Sebastian Stan – Circle of Friends

Q.  What are some of the recent projects that you’ve been working on?

A.  Well, I actually just finished wrapping this other film called The Education of Charlie Banks.  It took place in Providence and it’s actually an 80s movie.  It is the directorial debut of Fred Durst and it is starring Jesse Eisenberg from The Squid and the Whale and Jason Ritter from Happy Endings.  There is another guy Chris Marquette and it’s really great, it’s been a very different experience.  It’s actually more of a comedy and so for me, it was really nice.  It would provide a nice contrast to The Covenant which is so Sci-Fi and thrill laden, especially since I am the “villain”  in that.  It was great, it was an 80s project and I play sort of a WASPy kid who is bored.  I have blonde hair and I wore all of these bright Polo shirts with the collar up.  So, that just finished and now I live in New York but I’m going to probably go off to L.A. to do some more PR for this film and take it from there.

Q.  We know that the film The Covenant will be released soon.  What can you tell us about the premise of the film?

A.  The Covenant, it’s very interesting, I think the best way to get people to relate to it is to mention other movies.  I mean some people have looked at it and saw it like The Craft and others have looked at it as sort of like Underworld.  I would kind of say it’s more like an older Harry Potter is what it is.  It’s just about superheroes, it’s got a sort of feeling of The Skulls to it.  It’s about this prestigious school and these rich families and these rich kids that go to this school.  Among them are this secret sect that is a covenant between these four guys.  It kind of ties them together and they’ve been given these powers ever since they were little.  Pretty much the whole movie is about growing up with that and how that changes their lives and influences their decision making.  It’s interesting because I’m not sure if anybody is really going to look at this as a parallel to drugs and money and things that are available to us nowadays.  One of the themes of the movie is that these kids have these powers and they learn how to use them.  The more they use them, the more it becomes an addictive situation.  They want to take advantage of it and abuse it and it actually effects them physically and emotionally.  It causes them to age faster and it causes different things within themselves. 

Q.  What made you want to be a part of this project?

A.  On a practical basis, being that I just graduated from Rutgers University about a year ago, I was pretty excited to be getting a job so fast.  So, I wouldn’t turn down a job that was offered to me right away.  Everybody wants to be doing what they love!  Beyond that, I just really loved and connected to what I was doing.  When I got the audition and read the script, I really had a very good feeling about what I was doing.  It felt right and I think that the instinct is what you have to rely on in order to know why you should do something.  I thought it was great, I have always been typecast a certain way.  This was a different way for me to expand and I’ve never really been a villain.  It was great, I was in Canada for three months, there are all kinds of special effects.  It was a lot of different things!

Q.  Do you have a most memorable moment from working on the film?

A.  Yes, I do!  One of the things that I will never forget is we performed our own stunts, which is great.  It took a lot of work and there were a lot of steps involved.  But, one of the powers that we have in the movie is that we can fly.  We can levitate and jump from one place to another and go all over the place.  We worked with a harness, they strapped you into a harness and it is strapped to your body.  Then you’ve got wires suspending you that carries you through the air.  It happened during one of the rehearsals that I fell out of it.  Fortunately, it wasn’t very high but I remember being upside down and literally just flipping.  They gave us those biker, Spandex shorts to try and be more fitted to everything.  They actually started sliding out and everybody was talking and I was suspended a couple of feet in the air.  Suddenly I slipped out of it and everybody got a little freaked out.  It was interesting to be the one guy to prove the system wrong, I guess you could say.  Then they had to redo everything to make it a little bit more safer.  We started a joke after that, the crew made me a little mascot.  They made me a tiny monkey looking thing and they put similar clothes on it to my character and gave it to me.  Throughout the entire movie I had this little mascot in my pocket and it would keep me safe when I travel in the air.

Q.  Why should viewers take the time to check out the movie?

A.  As I said, it’s a different movie.  I don’t think there has been a movie like this necessarily in a little while.  If you remember movies like The Lost Boys and has a similar feel to that.  We’re in a time now where it seems to be there is an obsession with superheroes and superpowers.  There are a lot of people out there who are a younger audience that love Harry Potter.  They might eventually grow out of that and this is just like the next level for those few that grew up and want to check out something else.  It’s much darker and it’s got characters in it that young people can relate to as well.  It’s fun, it’s an action movie and it’s meant to be entertaining. 

