A24 recently released the trailer for its thriller A Different Man, written and directed by Aaron Schimberg and starring Sebastian Stan.

The film has the Captain America: The Winter Soldier star transform himself into a beefed up, slicked-back character. In other scenes, he’s completely unrecognizable due to the makeup covering most of his face since his character is someone with severe facial deformities caused by neurofibromatosis.

Sebastian Stan is A Different Man

A Different Man follows the story of Edward, who has spent most of his life as an outcast. He has been looking for a fresh start and a new life. A freak accident, with part of his apartment’s roof falling on top of him qualified him for a facial reconstructive surgery. After this, he suddenly becomes fixated on the actor playing him in a stage play based on his former life.

In the trailer, he sees the actor living the life he thinks he should be leading now that he’s free from his disfigurement. The catch is that the actor wears that disfigurement and lives his life anyway.

Schimberg told Comicbook.com, “As facial disfigurements go, mine is one of the most common, yet I’ve only seen depictions of people like me that are negative or insulting. The writer/director is referring to himself as he had his cleft lip and palate fixed.

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve wondered: how do I present someone like myself positively, or at least realistically to my own experience?” he continued.

The many inspirations

Earlier this year, the filmmaker spoke about A Different Man and said that he was inspired by the Academy Award winning 1931 pre-Code film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Fredric March, who played the titular roles, won an Oscar for best actor in a leading role.

Schimberg also noted the parallels to David Lynch’s 1980 film The Elephant Man. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars. However, the Academy was criticized for not honoring the film’s make-up effects. To remedy this, the Academy created the Oscars for best makeup the following year.

The director explained, “I was thinking about a story in which a disfigured man becomes healed for a few hours each night, and enjoys life as a regular man. This idea proved too unwieldy, but I held onto the germ of it.”

Stan is no stranger to donning wild looks. In 2022’s Pam & Tommy for Hulu, he transformed into Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee and more recently for The Apprentice, he became Donald Trump as he was in the 1980s, with the hair and fashion of the time. The Ali Abbasi-helmed film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and received an eight-minute standing ovation.

Joining Stan are Adam Pearson, Renate Reinsve and Michael Shannon who plays himself. The film debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in January. It was also screened in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival the following month. Stan won the Silver Bear for best leading performance.

The actor will next be seen in Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts, reprising his role as Bucky Barnes. Currently in pre-production is his reunion project with Pam & Tommy co-star Lily James, the horror thriller Let the Evil Go West.