't know why brought me here.
- [37:10]
Sebastian Stan
Can I go now?
- [37:15]
Terry Gross
Okay. A lot of. A lot of people, when they're in Law and Order for the first time, they're like a dead body, but you got to have this, like, emotional breakdown in it.
- [37:23]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, God. That was kind of hard to listen to. I just, you know, what was hard about it?
- [37:27]
Terry Gross
What was hard?
- [37:28]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, so much acting, you know, I mean, it's. It just reminds me of, like, the James Dean school of acting, you know, that you go to when you're 18, 19, 20. But it's interesting. I hadn't heard or seen that scene in a long time, and everything was very, very charged.
- [37:49]
Terry Gross
What was it like to see yourself on tv, and what was it like to have other people see you on tv?
- [37:55]
Sebastian Stan
It was hard. It's really not until recently that I've gotten okay with watching myself in those earlier years. And up until recently, it was very, very difficult. I. Critical. I've always been very, very critical of myself, which is, in part, well, why I can sort of take criticism very well. When. When people write horrible things about you online, I'm always like, well, it's nowhere near what I've said about myself.
- [38:22]
Terry Gross
So.
- [38:23]
Sebastian Stan
But I. But I remember feeling also this weird instinct that I was doing something right for myself and I should keep going. It was not. It was never hindering or.
- [38:36]
Terry Gross
I have an acting question about the clip that we heard where your response to hearing it was so much acting. If you were to give your younger self notes now based on that scene, what notes would you give?
- [38:51]
Sebastian Stan
Don't push anything. Don't work for something. I mean, it's funny because when I hear that scene, what I think about is the fact that the scene was written and designed for a certain result. And I'm reacting to that, working for a certain result, rather than going in there, not focusing on the result. Right. And going, let's see what happens based on the work that I've done, which is how I approach it now, the result being, oh, I have to have this massive breakdown where I'm showing emotion and I'm, you know, making. There is a part of that that always feels subconscious. And as we know in life, that stuff doesn't come that way. But again, you're also looking at the format of that show. In one hour, you know, they've gotta hit certain notes. It was tv. It was right. There's things that also the tone of the thing you're working on. But generally what I would say is, you know, I can spot when choices are result oriented now.
- [39:54]
Terry Gross
Okay, we need to take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film the Apprentice. And he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in A Different Man. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air. So I'm thinking about your mother here. Your mother moves with you and your new stepfather to New York. You know, it's always hard to uproot a child and uproot them to another country. That's probably super hard. But I'm thinking the life you have now, the respect and fame that you've achieved, all that you've accomplished, must make her feel really good about the decisions that she made and alleviate any guilt that she might have experienced at the beginning when you were trying so hard to acclimate to a new country.
- [40:48]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, absolutely. I think so. I mean, you know, my mother is coming with me to the Oscars. You know, she's my date. I think she's very proud, you know, and I'm so insanely grateful to her for supporting me. You know, I had a supporting parent with acting. A lot of kids do not have supportive parents like that. So I felt like, you know, she did her best, maybe more than her best, you know, and, and she, she made tough choices in her life, but, but certainly gave me an opportunity in her life. So this whole experience has been all about being able to thank her, you know, and my stepdad.
- [41:34]
Terry Gross
So at the Oscars, I always wonder what's it like if you lose and the camera is on you and you have to pretend like I'm so happy for the winner. That's so wonderful, you know.
- [41:47]
Sebastian Stan
Oh, my God. I mean, listen, I like I was telling you, I mean, the impossible has already happened. You know, as somebody told me early on when they said, you know, if you think this is going to be a thankless job, like you're not, you know, if you think you're going to do this movie and someone's going to, you're going to, first of all, you're going to piss off everybody. No one's going to not one person's going to whether they care for him or they or they hate him, they're all going to be pissed. And no one's going to see anything in this or any value in this. So and then sort of I just keep pinching myself going like, I remember that, you know, the season desist letter. And then it was the sort of, you know, no one wanted to buy the film. And then it's like, is it gonna come out? And then, oh, we have no money. There's no billboard on Sunset. There's no, you know, and now here's Jeremy and I kind of go into this thing and so I, you know, it's a funny moment when you're watching that, of course, you mean we've all seen Oscars and you kind of go, what's going on through everybody's mind. But, but I feel the win has already happened here, you know, for me. And it's, I will be grateful in that moment no matter what at this point. I know that's like what everybody says, but I think for me, genuinely, it's just been so surreal with this thing. I never, that it's impossible, I think, for me to have any more expectations at this point.
- [43:20]
Terry Gross
Sebastian Stan, it's just been great to talk with you. Thank you so much. And good luck at the Oscars.
- [43:25]
Sebastian Stan
It's been lovely. Thank you for having me. And I really appreciate your questions and taking the time.
- [43:31]
Terry Gross
Sebastian Stan is nominated for an Oscar for his starring role in the film the Apprentice. Tomorrow on FRESH air, we'll talk about how Elon Musk got and is using the power to cut jobs, slash federal funding and help place people close to him in government positions. We'll also discuss the influence other tech billionaires are having on the Trump administration. My guest will be New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer, who covers the intersection of Washington's players and tech titans. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram. P R FRESH air. Fresh air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Anne Marie, Bo Donato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Bea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
- [44:44]
Sebastian Stan
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