Sebastian Stan didn’t want his “Gossip Girl” stint to make him to mainstream for the indie film world.
The actor told GQ UK that 12 years after first landing the part of Carter Baizen in the iconic original “Gossip Girl” series, he was fearful of being labeled as the “CW guy” when trying out for Neon’s 2017 Oscar winner “I, Tonya.” Stan was ultimately cast as Tonya Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly alongside Margot Robbie as the titular Olympian.
“I’m like, ‘I’m going to walk into that room and they’re going to see the taller guy, The CW guy.’ I felt like I was going to be immediately judged,” Stan admitted of the audition process for “I, Tonya.”
And even after landing the role, he was anxious about doing the tale justice.
“The amount of fear I had was almost traumatizing,” Stan said. “I worked so hard for that movie, and it worked.”
“I, Tonya” director Craig Gillespie said that it wasn’t Stan on “Gossip Girl” that gave him hesitation, but rather his role as Bucky Barnes in the MCU.
“I was familiar with ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and his work there, and I couldn’t quite picture it [at first],” Gillespie said of having Stan portray Gillooly. “But he actually turned up [to the audition] in the turtleneck and the mustache, almost in character. And the transformation, and his instincts tonally and comedically…He was actually improvising things in the scene that worked incredibly well.”
Gillespie continued, “It has to be emotionally resonant. You have to be able to connect to the characters… He completely commits, which is an incredibly scary proposition for an actor.”
Stan made his franchise debut in 2011 with “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
Gillespie later reunited with Stan for limited series “Pam & Tommy,” in which Stan portrayed Tommy Lee.
Despite his success in TV, the indie film space, and Marvel blockbusters, Stan says he still finds himself nervous when approaching certain roles — especially when playing real people.
Stan recently transformed into Donald Trump for controversial film “The Apprentice.” He told GQ UK that there would be “nights when my anxiety levels would be through the roof, because I’d be like, ‘Why did I say yes to this? I thought, I don’t know if this is doable. I don’t know if I have it in me.’”
He added, “But it’s not not gonna happen because I’m scared of it.”
Stan also told IndieWire in 2018 that “I, Tonya” changed his perspective on which roles to take, saying that the film “set the bar for me in what I wanted going forward.”
“It led me to want to look for that again, to find more things that scare me, and that are challenging,” he said. “I came out of that movie feeling like, ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna find the situation again.’ I was really wanting to find that again, and lo and behold, I actually did.”
