TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Sebastian Stan, is nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." It begins in 1973, when Trump is 27, still working for his father's real estate development company and trying to make a name for himself. The company is being sued for discriminating against Black people in its rental units. Trump convinces his father to hire Roy Cohn as their attorney. Cohn was infamous for being the chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy's senate investigation into suspected communists. Cohn becomes Trump's mentor, teaching him how to admit nothing and deny everything, go on the attack and intimidate through the threat of lawsuits or through actually filing lawsuits. Cohn is played by Jeremy Strong, who's also nominated for an Oscar.

Last month, Stan won a Golden Globe for his starring role in "A Different Man," as a man who's disfigured by a genetic condition that has grown fleshy tumors on his face. The tumors disappear after taking a new drug, and he emerges quite attractive but remains alienated and withdrawn from other people. In the film, "I, Tonya," Sebastian Stan played Tonya Harding's boyfriend, who plots to disable her ice skating competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. In the miniseries "Pam & Tommy," he played Tommy Lee, Motley Crue's drummer and Pamela Anderson's husband. A lot of Stan's fans know him from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes, a recurring character in the "Captain America" films.

Let's start with a scene from "The Apprentice." Trump is planning to build Trump Tower and is trying to convince New York City Mayor Ed Koch that it will be so extraordinary, Koch should give him tax breaks. It will be so good for New York. Roy Cohn is also in the room. You'll hear him jumping into the conversation.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE APPRENTICE")

SEBASTIAN STAN: (As Donald Trump) I really think this is going to be one of the most exceptional buildings anywhere in the world. And frankly, there's never been anything like it - 68 stories tall, 28 sides, a million square feet. Every unit will have amenities like you wouldn't believe, and the high floors have exceptional views over Central Park. The lobby, the floors will all be marble, pink paradiso marble from Italy. It'll have the largest atrium in the world, a 60-foot waterfall spanned by shops and retail and restaurants. And I think it's going to be something very special. Frankly, there's never been anything like it.

IAN D CLARK: (As Ed Koch) And what are you going to call it?

STAN: (As Donald Trump) Trump Tower.

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) Trump Tower - oh, that's interesting.

JEREMY STRONG: (As Roy Cohn) Look, he has a great track record, so we think this is a very reasonable ask.

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) Well, I - as I frequently say about his buildings, the merits are fine. The thing is, we're just not going to give you the tax breaks. Why would we? I mean, I can't let you get rich on the backs of the people of New York and their treasury. I can't...

STAN: (As Donald Trump) Well, Mr. Mayor...

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) ...Do that, Donald.

STRONG: (As Roy Cohn) Look, Mr. Mayor, my client...

STAN: (As Donald Trump) Well, you're not. You're not, Mr. Mayor, because I'm building a 68-story building that's going to employ 5,000 construction workers.

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) And we have heard stories about the construction workers working on your projects. They don't get paid. They have liens against you, Donald.

STAN: (As Donald Trump) I'm trying to employ people in New York and turn us back around...

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) You're trying to just get...

STAN: (As Donald Trump) ...Towards the future. And you're being a very unfair guy 'cause frankly, what do you know about me? What do you know about the amount of money that I made on my own? You don't know anything to be perfectly honest, Mr. Mayor.

STRONG: (As Roy Cohn) Donald.

STAN: (As Donald Trump) You don't know me at all.

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) Oh.

STAN: (As Donald Trump) But you will. You'll never forget me after this 'cause I won't forget what you just did. Trump Tower will be built with or without you.

CLARK: (As Ed Koch) OK.

STAN: (As Donald Trump) You're about to be sued, Mr. Mayor.

GROSS: Sebastian Stan, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. I think you're great.

STAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

GROSS: So after choosing that clip - first of all, I should say, some listeners were probably thinking, he doesn't sound like Trump. What would you say to that?

