by Gill Pringle
Directed by Simon Kinberg, The 355 showcases the killer female quintet of Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o and Fan Bingbing.
A globe-trotting espionage thriller that brings together this dream team of formidable female stars, Sebastian Stan and Edgar Ramirez hold the fort as the two male supports.
Breaking out in TV with roles in Gossip Girl and Once Upon a Time, Romanian-born Stan featured in films Black Swan, I’m Not Here and I, Tonya, making his name in the Marvel Universe as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier.
Synonymous with the Captain America films and Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, 2022 marks the year Stan breaks out from the MCU, portraying rocker Tommy Lee in upcoming TV biopic series, Pam & Tommy, and now as secret agent, Nick, in The 355.
Unintimidated by The 355’s female star power, Stan, 39, tells FilmInk what he learned from being a male side-kick.
You’ve worked with Jessica Chastain before although in The 355, you turn it up a notch and your agent, Nick, shares a romantic attachment with Jessica’s Mace. How was that?
“I had a great experience working with Jessica on The Martian. We stayed friends after that, and she reached out about the script for The 355 and asked if I would consider playing the part of Nick. I was so taken with that offer that I immediately said yes to the opportunity to work with her again. And when I saw everyone else involved, it was a no-brainer. The film’s script was great. It was fun, entertaining, unpredictable, original and had great action, character development and plot twists.”
How was it working on such a female-led set?
“It was literally one of my all-time favourite experiences. I did feel out-numbered but in a very lucky way, like I felt out-numbered by greatness! I felt like I was going to work with a group of my favourite actors – some of whom I’d worked with before, Jessica and Simon I’d worked with on The Martian and Lupita and I have shared movies but have never had any scenes together, and obviously I’ve always been a fan of Fan Bingbing and Penelope and Diane. So, I was in great company and just knew that I needed to work as hard as I could to keep my own with all of them, and I think I did the best I could. But I know I came out of it a better actor and, certainly, a better man and so it was a great experience.”
How did you prepare physically for the role and for your scenes with Jessica?
“Well, I was definitely in the best possible physical shape during this movie. Edgar and I were on diets in Paris – and I don’t know if you’ve ever attempted to be on a gluten-free diet in Paris, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It was very difficult not to eat the bread – but maybe that contributed to our adrenaline. Physically, I think we worked out really hard. Everybody did. We had a month of preparation before the movie started and we never really get that anymore. It’s unheard of to have a full month of working out and learning fight training and weapons training and then be able to go to work. We were going to the studio to work out every day and, I believe, everybody was having individual sessions which resulted in every character having their own specific fighting styles. Everybody was super passionate to make it as believable as possible, but it was also incredibly safe. There has to be trust; there has to be trust from your crew and there has to be trust from your other actors that you’re working opposite and you only get that trust by continuously repeating it and learning in a very mechanical way like you’re learning a dance sequence and, once you’ve got that, then you can kind of play around with that and then you get something that works and looks brutal in a real way and yet is always controlled.”
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What did you add to the character of Nick from what was originally written in the script?
“Well, there was a relationship between my character and Jessica’s there on the page when I read it – not just colleagues in the sense that they’re both good at their job and they worked together and had accomplished missions together. But also, very much in the sense that there was more unexplored territory there between them. And that was only slightly suggested in the script and then when we started to work on it, we developed that much more, and I feel like really great scenes came out of that. It’s subtle, it’s not in your face and it’s not something that we spent a lot of time on but you realised in some of those scenes that there was a lot more going on between those two and, to some extent, they’re both very important to each other’s arcs in the movie, which is something that came out of the conversations between Simon, Jessica and I.
“Usually, that kind of flexibility is something that you get much more in independent film. To have been able to have that collaboration on this kind of budget and this type of movie was a huge thing. I feel like we had that because Jessica put this movie together – without a studio or anybody; she raised the money; she had a conversation with Simon and they approached other actors and those actors signed up and that was the team – the foundation of the movie. And then came the studios and everybody else. It was unique in a lot of ways. I really hope for that sake that the movie is successful so we may continue to have further collaborations like that because that’s when you get a unique, different kind of thing.”
What was the biggest challenge for you being in this female-led cast?
“Bringing my A-game because everybody was going to show up with their A-game – several Oscar winners and several Oscar-nominated actors in this! I’ve been lucky enough to have been working for 20 years now but I’m always still learning. I personally don’t ever get to a place where I’m like: ‘OK, I’ve figured it out, this is it, whatever’. So, I know I’m always learning. Sometimes, you’re growing up with certain movies and you’re seeing certain actors that you admire your whole life and then suddenly they’re opposite you. That’s how I felt about Penelope Cruz for instance. When you’re opposite an actor of that caliber, you’re like ‘Oh My God’ and my initial reaction is I’m terrified; I’m not good enough! I’m going to be destroyed!
“I have to kind of stand up to these women in this film so, I really had to try and do that. But once you get past that, because you’re in the presence of somebody who is extremely experienced and talented and is super present in that moment; it’s just going to push you and you’re gonna either step up or run away, right? But if you step up, you’re going to end up having a great experience.”
The 355 is in cinemas January 13, 2022
