Sebastian Stan on modern-day masculinity: ‘A lot of work needs to be done’

Sebastian Stan has reflected on modern-day masculinity and what it means to be a man, saying: “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”

The 44-year-old stars in upcoming drama Fjord as Mihai Gheorghiu, a devout Romanian immigrant father who moves with his family to rural Norway, where allegations of child abuse lead to a child-welfare investigation.

Speaking to GQ, Stan discussed how his personal experiences of masculinity and fatherhood influenced the way he approached his latest role.

The actor said he was raised by his American stepfather but reconnected with his Romanian biological father when he was 18, by which time he felt he had already “formed my way of being”.

“Emotionally, I think he was available only to a point,” Stan said of his father.

“The male relationships I had with my father, my grandfather – there was also my stepdad, but he was American – really did inform a lot of that character.”

Asked about his father’s views on masculinity, he said: “If you are a man, you are providing, and you’re going to keep going, and you’re going to keep to yourself and keep your head up.”

Fjord explores tensions between the Gheorghiu family’s conservative religious beliefs and the secular society around them, with Stan saying the film also raises questions about how children are brought up today.

He said: “No matter how you want to look at the movie, it’s a movie about how we raise kids today.

“And I’m at a point where I’m asking (this myself).”

Reflecting on modern masculinity, he told the magazine: “There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done about…

“Where do young boys connect? How do they grow up? What examples do they have?

“For all of the wonderful, important things that have happened in the past 10 years, since the beginning of the Me Too movement – the awareness that has come from that, the exposure that’s been revealed deep within these hierarchies, these patriarchies, these systems.”

Stan also discussed the influence of online figures associated with the “manosphere”, an online network of communities focused on men’s issues often associated with anti-feminist views and misogyny.

He said: “It’s also seemingly allowed these figures to try and hijack the male lonely experience for themselves.”

Stan added: “One word I think a lot about as it pertains to the world today, raising kids, being a man – being a human, more importantly – is ‘tolerance’.

“That’s what I feel I’m seeing diminish.”

The actor also reflected on how his rise to international fame after starring as Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) affected his sense of identity.

“I was suddenly being put on a shelf and kind of forced into being something I wasn’t,” he said.

“People had made these decisions, suddenly, about me.

“It felt like my face and how I look and how I am was being taken from me – was literally being confiscated.

“I think that led me to think, even more so, about gravitating towards things that would take me away from myself.”

Stan later took on roles involving significant physical transformations, including playing Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy and his Oscar-nominated portrayal of US President Donald Trump in biopic The Apprentice.

Discussing this, he said changing his appearance helped him avoid falling into “some manufactured thing”.

His other film credits include The Martian, A Different Man, Fresh and I, Tonya.