STAN: Well, I mean, I would say that Trump did not sound like Trump when he was in his mid-to-late 30s, which is when that was sort of happening. And I think that I did make some conscious choices very carefully with the voice not only just to honor the age and what he sounded like at the time, which, to me, sounded very different than today, but also to not lean into it as much as it's become popular to do, because a big challenge with this role was obviously to avoid falling into caricature and into sort of the version of a cartoon that he's somewhat become - one would argue even willingly on his own part (laughter), whether he's aware of that or not - because the voice, along with mannerisms and other physical characteristics that he has that we've become so accustomed to and we've been so oversaturated with, really had to be kind of very - I had to very carefully select and maneuver them and kind of earn them over the period of time of the movie, very much like he did as he grew into what we see today, but in part because I needed to bring audience in on this journey as opposed to alienating them from the beginning with what they already sort of know and expect.

GROSS: After choosing that clip, I read that you improvised some of that scene.

STAN: That whole clip actually was improvised. Yes. The scene in the script, as it was written - it started out with, you know, it just said, Donald finishes introducing Trump Tower, and he sits down, and he goes, well, what do you think, Mr. Mayor? And he goes, oh, very fascinating. What do you call it? So - but in the manner that we had been shooting, by the time we got to the scene, I was already prepared to sort of have something ready because our director was always encouraging.

And really, the script was asking for this. You know, it was always asking for the beginning and the end of the scenes, which weren't there. You know, we had a lot of the middle of the bulk of what we needed - right? - that was written, but there were many times where we needed to kind of, like, find out about what surrounded it. And, you know, that was part of what I did to prepare many times the night before with this scene and other scenes, where I would very kind of surgically construct an improvisation in his way of speaking that I would get from various interviews that I'd collected over time and things that he had said to Barbara Walters and Larry King and many things that he had said to Ed Koch and all kinds of footage that I had placed together.

GROSS: You made the film while Biden was president in between Trump's two terms. What's it like watching his second term after having played him?

STAN: Well, that's a really great question, and it's a - it's one where there's no real clear answer that I can give you. It's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag. I mean, in a lot of ways, a lot of things look very predictable to me, especially having studied him for this film - the victimhood, blaming, the revenge tactics, all that we go in depth in the film that he had absorbed from Roy Cohn. You really do see - I think, even if you look at the inauguration, I mean - and even at the debate - right? - with Kamala Harris, I mean, you really see what we talk about in the movie, of these sort of ways he's learned to flip it around on the other person and kind of just always just be denying reality and reshaping the truth as long as it fits his narrative and the complete utter lack of acceptance for any criticism or any wrongdoing or anything whatsoever.

So it's eerily familiar. It's predictable. It's also, I may say, tragic because I guess, for me, you know, I also feel like I saw a version of this overweight kid that was paranoid and insecure and desperate for attention that was made to pay a big price at Daddy's big betrayal, sending him off to military

school where he had to kind of - you know, whatever happened there that dehumanized him further and the revenge that he's been enacting out. You know, and at the same time, it's hard not to sort of find some of it upsetting as well because I do feel so much of it is rage and anger that's been suppressed and undealt with that we're all having to kind of just, you know, deal with and pay a price for.

GROSS: Playing him, I'm sure you had to be him and see things from his point of view, which requires you, the actor, to have empathy for Trump, the character that you're portraying.

STAN: Well, I think as an actor, you have to kind of go through a process where you look at, what are the things here that I feel that are useful for me to do this in the right way that it's asking of me? And what are the things that I feel that are going to work against me? And then you have to sort of become an investigator. And you have to, in a way, be a bodyguard to the character you're playing.

And I've wrestled with a degree of powerlessness as a child that I have felt growing up as a result of a lot of change that happened very quickly in formative years where I didn't feel safe and changing countries and changing schools and changing homes and caretakers coming and going and so on. And that's affected my life in a certain way, but I would argue nowhere near the degree of powerlessness that I feel he must've gone through in order to create such an ulterior ego to the extent that he has, because that's what I really see it's about with him. It's always power and mistrust and paranoia. And everything is transactional. That's how he operates.

