#cristian mungiu

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan Talks ‘The Apprentice’s Uphill Battle, Double Golden Globe Nomination, Lily James Reteam ‘Let The Evil Go West’ & Upcoming Cristian Mungiu & Justin Kurzel Projects

By Matt Grobar

On Monday, Sebastian Stan pulled off a rare feat, scoring Golden Globe nominations for Lead Actor in both Drama and Musical/Comedy categories. Following the announcement, Stan got candid about upcoming projects with Cristian Mungiu, Christian Tafdrup and Justin Kurzel, his experience on the awards circuit with his nominated turn as Donald Trump in The Apprentice, and more.

In discussing his upcoming slate, Stan seemed particularly excited about a project not yet announced with Cristian Mungiu, the Romanian filmmaker behind Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which he expects to shoot next year.

“I was born in Romania. I still speak the language, and I’ve been trying to find a project where I can go back and tap back into that history that I have,” said the actor, “so I’m excited about working with him, and hopefully that’s going to come together.”

A second project on the docket is Let the Evil Go West, a horror thriller from buzzy Danish filmmaker Christian Tafdrup, which reunites him with Pam & Tommy‘s Lily James. The film centers on a railroad worker driven to madness after coming upon a fortune, and his wife, who believes an evil presence has attached itself to their family.

Stan came to the project after seeing Tafdrup’s “unbelievable” horror thriller Speak No Evil, which Universal just remade. “This is a project that’s been going on for a while, and it always gets tricky. It’s about finding the right scheduling and the right time to do it,” said the actor. “But that’s something I’m really excited about.”

While he didn’t get into details, Stan also confirmed that he’s attached to star in Burning Rainbow Farm, a film that The Order‘s Justin Kurzel has in development. Plot details are unconfirmed, but we hear it’s inspired by true events, involving two marijuana advocates who face off against the FBI in a tense five-day standoff in Michigan, culminating in tragedy just days before 9/11.

Stan’s Globe nominations this morning came for Briarcliff’s The Apprentice, which examines Trump’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s New York real estate scene, as well as A24’s A Different Man. Hailing from filmmaker Aaron Schimberg, that title has him playing a man with a disfigurement who undergoes an experimental facial reconstruction surgery, before spiraling into a psychological crisis.

“Stunned and incredibly ecstatic,” Stan shared that the nominations are gratifying given the risks he took with each project and the uphill battles faced with each — The Apprentice, in particular, which struggled to secure financing, and later, distribution, amid the threat of a lawsuit from Trump himself. The project is one Hollywood didn’t seem to know what to do with, both leading up to and in the aftermath of a polarizing, pivotal election.

Sharing that he had “extreme trepidations” about playing Trump — in part, because many in the industry advised him not to — Stan reflected this morning about a disclosure of his that went viral: that while he intended to appear on Variety’s video series Actors on Actors in support of The Apprentice, no actor would step up to talk with him about his project, presumably out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

“For me, the Variety thing was just unfortunately another example of the uphill battle that the movie had been facing since Cannes, that there was some hesitancy and some fear around it…But it wasn’t my intention to point a finger or blame anybody else,” Stan said. “It was just simply saying, ‘Hey, we should be mindful of things that feel fearful.’ Because as artists, we have to hold ourselves as sort of the ambassadors of the truth, in a way…Today, of course, is a big day, in terms of hopefully allowing people to feel like they have permission, to talk about this film, and look at the work and have a conversation about it.”

From Stan’s perspective, we as a society need “all kinds of movies” and “have to try to not ever discriminate against any movie,” even if it’s something as polarizing as The Apprentice. In terms of the current climate of fear among Hollywood stars, when it comes to addressing certain topics, Stan’s feeling is that “there’s always a conversation that we can have about the work and what goes into it.”

A recent speech on Stan’s mind, when it comes to this, is the one given by honoree Richard Curtis at the Governors Awards. “He went up there and said, ‘Look, I am grateful to be standing up here and be recognized this evening. Buts also, I want to say, we love good ideas and we love embracing good ideas, but we also have to follow through on the action of it, even when you get to the last one-yard line, trying to get past it,'” the actor recalls. “Because I know the intentions are always good, and I believe that movies can inspire. I think they can reveal things sometimes that we have a hard time maybe understanding or communicating about in day-to-day life.”

In reflecting on the bold and diverse resume he’s carved out over the last decade-plus, Stan gave credit to his “Marvel family” for being an “incredibly supportive,” consistent presence in his life over the last 15 years, which has allowed him to “go out there and find other projects that allow me to kind of change it up and challenge myself.”

This, he says, is what he wants more than anything. “I’ve always tried to find other actors to learn from and grow from, and I want to be part of something meaningful,” Stan says, “and maybe that’s just me getting older. You want the work to have meaning and to stand for something.”

[killsandthrills]

sebastian stan talking about finally making a movie in romanian with director cristian mungiu.

