How Thunderbolts’ Sebastian Stan became the MVP of the MCU

Sebastian Stan knows all about taking risks. It was just last year that he played Donald Trump in The Apprentice; depicting the president as a blustering sociopath and rapist, the film was released despite preventative efforts from Trump’s lawyers.

Several months ago, Stan attempted an even more perilous jump into the unknown when he said the unsayable and defended everyone’s favourite big-screen punchbag, the Marvel Cinematic Universe – describing the maligned blockbuster franchise as a lifeline for cinema. “It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films],” he told GQ. “And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion... [But Marvel] is an artery travelling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.”

Rare indeed is it that an actor will come out to bat for the MCU – even if, like Stan, they’ve been part of the Marvel Universe almost from the beginning. He joined the franchise first as Captain America’s peppy best pal Bucky Barnes (in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger), then played Barnes’s killing machine alter-ego, the Winter Soldier. Resilient, uncomplaining and focused on the task at hand, both Stan and Bucky may well be the underappreciated heroes of the Marvel Universe.

This weekend, Stan is back as Barnes in Thunderbolts* – a team-up movie also starring Florence Pugh as Black Widow’s younger adoptive sister Yelena Belova, and David Harbour as Russian supersoldier Red Guardian. It marks the ninth MCU film Stan has appeared in (plus two TV series). Earlier this year, Stan popped up for one scene in Captain America: A Brave New World – arguably the highlight of an underwhelming film.

It was also a reminder of what Stan brings to the franchise – a stolid charm less dazzling than the mega-charisma of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, but with its own potent appeal. Stan has an introverted, unshowy style – he doesn’t jump up and down demanding your attention; instead he quietly gets under the skin of his characters. Film to film, this makes him easy to take for granted. It’s only when you look back at the arc of his oeuvre that what he’s achieved becomes clear.

Stan’s willingness to put a shoulder to the wheel and just get on with things is perhaps rooted in his own life story: he’s the child of Romanian parents who moved to America after the end of the Cold War. He has talked about feeling like an outsider amid the go-getting optimism of 1990s America, and of making a concerted effort to lose all traces of his Romanian accent. He was the outsider who wanted to fit in – just like Bucky.

He has been upfront about the MCU being a lifeline. Before The First Avenger, his career had been stuttering badly. He was best known for a recurring part in the rich-kid soap opera Gossip Girl and for playing the baddie in Hot Tub Time Machine – the residuals from which were just about keeping him afloat when he auditioned for Captain America’s ill-fated buddy.

His character was introduced as a newly minted GI, shipped off to Europe to dispense Stars ’n’ Stripes justice to the Nazis. When he plunged to his death, it seemed like we had lost a perfectly agreeable minor character – sacrificed so that Cap could understand the value of friendship.

But the Bucky didn’t stop there. Stan’s character lends his name to the title of the second Captain America movie, The Winter Soldier – the best MCU film up to that point. He is chilling and relentless as a programmable assassin whose mind has been wiped by Hydra (Cap’s Nazi enemies in 1943), Stan’s usual magnetism nowhere to be seen. It’s a brave turn by Stan, who isn’t in the least concerned about his character being likeable – only that he scares us.

In the years since, Stan’s Marvel character has swung through highs and lows. He was a C-list figure in the later Avengers films – there to fill out an already overstuffed bench. Amid the stability of the Marvel gig, however, Stan began taking on more interesting side-projects.

The first of these was I, Tonya, in which he impressed as Jeff Gillooly – abusive boyfriend, and later ex-husband, of Margot Robbie’s disgraced figure-skater Tonya Harding. There was his Trump in The Apprentice, for which he received Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. He also played a charming cannibal in Fresh and a man with facial disfigurement in last year’s A Different Man (for which he won a Golden Globe).

On the small screen, he seared himself into the memory of the unsuspecting viewer in the 2022 Disney + series Pam & Tommy, playing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in a “can’t be unseen” sequence in which he converses with his own anthropomorphic penis.

Pam & Tommy , which chronicled Lee’s marriage to Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson and the notorious theft of their sex tape, was well regarded within the industry – receiving 10 Emmy nominations, including an Outstanding Lead Actor nod for Stan. But the acclaim wasn’t unanimous: a three-star review in The Independent labelled it “an uneasy mix of comedy, drama and period piece”, while Anderson herself described it as “salt on the wound”, branding the producers “assholes”.

Amid those diverging opinions, Stan was a rare bright light, imbuing Lee with a hint of tragedy. He was the hair-metal meathead with a tragic gaze and the air of someone who knew deep down that there was more to life than wrecking hotel rooms and joshing with his junk.

Despite his forays into more critically lauded fare, Stan has always chosen to look at the MCU not as a burden but as a gift – never grumbling, or behaving as if he was above the material.

Many actors have, of course, accepted the MCU’s money only to then badmouth the franchise. Anthony Hopkins said his role in Thor and its sequels amounted to little beyond “shouting a bit”: “If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it,” he tutted. Christian Bale described Thor: Love & Thunder as “monotony”; Mickey Rourke branded Iron Man 2 “mindless” and “s***”.

Even Robert Downey Jr, the franchise’s biggest star, has levelled digs at the films, calling them “content” and suggesting that an acting muscle may have “atrophied” during his time in the MCU.

Thunderbolts* is unlikely to silence the dissenters, but reviews have hailed it as one of Marvel’s best films in years. There are fight scenes, spectacular set pieces, and lashings of the trademark Marvel “banter” – sarcastic, tension-alleviating quips adored by fans but which detractors have identified as the franchise’s great sin against the spoken word. (In the modern movie-going landscape, there is apparently nothing more egregious than a well-crafted zinger.)

For Stan, it’s the latest step in a tumultuous journey that has seen him cast as hero, villain, unwitting stooge and frustrated everyman trying to live his best life in a world where danger lurks around every corner. Early tracking suggests that Thunderbolts* may be one of Marvel’s bigger recent releases, and is expected to surpass the recent Captain America sequel. It’s surely no coincidence that its beating heart is Stan, forever fighting the good fight – whether on behalf of humanity, or the much-maligned MCU.

‘Thunderbolts*’ is in cinemas now