GROSS: Trump sent a cease and desist letter to the filmmakers trying to prevent the film from opening in the U.S. He accused the film of defamation and interference in the election. The film was set to be released in the fall of 2024, a couple of months before the election. I'm wondering, with that cease and desist letter, if you felt like you were suddenly - or your film was suddenly the target of the same kind of tactics that you learned as Donald Trump in the film, so that you were living - (laughter) you were living the tactics that are played out in the film, except this time, you weren't Trump. You were on the other end. You were on the receiving end of the threats.

STAN: Well, when the letter came in, it was about an hour after the movie had finished premiering at Cannes. And we were in such a place of exhilaration to have even gotten to Cannes and actually finally premier the movie to what many who have witnessed standing ovations at Cannes told me was a really genuine seven- to eight-minute standing ovation. You know, we were in such a - we were such relief and just joy of even having gotten there, with many obstacles coming, that when this letter came in, you know, it was almost pretty much on target - right? - for what we were all expecting. I mean, no one that did the movie expected him not to, you know, behave that way. I mean, tremendous work by lawyers and fact-checkers and everything were done on preparing for that. And so it was like, OK, well, here's this next sort of hurdle. Let's see if the movie will come out. Maybe it won't.

GROSS: So regarding the film, on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, he wrote, so sad the human scum, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want to hurt a political movement, which is far bigger than any of us - MAGA 2024. When you came to America after growing up under communism in Romania, then moving to Vienna with your mother and then coming to the U.S., I'm sure you didn't expect to become a famous actor. I'm really sure you didn't expect to portray a former and now current American president and have the president see the whole film as an insult, try to stop it from opening and call everybody involved with the film human scum.

STAN: No, definitely not (laughter).

GROSS: So what did it feel like when that happened?

STAN: Again, it's like it's so - right? - it's in line with the recent White House sort of little boy stomping their feet into the playground, kind of crying wolf response about the film getting the nominations. I mean, so I think it's important to look at that and ask oneself, if the movie is really just sort of so irrelevant, then why warrant that reaction from him to begin with? And second of all, I mean, it might be because the truth hurts, and there is something truthful to the movie, one of them probably being that, you know, he doesn't like anyone else taking credit for the way he is.

But I think it's also - it was very difficult to kind of minimize it also - right? - because you're talking about the language and the words being used, human scum. I mean, that's something - you know, our writer received a lot of death threats, a lot of antisemitic remarks, a lot of things - right? - as a result of that usage of words, which are not dissimilar from words that have been used by dictators, right? So there's that.

GROSS: Do you sense an element of fear in the entertainment industry now? I mean, Trump has promised retribution against his perceived enemies.

STAN: Yeah, I think there's a degree of fear, or I would argue - and I think also, as we've experienced it, some degree of confusion about how to feel and how to deal with his sort of - him being president again, which is not a wrong response. It's a human response. I guess, as we see it, as long as fear, indifference or ignorance is not what's driving things, where they become sort of accepted as it pertains to art, then you should have whatever emotions you need to have.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." He won a Golden Globe in January for his performance in "A Different Man." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." He won a Golden Globe in January for his performance in "A Different Man" as a man who's disfigured by a genetic condition that's caused tumors to grow on his face. When the condition is cured by an experimental drug, his face is handsome, but he's still the same lonely, socially uncomfortable, alienated person.

I want to move on to another new film of yours, which has been playing on HBO lately and I assume on Max, and that's "A Different Man," for which you won a Golden Globe in January. In this film, you're afflicted with neurofibromatosis, which is a genetic disease that creates fleshy tumors, and for you, fleshy tumors on the face. So you're kind of treated a bit like an outcast because people stare at you. They might move away. The character who you're attracted to who seems to be very fond of you just recoils when you try to touch her.

So then you're part of a new drug experimental trial, and the drug cures the condition. The tumors kind of fall away, and you're very attractive underneath. You have a beautiful face. It's your face, it's Sebastian Stan's face, but your character doesn't change. You're alienated, you're isolated and that's not going to change. I'm wondering how much this film made you think about looks and how looks determine how people are treated in this world, which is something a lot of us think about all the time?

