For a long time, it seemed reasonable to think that Sebastian Stan’s career would comfortably straddle both sides of Hollywood. He had his fair share of engaging supporting roles — such as portraying the ex-husbands of Tonya Harding and Pamela Anderson — while also consistently returning to the action-hero role he is most known for: Bucky Barnes. As Captain America’s former sidekick, Stan has been a fixture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2011 (including in the upcoming “Thunderbolts,” set to release in May). There are worse career paths than maintaining that kind of balance.

A Turn as Trump Made Sebastian Stan an Unlikely Oscar Nominee

Jessica Chastain, a close friend and co-star of Stan in both The Martian and The 355, once observed, “There’s a group of actors — I’ll put Colin Farrell in this group as well — who are so strikingly handsome that, in some ways, it works against them.”https://svtoday.org/

While the notion of being “too good-looking” may seem like a first-world problem, Stan’s recent turn in two unconventional roles has cast him in a different light. The 42-year-old actor has already started to collect accolades, with more potentially on the horizon.

In the darkly comedic A Different Man, Stan plays an actor with a condition that distorts his facial features, who undergoes surgery to become classically attractive — specifically, to look like Sebastian Stan. His bold departure from his usual appearance earned him the Silver Bear for Best Actor at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, and just last month, he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.

The other film, The Apprentice, portrays a flashy, morally dubious real estate magnate in 1970s and ’80s New York, who, as it turns out, is based on Donald J. Trump. Stan plays the role of Trump, hidden beneath heavy makeup and all the symbolic baggage the audience brings to the character. Initially, after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May, it was uncertain whether the film would find a distributor or even make it to theaters, let alone be considered during awards season.

However, now Stan is a contender for an Oscar in a leading role, facing off against four other actors with previous Oscar nominations: Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”), Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), and Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”).

Describing his character, Stan explained last week in Manhattan: “A well-crafted character built from rage and years of suppression.” He speculated that Trump, who likely watched the film, might take issue with how it portrays the opportunistic evolution of his persona.

Following The Apprentice‘s Cannes screening, Trump issued a statement through a spokesperson, promising to sue the filmmakers, calling the movie “pure fiction” and defamatory — though he never followed through with a lawsuit.

Major studios and streaming services, including A24, Searchlight, Netflix, and Amazon, all declined to distribute the film. Even after Briarcliff Entertainment picked it up and made it available on platforms like Apple TV+, Amazon, and YouTube, controversy surrounding the film didn’t entirely fade.

In fact, Variety was unable to feature Stan in its “Actors on Actors” series because other actors didn’t want to discuss Trump, as confirmed by Ramin Setoodeh, the magazine’s co-editor in chief.

Jeremy Strong, who starred alongside Stan in The Apprentice as Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn, found the lack of support from Hollywood studios disheartening. However, he expressed gratitude that the creative community had embraced the film, particularly as it received Oscar nominations.

The portrayal of Trump in the first half of the movie might surprise audiences accustomed to the 2025 version: a brash, ambitious young man struggling under the weight of his domineering father, aiming for greater recognition while banking on the revitalization of 1970s-era Midtown Manhattan.

According to Stan, the early version of Trump, whom he studied through countless TV interviews and documentaries while preparing for the role, was quite different from the figure who has been at the center of American life for the past decade. “There’s a dreamer there,” Stan said. “There’s some idealism about America and New York and what it could be.”

However, as the film moves into the 1980s, the character of Trump becomes far less sympathetic. He abandons his need for a father figure, betrays Cohn (who is dying of AIDS), and sexually assaults his wife, Ivana (who has publicly discussed the assault under oath, later clarifying that her words should not be interpreted literally or criminally).

Stan reflects, “What I’ve always seen in his journey, and certainly what we were exploring in the film, was the solidifying of a person into stone, the loss of humanity.”

Three years ago, when Stan received the offer to portray Trump, he had already stepped outside the bounds of his Marvel fame with performances as real-life figures such as Jeff Gillooly (the ex-husband of Tonya Harding) in I, Tonya, and Tommy Lee in the Hulu series Pam & Tommy — both of whom dominated tabloid headlines in the 1990s, much like Trump.

Stan credits his Marvel role as Bucky Barnes for giving him the platform to take on riskier roles. “Bucky allowed me to survive,” he said. “But coming back to that character over time, and getting to do things with that character, allowed me to look for its core opposite.”

Despite some advice from industry insiders, including a studio executive and casting director, to turn down the role of Trump, Stan ultimately chose to accept it, seeing it as an opportunity for artistic growth.

Jessica Chastain, who was with Stan when he received the offer, encouraged him, saying, “If you’re scared, you have to do it.”

For Stan, the fear became a driving force. “To some extent, I thrive on fear, on being told I can’t do it,” he admitted. “Probably not unlike him!”

While studying Trump, Stan found unexpected parallels between himself and the character.

“I think everything he does is about power,” said Stan. “There were a lot of times growing up where I felt very powerless over my life.”

Stan was born in Romania in 1982, during the reign of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. After his parents separated, his father moved to California, and his mother, a pianist, moved to Vienna. Stan spent more than a year with his grandparents before joining his mother in Vienna, where he struggled to learn German and English.

He recalls a pervasive Communist mentality of paranoia. “Don’t talk about anything, maybe they’re listening at the phone,” he said, adding that he felt it even in Vienna.

Later, Stan transferred to an international school in Vienna, where his future stepfather was the headmaster. The family eventually moved to New York.

Ali Abbasi, the Iranian filmmaker behind The Apprentice, recognized Stan’s background as resonating with Trump’s character. “I understood something about the script, about this person who was so desperate to get up there that he was not going to stop at anything,” Stan said.

For Stan, the role wasn’t just about Trump’s motivations. He also focused on the physicality — the gaze, the accent, the walk, the rhythm. He wasn’t aiming for an exact impersonation, but rather to get so comfortable with the character that he could forget about mimicking the mannerisms and simply live as him.

As Jeremy Strong described it, “He became a forensic detective, tirelessly absorbing, observing, studying, internalizing everything he possibly could.”

Stan watched countless TV interviews with Trump, even listening while on the go — driving, shopping, brushing his teeth. He noticed that Trump’s posture and breathing, particularly the shallow breath coming from his throat, contributed to the character’s emotional state and physicality.

The emotional depth was perhaps the most important part of the transformation. Stan came to understand how an immigrant from Eastern Europe could relate to a man whose primary migration was from Queens to Manhattan.

“Immigrants in this country are some of the most patriotic,” Stan observed. “My father, when he came here, he loved America. He loved the ’80s. He loved Ronald Reagan.”

Trump, for Stan, symbolizes a distortion of the very American dream that immigrants like him admired. “When you’re looking at the Trump mentality, you see someone who feels wronged and is determined to conquer anything perceived as weak, where generosity is viewed as transactional,” Stan said. “We value people who succeed that way in this country.”

The Apprentice, Stan believes, offers a fresh perspective on Trump — and an American truth that is often left unexamined.