Interview With The Winter Soldier: Sebastian Stan

In LA a few weeks ago, I interviewed Sebastian Stan with all the other bloggers for the movie Captain America The Winter Soldier. Sebastian Stan isn’t new to the Marvel Universe, you may recognize him from the first Captain America, he’s Bucky the Cap’s best friend. WOW, now he’s the Winter Soldier, do you think that will put a kink in the relationship?

Here’s the interview with Sebastian Stan The Winter Soldier!

Q: What was your reaction when you found out that you were coming back as The Winter Soldier?

SEBASTIAN: More like…[LAUGHTER] I was just saying I always played that moment in my head over and over again and uh, that when I was gonna get that phone call no matter where I was at the time I was probably thinking I was gonna be somewhere in New York you know on a crowded street. Regardless, I was gonna scream and I was just gonna have this big reaction. It’s actually the opposite. I just sort of was quiet and still and was trying to replay the conversation in my head and was just really excited. I mean for me it’d really been two years of sort of not knowing what was gonna happen next.

Q: So was it difficult to change form from Bucky into the winter soldier?

SEBASTIAN: Well, yes and no. I would say no in the sense that everything is so spelled out for me in the comic books that I sort of feel like I have that to follow as a guide. Yes in that certain things from comic books often are not so easily translated to the screen, and so there were things visually that were new that we had to discover about the character. I mean in the comic books there was a lot of information but in terms of how the winter soldier moved, how he behaved, what his presence was like on screen, those were all things I had to sort of discover once I was in the outfit and we were actually shooting the movie. That was more difficult I suppose. At the end of the day the most difficult part was playing someone that’s very different while at the same time the same person.

Q: Talking about the outfit, the training for your part and then working with your metal arm in the movie, was that difficult at all?

SEBASTIAN: Yes, the training is really hard for me I mean I was never really used to that type of training before. Some of the diet and the working out that was happening six months before we started shooting was really difficult at times.Then you’re learning to fight. It’s basically just like going to dance class. I mean the thing is you just have to have patience, and it’s really hard, you might get it quickly and you’re excited, you see the stunt guys are just, you know, phenomenal and you just want to jump in and do it but the whole thing has to be so planned out and detailed, and you can’t have a lot of room for errors because people can get hurt. So, just practicing that and repeating that everyday for about two to three months I’d say was hard, but the results were always very gratifying.

Q: How do you mentally prepare for a roll like this in terms of playing someone who doesn’t even know who they are?

SEBASTIAN: Yeah, exactly. Well, it’s funny the way things happen in life. Sometimes when you pay attention to certain things that happen in life [LAUGHS] I just don’t want to get too down here or anything but my stepdad was actually recently has been dealing with Alzheimer’s, and he’s been going through that for at least the last two years. And so it was interesting because while that sort of process was very painful as an observer, it was one of the things that I found to be very helpful for me to kind of observe as somebody going through Alzheimer’s. What their behavior is like and the way – because even though they don’t know certain things anymore, who they are per say, there is still that struggle within them to wanna try and kind of know things. They respond to certain uh things they see or sounds that they see, a song or something kind of triggers a memory, and so it’s a very weird internal battle. I watched him a lot for sort of some references. Some of the things of how I was gonna sort of translate that on the screen I didn’t really know until we were doing literally when we were on set.There is actually a lot of material out there to kinda work off of.

Q: Some of the action sequences that you were a part of, was there one piece that you were just like enjoyed doing?

SEBASTIAN: Well, any of the fighting stuff, once we had it down and we were in the costumes.. any of the stuff that was shot outside which was in Cleveland I mean was really exciting because there was no CGI green screen, I mean it was literally long sequences that all the car explosions, people sort of falling and being shot and then us jumping into that one on one combat—combat, that was all really fun because, again it was really all happening around you so it’s not often get that when you work on these big movies, you always have to deal with the green screen.

Q: What was your most memorable moment while filming?

SEBASTIAN: Probably just any of the stuff that I had with Robert Redford was pretty memorable. That’s where I really remember sort of…telling myself you know just like be here, be present, you know, take him in on and off set. On set it was like suddenly I was in a situation where the whole reason for me going to acting school and everything was sort of here I was with this man and he was being very generous as an actor with me even though he’s obviously who he is. Then off set sort of just wanting to kind of like see if there was anything I could pick his brain about in terms of like people he’s worked with or um, so that was pretty special.

Q: Since you’ve read a lot about Bucky, ‘cause you’ve followed the comics, you know that he actually becomes Captain America. Are you prepared to , if the future of the franchise goes in that direction, to become Captain America?

SEBASTIAN: Well listen I mean I’m just gonna treat it the way I’ve been treating it. Whatever I’ve done so far has gotten me here. So, I’m not gonna change very much of what I’m doing…we’ll see what happens.