STAN: Well, of course. I mean, how could it not? I mean, there were a couple of parts to the film that I sort of related to. I mean, one, you know, I struggled with weight when I was a little kid. You know, I had my own - and obviously, coming from a different country and trying to learn a new language and fit in, right? I had my own experiences where I felt alienated or where I felt people acted differently towards me because I was different or I sounded different or whatever. There was that piece. Then there was the piece of, which actually I wasn't aware of - which Aaron Schimberg, the writer-director, and Adam Pearson, who also stars in the movie, who has neurofibromatosis, made me aware of - which was this piece about how as a recognizable person, recognizable actor on the street, I am sort of public property very much in the same way that somebody with a disability is, actually, you know?

And I have experienced that invasion of privacy. I experience it daily when I walk around or if I'm sitting at lunch. Someone's filming without my consent or someone's whispering or you feel people look at you. Or sometimes, you know, people come up and they tap you on the shoulder. And so these are all very similar things that Edward or people that have had - you know, have stood out for various reasons deal with all the time.

And the third part of it was that once I got the prosthetics on, which were incredible, by this artist, Mike Marino, I went out on the street. And I really walked around New York City and sort of experienced people's reactions firsthand. And I got to see how limited the narratives around disability and disfigurement are, you know?

GROSS: Tell me about what you experienced doing that.

STAN: Well, I mean, it was incredibly informative, obviously, for me as a character in terms of the physicality that I discovered from it. I mean, for one, you know, I could only see out of one eye and hear out of one ear. That affected the way I walked. That affected the distance that I was taking from people, how I stood, how much I saw, you know, but also just looking down. But in terms of the level of self-awareness and the powerlessness and the isolation that I experienced, you know, standing on a street on a busy corner in Manhattan, you know, I don't think I ever experienced that in my life. And it was incredibly lonely.

You know, I think I spoke about this, but a lot of people just either ignored or jumped to this sort of degree of pity that they feel like they owe you sort of something. And the only people that I interacted with very briefly that actually seemed - where the connection seemed genuine were kids, you know? I had this one moment with this little girl who seemed fascinated by the way I looked. And it was just curiosity. And it's curiosity that sort of we lack or we're afraid of when we're dealing with sort of these differences.

GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. And he's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." And he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEITH JARRETT TRIO'S "GROOVIN' HIGH")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's

GROSS: get back to my interview with Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." He won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man" as a would-be actor who's disfigured by a genetic condition that's caused tumors to grow on his face. And when the condition is cured by an experimental drug, his face is handsome, but he's still the same lonely, socially uncomfortable, alienated person. And you probably also know him from "I, Tonya," from the TV miniseries "Pam & Tommy" and from Marvel movies as Bucky Barnes in the "Captain America" movies.

You grew up in Romania. And when you were growing up, I think you lived there till - what? - the age of 8 or 9?

STAN: Yeah, about 8, yeah, until - right after the revolution.

GROSS: Yeah. So you were very young during the end of communism in Romania, when the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. He was the head of the Communist Party there. There were protests. There were violent confrontations between the protesters and police. In 1989, as Ceausescu and his wife tried to escape, they were captured. He stood trial, found guilty and was executed. How aware were you as a child of what was happening in the country you were living in?

STAN: Oh, I remember watching the execution on television.

GROSS: They televised it?

STAN: I remember that happening. Yeah. I mean, I...

GROSS: How was he executed?

STAN: They were shot against a wall. You know, I do remember that because we only had 1 hour of news a night. That was the TV we had, you know, only 1 hour of television a day...

GROSS: Oh, that was it?

STAN: ...With the exception of New Year's Eve, which, you know, had television all night long. And so I have these vivid memories about being able to stay up New Year's Eve and how it was this magical time. But TV was very limited. And, you know, propaganda was very specific.

And there was always a degree of kind of awareness about what you talked about, even sometimes with your neighbors because your neighbor could go and tell on you and so on and so forth. I mean, that's sort of, like, what I took from my mom and my grandparents, you know, when we were growing up. And it was only until later when I sort of learned a little bit more about my father, who had escaped Romania much earlier, and so on and so forth.

