A Different Man

HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY SEBASTIAN, Sebby, Oscar nominee, Golden Globe winner and just my comfort actor <3 Oh damn, I never expected an actor I didn’t pay much attention to at first, a person I do not know in real life, to mean this much to me and brighten my day whenever I hear his voice, see his face or catch little clips of his interviews on social media :)So in honor of his birthday, I decided to rewatch my favorite performance by him and finally write down my thoughts on the movie itself because I lacked the time and energy to do it after the first watch.Sebastian Stan’s performance as Edward was an absolutely unique experience for me. For the first time in my life, I realized only at the beginning of the third act, basically near the end of the film, that the lead role was not played by the actor I thought it was. From the very start until the 1:06 mark, when Adam Pearson first appears on screen as Oswald coming in for an audition, I genuinely believed Adam Pearson had been playing Edward before “the transformation.” It never even crossed my mind that it was Sebastian Stan the whole time :DMaybe that is because I didn’t know much about Adam Pearson. I just could not tell the difference between his and Sebastian’s build, so I simply assumed it was him in the lead role. Another reason is the work of the makeup team. The prosthetic design they created looked increeeedibly realistic.Most importantly, all the moments I just mentioned, like my confusion between the actors and the brilliant prosthetic work, would mean nothing without Sebastian Stan’s incredible talent. His performances in The Apprentice, Pam & Tommy, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I, Tonya, Monday, Fresh had already shown his huge range. But this role, in my opinion, gave him the space to prove he can go even further, honestly a whole level above. A couple of funny moments during my first watch:Somewhere around the 10th minute of the film, I recognized Sebastian Stan’s right ear on the main actor (keep in mind that I thought Edward before “the transformation” was being played by Adam Pearson). I literally went to Google to compare Sebastian’s and Adam’s right ears to make sure I was not imagining things, lol. And I was not! I thought the makeup team had cleverly made a prosthetic ear for Adam to match Sebastian’s so that after “the transformation”, when we saw Sebastian’s familiar face, it would remind us that this was still the same person.You would think that would have tipped me off. But his performance, his body acting, was so convincing that I did not even entertain the idea that it could be Sebastian under a ton of prosthetics. I even went looking for Adam Pearson’s filmography because I thought he was killing it as Edward. And when I opened A Different Man’s Letterboxd page to find him, I saw it said Edward was played by Sebastian Stan, while Adam Pearson was credited as Oswald. I figured it was either a mistake or that I would eventually get some explanation in the film.You should have seen my damn face at 1:06 when I realized Edward before “the transformation” was also Sebastian. I paused the movie and spent a full minute processing the information. That’s when everything clicked – the ear, the Letterboxd confusion. I guess it was simply because the performance, combined with the makeup and my limited familiarity with Adam Pearson’s work, was so convincing that my brain went with the most logical explanation. But just imagine my shock, lol. Even after rewatching it, I still cannot see Sebastian Stan in Edward before “the transformation.” In my opinion, that is the ultimate acting skill, when you cannot see the actor at all, even after you know it is them under the makeup.By the way, the film itself hits differently on the second viewing. This time I noticed all 3 mentions of The Bluest Eye, whereas during my first watch I only caught the one in the prison scene. So I have to say, I enjoyed the movie a lot more this time. Even the pacing didn’t bother me the way it did before. I found it engaging from start to finish. For me, it turned out to be one of those films that work much better on a rewatch. “You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The master had said, "You are ugly people." They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. 'Yes,' they had said. 'You are right.' And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.”Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Glad I picked A Different Man for a rewatch on such a special day :) “Your words have weight, Sebastian. We appreciate you. And I want this to be a reminder that you do great work.” <3