Sebastian Stan is pushing back on online chatter branding Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, his English-language debut collaboration with the acclaimed Romanian director as “a MAGA movie,” attributing the label to viewers who haven’t actually seen the film.
Speaking with Variety while promoting the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival, Stan called Fjord the project he’d been chasing since he was a teenager, describing it as a meaningful return to the country he left as a boy and the language he grew up speaking.
The film, also starring Renate Reinsve, follows parents caught in a devastating child abuse investigation in Norway, and represents Mungiu’s first English-language feature.
Stan also opened up about the secrecy surrounding The Batman: Part II, offering an enthusiastic, if guarded, endorsement of what director Matt Reeves has built after three years of work.
“What I’ll say is this: there’s no way people will fully grasp how this movie is until they see it,” Stan said.
“I go to set sometimes and I look around and I’m like, I think we’re making f—ing Godfather Part Two. I feel that highly about it… I really don’t want to raise it up, but I do feel like it’s going to be a payoff. It’s really grounded and real, and that’s what I loved about it.”
He offered one small tease about his role when pressed further, saying, “I don’t even know if I say ‘hello,'” before laughing and adding, “I want to give you something good. Let me say that the word ‘cookies’ comes up.”
Reflecting more broadly on his approach to choosing roles, Stan described himself as “allergic” to repeating himself, saying actors risk becoming too overexposed to disappear into meaningful work.
“We’re not doctors, we’re not on the front lines,” he said, explaining why he believes the subject matter he takes on has to carry weight, “This is the only way we get to communicate.”