But I have these images like that on television and then also seeing the flag with a giant hole where the communist symbol had been cut out of flying on this Dacia, which is the only car we were allowed to have - you know, everybody was allowed to have the same car across - and these teenagers screaming.

GROSS: So your father was able to get out of Romania before the Communist government fell, and I know he helped other people get out as well. Was he still married to your mother at the time?

STAN: No, no. My father was part of that generation of young people that were really trying to find a way to live around communism and stand up to communism. And, you know, he had been in the Navy. He had - he'd - you know, he'd worked on a cargo ship, you know, and he had helped a lot of people escape the country. And there was - you know, he had created a lot of attention on him to the point where it was no longer safe for him to be in the country. And there was a degree of that that we knew, and there was a degree of that that we didn't know, you know? But I think in term - in some ways, and certainly a lot of people that I've spoken to years later about who were his friends and who knew him - he was heralded a hero in a way to them.

GROSS: Is he still alive?

STAN: No. He's no longer alive. No.

GROSS: Were you ever able to talk to him about this?

STAN: I did. Yeah. Yeah. He passed away recently, but we've had - we were able to sort of connect later in life, like, basically more when I was 17, 18. And he was in California at the time, and it was actually - I was very lucky because I was trying to be an actor, and I was coming out to LA. I didn't live in LA. I was living in New York. I'd just graduated from school, but I needed to come out to LA for pilot season and auditions and things like that, and I had no money, and I was able to kind of go and live with him and go audition and, you know, use his car. And so that time, we really connected, and I got to know him. And I think by the end of his life, I think we really did become very close, and that was important for me.

GROSS: Were you surprised to hear some of the things he told you about his past?

STAN: Yes and no. But at the same time, you know, I think one of the things I didn't really understand is how much he loved America, how - and, you know, how much he loved and how strongly he felt about America, you know, and the '80s and Ronald Reagan and what it meant to make America great again and really, really was proud to have come here and been able to have had an opportunity to start a life, you know, and get his passport and work and earn a living and be free, you know?

And these are all things I thought about when I was doing this movie. These are all things I thought about. And I mean, I had a degree of that that, I mean, it makes me emotional (crying) to think about it, but, like, I had a degree of that that I always understood about - you know, that I was - when I came to New York and my mom and everything and the amazing opportunity that I was blessed with to be able to come here, you know, I mean, for a kid from this country. There are many people that didn't make it, you know?

And so the message was, what are you going to do with it? You know, what are you going to make out of yourself, you know? And there was great liberty in that and pressure and also - right? - that's the American dream. And that's what the movie to me is, "The Apprentice." That was a lot of what I was trying to understand also. But questions I had about, you know, where my father came from, what did he see in this country and what did this country give us and how far you can go? - I mean, there's a lot to talk about. But hopefully, you know what I mean (laughter).

GROSS: Yeah, well, when you came here, you had already lived in Romania. You had to learn German from scratch when you and your mother moved to Vienna. And I think, were you - how old were you when you came to the U.S.?

STAN: I came when I was - officially, we moved in 1995, when I was 12. We had visited U.S. a couple times before that, and then we moved in '95, summer of '95.

GROSS: OK, so you grow up in Romania where there's an hour of TV a night, and it's probably just propaganda. And then you move to America, where everybody just, like, watches TV and goes to the movies, and this is before - probably before the heavy days of the internet and social media.

STAN: Oh, yeah. There was none of that, none of that.

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.

STAN: I remember my first movies in a theater were "Jurassic Park" and "Mrs. Doubtfire." I mean, that, like, that blew my mind, you know? And...

GROSS: You say it blew your mind, but I can imagine that a lot of pop culture did because you weren't a part of it. You didn't get to grow up with it the way everybody around you in America did.

STAN: No, it's true. And actually, I was always behind as a result, like for instance, with the Beatles. Or, you know, things that people kind of, like, just know, second nature, I was always discovering them, like, too late. So I was never the cool kid in high school because of that, you know? I was kind of trailing behind.

GROSS: What'd you do to try to catch up?

