Sebastian Stan calls out journalist who refers to his new character with disfigurement as a 'beast'
"'Beast' isn't the word."
Sebastian Stan corrected a journalist during a Q&A panel for his new movie A Different Man at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday after he called his character, who has facial disfigurement, a “beast.”
The Marvel star plays Edward, a man who undergoes major facial reconstructive surgery to transform his disfigured features, in the Aaron Schimberg–directed psychological thriller. When an actor who mirrors his original appearance is cast to play him in a stage production of his life, Edward finds himself becoming obsessed with him.
The interviewer, who complimented the film before his question, proceeded to ask Stan what he thought would happen to the character “after the transformation from this so-called beast, as they call him, to this perfect man?”
Stan — who was accompanied by Schimberg as well as his costars Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve — pushed back on the remark immediately.
“I have to call you out a little bit on the choice of words there, because I think part of why the film is important is because we often don’t have… maybe even the right vocabulary,” he replied. “I think it’s a little bit more complex than that — and obviously there’s language barriers and so on and so forth — but, you know, ‘beast’ isn’t the word.”
He added that he found the interviewer’s point interesting because, he said, "I feel like… that’s one of the things the film is saying: We have these preconceived ideas, and we’re not really educated on how to really understand this experience in particular.”
Stan continued, “The things that you’re saying about him at the beginning, that’s your interpretation. Everyone might have a different interpretation of what he’s going through. That might not be it; it might’ve been just for you. I can’t really speak to that. I think it’s just… one of the things I love about the movie is that he’s offering you a way to look at it, and hopefully, if you can have the same objective point of view while you’re experiencing the film, maybe you can kind of pick apart the initial instincts that you have, and maybe those aren’t always the right ones.”
Gerald Matzka/picture alliance via Getty ; Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC
Sebastian Stan; his character in 'A Different Man'Speaking at the Sundance Film Festival last month, Stan said he received "limited" reactions from people while he was wearing his facial prosthetics for A Different Man, adding, “It just really is limited between two extremes, which is either [people] won’t address it, or overcompensation. The only people that really were the most honest were kids.”
He recalled one incident with a little girl and "her mom was just being a parent and trying to do the right thing, but in doing the right thing, she was actually preventing the little girl from just simply having an experience."
Stan said, "She was just being inquisitive, and she was brave and courageous, and that’s kids, right? It’s like they just want to know. They don’t have judgment. It was a learning lesson for me, really."
Watch Stan respond to the journalist's question in the video above.
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