A24 has released the official trailer for A Different Man, a new thriller starring Captain America: The Winter Soldier star Sebastian Stan. In the film, Stan has to physically transform himself into a beefy, slicked-back character evocative of somebody Ray Liotta might have played. In other scenes, he will be totally unrecognizable, with makeup covering most of him, as he plays a character with severe facial deformities.
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In A Different Man, the Marvel star plays the lead character, Edward, an outcast seeking a new life and a fresh start. After he undergoes facial reconstructive surgery, he becomes fixated on a man starring as him in a stage production based on his former life. You can see the trailer below.
“As facial disfigurements go, mine is one of the most common, yet I’ve only seen depictions of people like me that are negative or insulting,” said writer/director Aaron Schimberg, who had a cleft lip and palate fixed. “As far back as I can remember, I’ve wondered: how do I present someone like myself positively, or at least realistically to my own experience?”
Speaking about the film earlier this year, Schimberg said he was inspired by Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 pre-Code horror landmark Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There are also pretty clear parallels to David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, complete with the elaborate makeup work that had to be done daily.
“I was thinking about a story in which a disfigured man becomes healed for a few hours each night, and enjoys life as a regular man,” Schimberg explained. “This idea proved too unwieldy, but I held onto the germ of it.”
This is the latest in a series of wild looks for Stan, following a pair of recent biopics that saw him reinvent his look. In Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, Stan played rock legend Tommy Lee, and in The Apprentice, he transformed into 1980s-era Donald Trump, complete with the hair and fashion.
In addition to Stan, the A24 film is also set to star Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson, Neal Davidson and Juney Smith. The film is directed by Aaron Schimberg, who also wrote the script. It was previously announced that alongside A24, Christine Vachon and Gabriel Mayers of Killer Films, Vanessa McDonnell of Grand Motel Films and Jason Reif will produce with Stan also executive producing.
A Different Man will be in theaters this fall.
