Sebastian Stan calls out reporter who described disfigured character as a “beast”

At the Berlin Film Festival promoting his new thriller A Different Man, Sebastian Stan called out a reporter who used an arguably offensive term to describe a person with a facial disfigurement.

In the film, Stan wears prosthetics to play Edward, an aspiring actor whose features are disfigured and who later undergoes reconstructive surgery to attain movie star looks.

However, Edward becomes obsessed with the disfigured performer portraying him in a play about his former life. Adam Pearson, who in real life has facial deformities from a condition called neurofibromatosis, plays that actor, Oswald.

On Friday, one of the foreign press members assembled for the film festival event referred to Stan’s “transformation from this so-called beast,” drawing criticism from the actor.

“I have to call you out a little bit on the choice of words there,” he interrupted.

The actor continued, “Part of why the film is important is because we often don’t have the right vocabulary. It’s a little more complex than that and obviously there is language barriers and so on and so forth, but, you know, ‘beast’ isn’t the word.”

Stan said, “I feel like that is what the film is saying, you know, we have these preconceived ideas. We are not educated to understand this experience in particular.”

For his part, Pearson, who has been a fixture on the red carpet as the A24 and Killer Films project rolls out, said he hopes A Different Man changes those preconceived ideas.

“A good film will change what an audience thinks for a day, but a great film will change how an audience thinks the rest of their lives,” he expressed.

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