STAN: (Laughter) Well, I think, you know, the survive mechanism is, like, you don't want to be different, you know? You want to just fit in? I remember being even, like, really insecure about my name, Sebastian, that it was such a different name. Everybody in my high school was, even in middle school, I mean, was named Anthony, Christopher, you know, Sam. Whatever. Like, there was all these names, and there was a part of me even wanting to be named different. So I was petrified about being different, you know, right?

It was, like, the late '90s. And so you try to wear, you know, the jeans everybody was wearing. I remember these JNCO jeans or whatever. It was like every skater guy had these baggy, baggy jeans. I wanted to get a pair of that. You know, I'd cut my hair like NSYNC or Backstreet Boys. It was like that mushroom haircut that DiCaprio had in "Titanic."

GROSS: (Laughter).

STAN: You know, like, you just wanted to be - you just wanted to look like what everybody else is doing.

GROSS: It seems like you spent part of your early life in hiding. You know, literally, you had watched what you said in Romania. In Vienna, you had to learn German to fit in. And, you know, you had to learn that from scratch. You come to America. You try to be like other teens even though you had a totally different background than American teens did. So there's a lot that you had to acquire and a lot, probably, that you had to hide.

STAN: Yeah. No, well, I think you're right. But I think this is what acting did for me. Acting liberated me from that. I mean, it was really around the same time that I found acting, basically in high school, kind of when I was 14, something like that, and doing a school play. And then I went to the Stagedoor Manor acting camp, which was a very pretty well-known acting camp, met friends there. And I just - I don't know. It was the first thing that never - that just allowed me or gave me permission to sort of kind of have more confidence and courage. And so as a result, I think the work has always been, no matter what it is, you know, no matter how scary it might be or unknown to me it might be, it's always liberated me. It's never hindered me.

GROSS: We need to take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice," and he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AMY WINEHOUSE SONG, "YOU KNOW I'M NO GOOD")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." He won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man." And you probably also know him from "I, Tonya," from the TV miniseries "Pam & Tommy" and from Marvel movies, as Bucky Barnes in the Captain America movies.

So retracing your path again. So you grew up in Romania, when you're around 8 or 9, you move to Vienna, where your mother is a pianist. Is your mother still alive?

STAN: Oh, yeah, my mother is. Yeah. She was a pianist and is a pianist, I mean, doesn't play concertos anymore, but then also became a piano teacher. Yeah.

GROSS: So she took you and moved to Vienna. And there in Vienna, she met a man who she fell in love with, who was the headmaster of a private school in Rockland County, New York, on the Hudson River.

STAN: Well, actually, at the time, he was the headmaster of American International School - AIS - in Vienna.

GROSS: Oh. Oh, OK.

STAN: But I started in German public school. And then I went to the American International School, where they also spoke English.

GROSS: And that's how your mother met your stepfather?

STAN: Yeah. My mom was teaching piano there, and then they've met. And his name was Anthony. And he also is no longer around. But, you know, I think to this day - I mean, I sort of touched about it in the Globe speech. I've always thought, you know, of being up there at some point, if I'm ever up there, you know, of thanking him because it was not easy, I think, for someone to take on, you know, a single mom with a kid that's not just a kid. He's, like, growing. And he's, you know, 9, 10 at that point and sort of becoming a father figure. But he was hugely instrumental in my learning English, coming to America, I mean, learning which spoon and fork to use, like in "Titanic." You know, like, that was - being a gentleman. I mean, he was a really, really smart man who spoke five, six languages. He would read every newspaper in every language - in different languages every morning. I mean, he was a real example to me.

GROSS: So then he got a job as a headmaster of a private school in Rockland County, New York, on the Hudson River. And you all moved to America. And you became a student at his school. How did that affect your status with teachers and classmates?

STAN: (Laughter) Well, again, it was interesting, right? Because I sort of felt socially it was awkward for me because I couldn't - you know, nobody wanted to go hang out at the headmaster's kid's house over the weekend, not to mention with the crazy European mother that cooked weird meals.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So you started acting in high school.

GROSS: Were you in musicals?

STAN: Yes, that's all I was in at the beginning. Yeah, I did "Grease, "Sweet Charity."

