The nominees for the 97th Academy Awards were revealed last week, and among the Best Actor crop was one Sebastian Stan, who made the cut for his groundbreaking portrayal of Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, a biopic centered on Trump’s relationship with his mentor, Roy Cohn.
The nomination — alongside that of Jeremy Strong, who played Cohn in the film — is a big deal, not only because of how Stan’s presence in the category elevates the prestige of the Best Actor award, but because of the example that The Apprentice sets for the types of stories we could be telling. Funnily enough, the same could be said about another one of Stan’s films this past year, and it’s since established itself as a Max darling.
Per FlixPatrol, A Different Man is sitting pretty on the United States’ Max film charts in second place at the time of writing. Separating it from the top spot is the Tom Holland-led Uncharted film adaptation, while the equally-limp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets chomps at its heels from third place.
Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, A Different Man stars Sebastian Stan as Edward Lemuel, an actor who has neurofibromatosis (NF), which causes sizeable tumors to grow on his face. Believing it will fix his social anxiety, Edward volunteers for an experimental treatment to make his face “normal,” the success of which leads him to fake his own death and begin a new life with a new identity. His insecurities only exacerbate, however, when the charismatic Oswald (Adam Pearson) — another actor with NF — bursts onto the scene and begins winning hearts left and right.
Stan won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Male Actor – Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of Edward in A Different Man, and it’s not terribly difficult to see why. The antisocial sheen with which he carries Edward creates an engrossing friction with the world around him — one that, by all appearances, isn’t entirely innocent in Edward’s plight. And yet, we don’t fully empathize with Edward’s struggle, especially when Oswald comes along as living proof of the law of attraction.
Still, there are angles missing to A Different Man that weakens its otherwise mighty themes of the power we have in creating our personal realities, and the politics of erasure and representation. We never get to see how Oswald deals with bullies or antagonization or rejection, and it’s naive to think that Edward’s current personality wasn’t affected by his formative years as a person living with NF, even if the deciding factor of one’s outlook on life is exactly that — one’s outlook on life. The character Ingrid, Edward’s crush who seems progressive one minute and joyously ignorant the next, only complicates this matter even more.
Still, you’re not going to find a film quite as cerebrally unique as A Different Man, and Stan’s compellingly agonizing turn as the self-destructive Edward is among its finest assets. Together with The Apprentice, 2024 marked a slam-dunk of a year for not only the Marvel star, but also the landscape of crucially uncomfortable storytelling that he appears committed to.
Published: Jan 27, 2025 12:31 pm