Sebastian Stan on Marvel, ‘Fjord’ and taking risks: ‘This is where it’s at’

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For Sebastian Stan, becoming Marvel’s Winter Soldier wasn’t just a career-making role — it was an opportunity to expand his horizons as an actor and take some increasingly risky detours in front of the camera.

“Now that there’s some exposure from this thing, who do I want to work with?” Stan, 44, says of the freedom the role afforded him when he joined the MCU more than a decade ago.

That question eventually led him to Fjord, his first film in Romanian and a long-awaited collaboration with acclaimed Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.

In the multilingual drama, opening in select theatres on Friday, Stan plays Mihai, a conservative Romanian father who comes into conflict with his wife Lisbet’s (Sentimental Value star Renate Reinsve) remote Norwegian hometown after disciplining his children.

Inspired by the real-life story of Marius and Ruth Bodnariu, Mihai and Lisbet’s approach to raising their children lands them in court, exposing a rift between their values and those of their new country.

Some people have branded it “a MAGA movie,” but after recently becoming a first-time father with his partner, Annabelle Wallis, Stan hopes the film opens a dialogue about differences in beliefs.

“I think it’s important to have something that’s complex and difficult because it forces you to go and want to understand and educate yourself, hopefully,” he says. “Then somebody else can get educated with you.”

Having already won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Mungiu says he wants the film to thaw the current political polarization.

“A conversation starts when you’re willing and have the patience to listen to someone else,” he says.

Ahead of the film’s Canadian premiere, Stan and Mungiu sat down with Postmedia at the Toronto International Film Festival last month to discuss why cinema should provoke debate and why it’s important to take risks in art.

Sebastian, at this stage of your career, I imagine there’s a lot of roles that come your way. What was it about Fjord and the story that made you want to be a part of this?

Stan: “I’ve always had a dream to work with my Romanian roots and reconnect there. Cristian is someone I’ve admired for a long time. His films are ones that I’ve fallen in love with. So there was a long conversation for years for us to try and find something that made sense. This was a case where he called me and said he had a story … about this family, and once we got into it, everything else came together.”

Cristian, Sebastian has had an interesting career over the past few years. What made him perfect to play the character of Mihai?

Mungiu: “We had been looking for something to work together on for the past 10 years … When I sent him the story, he told me that he thought it was an important story and we talked a bit about the meaning of this story and what it’s saying about today’s society. I hope the film triggers a conversation about this fracture in society that exists today. The film is an invitation for dialogue.”

This movie asks: How do you deal with people whose beliefs you don’t understand or agree with? But the movie doesn’t provide any answers, either. Why was that important?

Mungiu: “I don’t think there’s an easy answer in reality … A conversation starts when you’re willing and have the patience to listen to someone else. If you already believe you are the only who is right, this is not the beginning of any conversation. It’s a dead end — the dead end in which we find ourselves today. Half the population is conservative, and they think they’re right. The other half is liberal and they think they’re right. How are we going to move past this?”

Sebastian, you’ve been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but you’ve done some interesting things over the last few years. Did playing a character like Winter Soldier allow you to take these different kinds of risks?

Stan: “That’s the goal, right? That role was an opening for me to have some freedom … That’s what it afforded me, in a way. It has allowed me to say (to other directors), ‘We can help each other grow.’ It sort of all kind of goes together. But it’s been an easy route for me to want to do these kinds of films. This is where it’s really at for me.”

Was Fjord the biggest risk for you? I mean, you’ve played Donald Trump in The Apprentice.

Stan: “I think that was pretty risky, but I think it’s important to have some risk … The reason you go to the movie theatre is because you watch what is going on up on the screen and you experience that with all the other people in the theatre. How often can you point to an experience where multiple people can have the same experience for one moment? There’s not a lot of places like that anymore. It’s magical from that standpoint.”

Mungiu: “I think it’s good to take risks when you make cinema. There are too many directors and films that are too comfortable and play it safe … Cinema should inject real ideas. There’s a place for cinema to be diverse, get back to being provocative and make people think … I think it’s good to get back to that a little bit so we can use cinema as a trigger to have conversations about the world we live in.”

Fjord opens in select theatres Friday, Oct. 16.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

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