GROSS: Oh, I love the idea of you doing "Grease" because you didn't really know what American teenagers were like, and you were trying to be an American teenager and here you are in "Grease" (laughter).

STAN: Yeah. And "West Side Story" was another one, I mean. But really a big - again, another definitive moment for me was this camp, Stagedoor Manor. I remember I called the owner at the time. It was Carl Samuelson. And he got on the phone with me. He didn't know anything about me. He just wanted to know, why do you want to be an actor? 'Cause we couldn't - it was expensive, and I couldn't really afford to go there, but you could talk to him. And he decided to give me a scholarship to go there, basically. You would go there for two weeks at a time, but you would do and work on a play or a musical. And he listened to me and somehow realized that, OK, I'm passionate about acting.

I went there over the summer, and that summer really changed my life because I got out of the cocoon of the little private school, and I could be away from my headmaster stepdad and my mom, and I was with kids from LaGuardia in New York City and kids that were, you know, really well trained and doing musicals, and that's where I did "Grease." And also, that's also where I met my manager, who I'm still with for 27 years at this point, who came scouting that one summer and sort of saw me and told me to go meet with her.

GROSS: So you were 21 when you got your breakthrough role in "Law & Order"...

(LAUGHTER)

STAN: Yes.

GROSS: ...Playing a 15-year-old boy. This was in the Jerry Orbach/Sam Waterston era. And so you played a 15-year-old who's kidnapped when he was very little. His kidnapper told him that his parents were dead and raised him as if he was really the father, and the kid believed, like, this is my father. And the father - or kidnapper is accused of murder, of being a sniper, and it's discovered that it was really the kid who did it. Do I have that right?

STAN: Well, that they did it together. It was actually based on real father/son shooters.

GROSS: OK. So at some point, the kid's actual mother, who he believes is dead, and his sister, who he's never met, I don't think, are brought in to meet the boy. And the boy does not have a very good reaction to it. So let's hear that scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LAW AND ORDER")

LISA EMERY: (As Meg Lafferty) Oh, my God. Justin...

STAN: (As Justin Capshaw) Who is this?

TRISHA LAFACHE: (As Jennie Lafferty) It's us, Justin - Jennie and Mom.

STAN: (As Justin Capshaw) Where's my dad?

LAFACHE: (As Jennie Lafferty) Dad died, Justin.

STAN: (As Justin Capshaw) What is she talking about?

ELISABETH ROHM: (As Serena Southerlyn) Your real father.

STAN: (As Justin Capshaw) Herman Capshaw is my real father. (Crying) I don't know these people.

EMERY: (As Meg Lafferty) Justin, I...

STAN: (As Justin Capshaw) I don't know why you brought me here (crying). Can I go now?

GROSS: OK, a lot of people, when they're in "Law & Order" for the first time...

STAN: Oh, my God...

GROSS: ...They're, like, a dead body (laughter). But you got to have this, like, emotional breakdown in it.

STAN: Oh, God. That was kind of hard to listen to. Just, you know, so much...

GROSS: What was it hard about it? What was hard?

STAN: Oh, so much acting, you know?

GROSS: (Laughter).

STAN: I mean, it just reminds me of, like, the James Dean school of acting, you know, that you go to when you're 18, 19, 20. But it's interesting. I hadn't heard or seen that scene in a long time, and everything was very, very charged.

GROSS: What was it like to see yourself on TV? And what was it like to have other people see you on TV?

STAN: It was hard. It's really not until recently that I've gotten OK with watching myself. In those earlier years, and up until recently, it was very, very difficult. I was very critical. I've always been very, very critical of myself, which is in part, well, why I can sort of take criticism very well when people write horrible things about you online. I'm always like, well, it's nowhere near what I've said about myself, so...

GROSS: (Laughter).

STAN: But I remember feeling also this weird instinct that I was doing something right for myself, and I should keep going. It was never hindering or - in a way.

GROSS: I have an acting question about the clip that we heard, where your response to hearing it was, so much acting - if you were to give your younger self notes now based on that scene, what notes would you give?

