When Adam Pearson was younger, he rubbed elbows with celebrities. “I was at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, one of the best pediatric institutes in the world,” he remembers of the London facility, “and they often had famous people come in to meet the kids. I met Boyzone, a big Irish boy band in the ’90s. The other one was Princess Diana.” The British actor was 5 when he was recognized with neurofibromatosis Sort 1, a situation that resulted within the progress of huge tumors throughout his face. These tumors would typically trigger passersby to gawk cruelly, which made Pearson really feel an unlikely kinship with the notable figures who stopped by the hospital. “I was like, ‘Oh, these people get the same staring and pointing I do, but people seem to like them.’ I wasn’t resentful, it was just an observation I made as a 12-year-old: ‘Oh, OK, that’s fascinating.’”
A long time later, Pearson, who turns 40 in January, is on a Zoom name from London alongside his co-star Sebastian Stan, beaming in from New York, to debate their thought-provoking, satirical movie “A Different Man,” which is all about look and notion. Author-director Aaron Schimberg introduces us to Edward (Stan), a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis who believes he’ll be happier as soon as he undergoes an experimental process that removes his tumors, revealing the horny man beneath. Later strolling round New York with a brand new identification — that of the slick actual property agent Man — he discovers that the aspiring playwright he pined for, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), has written a drama about his former self, who will probably be portrayed by Oswald (Pearson), a contented, charming man with neurofibromatosis. Man appears on in horror as his outdated life is performed with such aptitude by Oswald, who steals Ingrid away as nicely. Perhaps it wasn’t his situation that had held him again — possibly it was simply him.
Stan, 42, discovered two-time Oscar-nominated make-up artist Mike Marino to craft the practical masks for Edward. However there was one thing much more essential for Stan to get proper. “I wanted to talk to Adam about how he was feeling about myself playing this part and having someone step into these shoes without neurofibromatosis,” he says. “Just really trying to be mindful and understand how I need to approach this so I can be of service to the character but also to somebody who actually has this condition.”
It was throughout these preliminary conversations that Pearson, who beforehand appeared in “Under the Skin” and starred in Schimberg’s 2018 drama “Chained for Life,” gave Stan, greatest referred to as the Winter Soldier within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the perception that residing with neurofibromatosis was not dissimilar to being well-known. “They both come with certain levels of invasiveness,” Pearson explains. “You almost become public property. The public feels that you owe them something. So while Sebastian might not know the staring, the name-calling, the camera phones in a way I do, he certainly knows what it’s like to have people think [they] deserve to have a selfie with him.”
Sebastian Stan performs an actor with an ugliness inside, Adam Pearson performs the disfigured actor who’s charming and assured, and Renate Reinsve is buddy to them each.
(Matt Infante/A24)
Absolutely the honesty between the 2 actors was essential for a movie that’s candid in regards to the stigmas round disfigurement. Schimberg, who grew to become associates with Pearson throughout “Chained for Life,” additionally drew from his personal expertise with a cleft palate. “Aaron is such an incredible writer — he’s set up these things that rope you in as a viewer to judge Edward because of his appearance,” Stan says. “We project these stereotypical thoughts: ‘He’s lonely, somebody’s taken pity on him.’”
However with Oswald, “We haven’t made the connection yet that someone like Adam could actually be OK with themselves — and not only that, incredibly confident and accepting of themselves as they are.”
Certainly, “A Different Man” toys with our expectations, depicting Oswald because the lifetime of the celebration, whereas the conventionally good-looking Man is riddled with insecurity. Unsurprisingly, Stan and Pearson have seen that viewers typically don’t know what to make of Schimberg’s acerbic humorousness.
“I’m always looking around to see what’s landing and what isn’t landing, because I’ve never had an audience react the same way,” Pearson says, amused. “Everyone finds different things either funny or uncomfortable.”
“The film asks very important questions in terms of disability and disfigurement,” provides Stan, “but we can also offer people permission to experience the film as they might. It is funny. Aaron Schimberg has said, ‘If you think this is a comedy, that’s fine — if you think this is a tragedy, that’s fine too. It’s both.’”
A lot has been product of Stan’s latest so-called risk-taking performances, together with within the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice.” (He gained Berlin’s lead actor trophy for “A Different Man.”) “One of the reasons I’ve lately gravitated more toward what I’d call ‘transformational’ roles is because they do make it easier to lose yourself and to stay in it for the entire time,” suggests Stan, who lived in Romania and Vienna as a toddler. “I wanted to be an actor because it saved my life. I grew up in a very weird, chaotic time. I was always searching for identity — I came to this country when I was 12, and it was a shocking experience. Acting was a way of release and communication — it was a language, in a way, and it allowed me to understand myself.”
Pearson understands that sentiment. “There’s something inherently terrifying about putting yourself out there,” he says. “When I first got into TV when I was 25, one of my friends gave me what we now lovingly call ‘the talk of doom.’ He was like, ‘You are going to go on TV, and people watch TV — if they don’t like you, they will tell you on whatever platforms you are on. Do you think you can handle that?’”
He might, and his work in “A Different Man” has solely raised his profile. Now he’s the one who’s a celeb, though he acknowledges these outdated anxieties stay.
“Even now, my friends are like, ‘Aren’t you just a little bit scared that people are going to [not like you]?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m always scared,”’ Pearson says. “Option A is, ‘Don’t do it,’ and then Option B is, ‘Do it scared.’ And I’d rather do it scared than not do it at all.”