Q.  How was getting to work with the director Renny Harlin?

A.  Renny was an awesome, awesome guy.  He was very supportive of what we were doing.  He gave tremendous freedom to all of us to explore and sort of find our characters.  Often times he might not have known what he was looking for but he gave us the freedom to go different places.  Between him and us we’d find a line with something that worked and I think that’s important.  It’s hard, you don’t want to be too specific with your director because then you lock somebody into this whole world and they don’t have room to play.  He was very good about that and he was very professional.  He was always on time and knew what he wanted to achieve that day and he got it done.  He’s extremely visual and when it comes to the picture I think that’s one of his best characteristics.  He really takes the time to think about the background, the lighting, the mood and what’s going on behind.  I think that’s really crucial to this movie, it’s a very visual movie.

Q.  When taking on a role, how do you get yourself into that character?

A.  I think that depends, it depends on the role.  It really depends on the role and what it asks from you.  For The Covenant, we worked out a lot.  We went swimming in the morning everyday and we went to the gym for an hour with a trainer everyday.  We had these harness practices to go up into the air.  I think all of that helped and it helped to build the confidence and courage that came with this character that he carried.  My character is very confident in who he is and very confident and what he wants.  He’s got it all planned out as to how he is going to get it.  Based on what the character wants it effects your relationships with the other people that you’re working with on the movie.  You don’t want to be one of those snobby actors being insulting.  I don’t think it’s about that, I think it’s just simply maintaining your energy.  There were many times when we had to wait in our trailers for hours and hours before our scene came.  You have to stay half in and half out so when the time does come you are able to bring that full energy even though you’ve been laying on the floor stretching for an hour and a half.  I think it depends and I watched some movies, for me Gary Oldman was a big inspiration.  I love Gary Oldman, I love Sean Penn, I love a lot of those guys.  Watching certain movies sometimes helps, learning from other actors.  I particularly looked at him a lot for this film. 

Q.  What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

A.  I live in New York, I haven’t moved to LA yet.  I have been spending a lot of time the last month here reading other projects and putting myself on tape and sending them out to LA.  That’s actually how I ended up getting The Covenant.  I made a tape in my own apartment, I taped myself auditioning and sent it over there.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of these tapes.  I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to do that.  I have a friend who is an actor that comes over and we help each other.  Actors have a lot of down time so it’s a way to go to the gym and keep acting and keep going.  You also learn a lot from watching yourself.  When you have spare time and are outside of the room, you can be more relaxed and take your time.  Often, it produces better performances then you’d get from some audition room.  I’ve been doing a lot of that and I am always taking advantage of New York.  I love that, whether it is going to one of the museums or there is a park.  That’s one of the reasons I love being here because so much is available and it’s right there next to you.  I think actors have to fill their schedule up when they’re not working.

Q.  Do you have a latest obsession?  Are you into any particular book, sport, music group or activity?

A.  One that has been going on forever, I’m obsessed with anything that has to do with the Beat generation.  I am trying to find out everything that has to do with the casting of On The Road.  I’d love to audition for it!  For example, right now I’m re-reading On The Road by Karoac.  I’ve read it before and I’m never tired of it.  I have picked up drawing and sketching again, my girlfriend got me a sketch pad for my birthday.  I’ve always wanted to pursue it in some way on the side and I’ve never had the energy to go and get it myself.  So, now I’ve started fooling around with it a little bit.  Always going out to the music scene downtown in The Village. 

Q.  What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A.  I would like to say to the people who are skeptical and iffy on the film, just have a little more faith in it.  We hope that we did something different, we wanted to do something different.  It’s a whole new beginning for all of us, we’re all just starting out pretty much.  Any support is wonderful and we’re very grateful for that. We’re thrilled that people want to go and see the movie and that they like the trailer.  It’s really wonderful and we feel really lucky that people have already checked it out.  Hopefully when they see it they’re going to like it and tell everyone else about it.  Hopefully they will find something in it for themselves, whatever that might be.  I would say so far, reading those comments, those movie buffs who really take the time to check it out, it’s gotten us more excited about it.  Thank you to them for investing the time and talking about it and putting our names out there.