STAN: Don't push anything. Don't work for something. I mean, it's funny because when I look - when I hear that scene, what I think about is the fact that the scene was written and designed for a certain result. And I'm reacting to that, working for a certain result rather than going in there not focusing on the result - right? - and going, let's see what happens based on the work that I've done, which is how I approach it now. The result being, oh, I have to have this massive breakdown where I'm showing emotion and I'm, you know, making - there is a part of that that always feels subconscious. And as we know in life, that stuff doesn't come that way.

But, again, you're also looking at the format of that show. In one hour, you know, they've got to hit certain notes. It was TV. It was - right? - there's things that also - the tone of the thing you're working on. But, generally, what I would say is, you know, I can spot when choices are result-oriented now.

GROSS: OK, we need to take a short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice," and he won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAVE BRUBECK'S "UNSQUARE DANCE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Sebastian Stan. He's nominated for an Oscar for his starring role as Donald Trump in the film "The Apprentice." He won a Golden Globe last month for his performance in "A Different Man." And you probably also know him from "I, Tonya," from the TV miniseries "Pam & Tommy" and from Marvel movies as Bucky Barnes in the Captain America movies.

So I'm thinking about your mother here. Your mother moves with you and your new stepfather to New York. You know, it's always hard to uproot a child and uproot them to another country. That's probably super hard. But I'm thinking the life you have now, the respect and fame that you've achieved, all that you've accomplished must make her feel really good about the decisions that she made and alleviate any guilt that she might have experienced at the beginning when you were trying so hard to acclimate to a new country.

STAN: Oh, absolutely. I think so. I mean, you know, my mother is coming with me to the Oscars. You know, she's my date. I think she's very proud, you know, and I'm so insanely grateful to her for supporting me. You know, I had a supporting parent with acting. A lot of kids do not have supportive parents like that. So I felt like, you know, she did her best, maybe more than her best, you know? And she made tough choices in her life but certainly gave me an opportunity and a life. So this whole experience has been all about being able to thank her, you know, and my stepdad.

GROSS: So at the Oscars, I always wonder, what's it like if you lose and the camera is on you, and you have to pretend like, I'm so happy for the winner. That's so wonderful (laughter), you know?

STAN: Oh, my God. I mean, listen, I - like I was telling you, I mean, the impossible has already happened, you know? As somebody told me early on, when they said, you know, if you think this is going to be a thankless job, like, you're not - you know, if you think you're going to do this movie and someone's going to - you're going to - first of all, you're going to piss off everybody. No one's going to - not one person is going to - whether they care for him or they hate him, they're all going to be pissed. No one's going to see anything in this or any value in this.

So and then, sort of, I just keep pinching myself going, like, I remember that, you know, the cease and desist letter. And then it was the sort of - you know, no one wanted to buy the film. And then, it's like, is it going to come out? And then, oh, we have no money. There's no billboard on Sunset. There's no - you know? And now, here's Jeremy and I kind of going to this thing.

And so I - you know, it's a funny moment when you're watching that, of course. I mean, we've all seen Oscars, and you kind of go, what's going on through everybody's mind? But I feel the win has already happened here, you know, for me. And it's - I will be grateful in that moment no matter what, at this point. I know that's, like, what everybody says. But I think for me, genuinely, it's just been so surreal with this thing. I never - that it's impossible, I think, for me to have any more expectations at this point.

GROSS: Sebastian Stan, it's just been great to talk with you. Thank you so much. And good luck at the Oscars.

STAN: It's been lovely. Thank you for having me, and I really appreciate your questions and taking the time.

GROSS: Sebastian Stan is nominated for an Oscar for his starring role in the film "The Apprentice."

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR we'll talk about how Elon Musk got and is using the power to cut jobs, slash federal funding and help place people close to him in government positions. We'll also discuss the influence other tech billionaires are having on the Trump administration. My guest will be New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer, who covers the intersection of Washington's players and tech titans. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOSHUA REDMAN'S "STOP THIS TRAIN")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOSHUA REDMAN'S "STOP THIS TRAIN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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