Sebastian Stan is surprised he still gets recognized for Fresh: 'It's women with the cannibal thing'

Carter Baizen, Bucky Barnes, and Tommy Lee may seem like the iconic Sebastian Stan roles, but the real ones know that Steve the Cannibal is his true magnum opus.

Or at least, that's what Stan is coming to realize, as fans continue lauding him for playing the American Psycho-esque antagonist at the center of 2022's Fresh. During a recent actor's roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, Stan and five of the year's other leading men — Adrien Brody, Paul Mescal, Colman Domingo, Daniel Craig, and Peter Sarsgaard — were asked about the unexpected responses that come from their work. 

Stan acknowledged that, obviously, he is often recognized for playing the Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But that's not all.

"Weirdly, bizarrely, I still get the f---ing Daisy movie, Fresh," he shared. "Somehow people still come up — It’s women with the cannibal thing, I just don’t understand it."

The twisted "romcom" from Mimi Cave explores the horrors of modern dating, with Stan starring opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones as Steve, a man with, uh, very particular appetites. Needless to say, their meet-cute derails into gross, gory territory — but it evidently didn't go dark enough to scare off Stan's most dedicated devotees.

Steve's fanbase aside, Stan also knows to be most weary of Marvel fans when stepping out in public.

"In New York, I went with Ali [Abbasi] into Trump Tower," Stan shared, recounting prep he did with the director ahead of playing Donald Trump in The Apprentice. "I didn't want to go in there... He still thought we could shoot in Trump Tower. I was like, 'You’re out of your mind.' And I remember somebody looking and going, 'Is that the Marvel guy?' And I was like, 'I'm out.'"

As for his fellow actors, Brody noted that people will often approach him to say, "'My mom really likes you.”

Mescal laughed, sharing that he often hears, "'My girlfriend thinks you’re great.'"

Meanwhile, Domingo could relate to Stan, as he too is often celebrated for playing a despicable character — The Color Purple's antagonist Albert "Mister" Johnson.

"I get a lot of older Black women in airports going, 'Oooh, Mister' — but it’s weird because Mister is not a lovely person, he’s an abuser," Colman pointed out. "I'm like, 'Wait, you know he was a villain?' And they're like, 'It's all good. Let me get a picture with Mister!'"

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After memorable roles in the MCU, Fresh, Gossip Girl, Pam & Tommy, and I, Tonya, Stan recently veered into fairly unrecognizable territory. This year saw him play an actor with neurofibromatosis in A Different Man, and President-elect Trump in The Apprentice. Both required a transformation from the actor, but while the former relied on prosthetics, changing his body for Trump took a serious toll on Stan ahead of filming. 

"I was having panic attacks every night," he admitted. "There was not enough time to gain weight, and the prosthetics test failed badly, so I was fucked. And not only that, but the director, two weeks out, goes, 'Originally, I was going to cast a woman to play Trump.'"

That did little to assuage Stan's nerves. "'Why are you f---ing telling me this two weeks before?! I’m going to die,'" he recalled thinking.