Sebastian Stan can make an unappealing man’s need for approval worth watching. We rate him when he works quietly; the recognisable mannerisms can get in the way, and too many supporting roles give him little to do.
Fi1m perspective
In The Apprentice (2024), Sebastian Stan delays the familiar voice and lets Donald Trump look unsure of himself. Ali Abbasi gets something worth watching from that restraint: a man whose need for approval is visible before the mannerisms take over. We were disappointed when the pout and hand movements became the performance, because the earlier watchfulness had made us curious about him. Stan reproduces those familiar habits skilfully, but they tell us little we have not already recognised. That early uncertainty is where we find him most convincing.
Bucky Barnes established his franchise career in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and the part has remained a fixture alongside the independent and biographical work he began taking on more often in the mid-2010s. I, Tonya (2017) and A Different Man (2024) are part of that expansion beyond Bucky. The return to Bucky in Thunderbolts\* (2025) is less rewarding for him. We liked the film with reservations, but Stan spends too much of it standing in doorways. There is little an actor can do with a part that mostly asks him to be present.
Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money (2023) gives him a different sort of confinement. His Vlad Tenev, the man behind the Robinhood app, wears a good shirt and says calm things on calls while the film invites us to disapprove. Gillespie had also directed him in I, Tonya, but here the script leaves almost no room for a character to emerge. Stan is one of several actors reduced to a quick indication of whose side we should be on. We would blame the writing before the actor.
Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky (2017) uses him more effectively in a small part as Dayton White. Stan gets only a scene or two and uses the limited space well, alongside similarly brief contributions from Katie Holmes and Katherine Waterston. Daniel Craig gets the larger comic opportunities and is the principal pleasure here. The comedy is loose and fond of its people, and it runs on longer than it should. For an evening’s viewing, we would choose this, provided a small helping of Stan is enough.
Biography
Sebastian Stan is a Romanian-born American actor. He was born on 13 August 1982 in Constanța, Romania, and moved with his mother to Vienna at the age of eight and then to New York at twelve. He studied at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, graduating in 2005 with a degree in theatre that included time at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
Stan is best known for portraying Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and continuing through Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and the series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). Other film roles include Dayton White in Logan Lucky (2017), Vlad Tenev in Dumb Money (2023) and Donald Trump in The Apprentice (2024). He is also credited as Bucky Barnes in the forthcoming Thunderbolts* (2025).
On television he has appeared in Gossip Girl (2007–2010) and Once Upon a Time (2012). For his performance in A Different Man (2024) he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; his portrayal of Donald Trump earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