[musette22]

https://x.com/sebstan44/status/1869648346199253339?t=lfgIz2nVswIczPOGeKAORg&s=19 Sebastian's movie with Romanian director Cristian MUNGIU will be filmed in Norway in the spring of next year!!! (Which side eye because doomsday (marvel) will be filmed in the spring too so he might not be in that one after all OR he will be only a little (let's hope!) 🤭

Oh wow!!! This is amazing news, I am LOVING the sound of this! YAY more Sebastian as a dad! And Norway, how cool is that!! (hoping Seb isn't actually in doomsday because of various reasons but also because marvel does not get to get in the way of Sebastian's passion projects ever again thanks very much). This all sounds great, very excited for this project (and for Sebastian!) 😊

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[cinematicmasterpiece]

4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (2007)

[filmap]

R.M.N. Cristian Mungiu. 2022

House DJ107M, Rimetea 517610, Romania See in map

See in imdb

[apicturespeaks]

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu

[mtonino]

Cinediario 2023 - giugno

R.M.N. (2022) Cristian Mingiu

[filmografie]

Favorite films watched in March 2023:

R.M.N. (2022), dir. Cristian Mungiu

FTA (1972), dir. Francine Parker

L’Atalante (1934), dir. Jean Vigo

Providence (1977), dir. Alain Resnais

Family Life (1971), dir. Krzysztof Zanussi

[davidhudson]

Happy 55th, Cristian Mungiu.

Dan Petris’s poster for R.M.N. (2022).

[fearndtrembling]

Beyond the hills (2012) by Cristian Mungiu

[mrs-stans]

‪@DanicaDisney: Sebastian Stan CONFIRMED tonight that he IS working with Romanian director Cristian Mungiu on a new project 🥹🥹‬

[chinchillasorchildren]

Films of 2023: R.M.N. (dir. Cristian Mungiu)

Grade: B+

[musette22]

https://x.com/thinkersebstan/status/1869724574667207091 father of 5 in Norway omg, he's really on a mission to take his audience to places with every new project

Wait, father of five?? Where did you read that, nonnie? Am I just blind lol. That would quite something, wow... But just Seb as a dad, and a Romanian movie set in Norway, sounds amazing and I'm super excited for it!! 🥰

[ozdeg]

[byneddiedingo]

Vlad Ivanov, Anamaria Marinca, and Laura Vasiliu in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007) Cast: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean, Luminita Gheorghiu, Adi Carauleanu. Screenplay: Cristian Mungiu. Cinematography: Oleg Mutu. Production design: Mihaela Poenaru. Film editing: Dana Bunescu.    A harrowing, brilliant film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is set in 1987 Romania, during the final years of the Ceausescu regime. Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), a student, wants an abortion, illegal in Romania, so she prevails on her roommate in a university dormitory, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), to help her. But Gabita is so deeply sunk in denial that she's incapable of doing much more than ask for help: It's up to Otilia to do most of the planning and strategy after Gabita has telephoned the abortionist, a Mr. Bebe  (Vlad Ivanov), to make the initial arrangements. Otilia even borrows money from her boyfriend, Adi (Alexandru Potocean), to help Gabita, and when the day arrives, she has been persuaded by Gabita to meet with Bebe and to go to the hotel room Gabita has supposedly reserved. Otilia has to bear the brunt of Bebe's scorn and bullying when he finds he is dealing with an intermediary. The hotel has no record of Gabita's reservation, and Otilia is forced to find a room in another hotel, every time encountering resistance and hostility, plus additional charges, from the hotels. Director Cristian Mungiu, who also wrote the screenplay, finds a tone halfway between Dickens and Kafka in his portrayal of bureaucratic indifference. Moreover, when Gabita finally arrives for the abortion, having characteristically forgotten the plastic sheet she was supposed to bring, we find that her capacity for denial extends to how far advanced her pregnancy really is: She had told Otilia that it has been three months since her period, but Bebe forces her to admit that it has been almost five -- hence the film's title. He demands more money, and when the women are unable to come up with it, he agrees to proceed if they will have sex with him. Mungiu uses long takes, carefully framed without camera movement or cuts, to set up this sordid tale, and the performances by Marinca, Vasilu, and Ivanov are equal to the demands of what amounts almost to filmed theater. After Bebe has performed the procedure and left, while Gabita is waiting to expel the fetus, Otilia leaves for a while, having agreed to attend a birthday dinner for Adi's mother. Once again, Mungiu uses a long take at the dinner table, where the guests, friends of Adi's parents, chatter on inconsequentially as Otilia sits there virtually silent, though obviously anxious about Gabita's plight, as well as feeling guilty about having sex with Bebe. It's to Mungiu's great credit -- not to mention Marinca's -- that he does nothing to communicate this subtext to the scene, other than allow the banality of the dinner table talk to make us focus on Marinca's face and to project our own uneasiness about the situation onto her. Mungiu also contrasts his long, still takes with long tracking shots filmed with a handheld camera as, later, Otilia hurries through the nighttime streets looking for a place to dispose of the fetus. It's undeniably an unpleasant story, but it's also a haunting one, given great resonance by the skillful characterization of the script and its performers and the superb cinematic technique of its director. In a BBC poll of film critics to name the best film of the 21st century, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days came in at No. 15. I might have placed it higher.