Fjord: Sebastian Stan, on all fronts

Meeting with Cristian Mungiu’s compatriot, impeccably ambiguous in the role of a strict father accused of mistreating his children.

Unlike almost all of his colleagues “born” in Marvel Studios productions, Sebastian Stan has never abandoned auteur cinema. Between two superheroic blockbusters in the role of the Winter Soldier, we were able to meet him on the poster of Logan Lucky, Me, Tonya, The Devil, All the Time, A Different Man Or The Apprenticeas well as in a whole bunch of much more modest productions, where he each time managed to show a new side. A protean actor, bankable and also of Romanian origin?

It’s easy to understand why Cristian Mungiu, director of the Palme d’Or Fjordoffered him the role of Mihai, this Romanian evangelist father of five children, newly installed in a small Norwegian village and soon suspected of violence against his children. Rightly or wrongly, the judicial machine is set in motion… Mihai is an inscrutable guy, a potential time bomb with advanced baldness (Stan is almost unrecognizable in the first shots), whose rigorous educational principles and worrying appearance make him a perfect culprit.

“ It had to feel like it could explode at any moment. », Explains the actor to us from a prefabricated (air-conditioned) set up on a terrace of the Palais des Festivals, a few days before the Palme d’Or. “ What obsessed me about playing him was the way he manages his emotions and his unwavering faith. I was aiming for the gray area, where the viewer no longer knows entirely whether they are attached to him or hate him; whether he is innocent or guilty. Cristian loves exploring this kind of ambiguous moral space and encouraging audiences to think about and debate what they see. It’s not that common anymore. »

Different culture

The director never gave him the key to the film, namely whether his character and that of Renate Reinsve, who plays his wife, really exercised physical violence on their children. “ And it doesn’t matter: the main thing was to make people feel what these people are going through. I was raised in a traditional Romanian family, so I could relate to certain things. It’s a totally different culture, where many people grew up with parents who had harsh methods of disciplining their children. Is it better to grow up in a strict home than to have resigned parents? I don’t have the answer. But what the film is trying to say is that we can put ourselves in the shoes of both parents and child welfare. »

We submit to him all the same as Mungiu, without that taking away his qualities to Fjordviews progressives as conservatives who ignore each other, and regularly tips the scales towards parents on whom an entire country is attacking. “ I was entitled to everything and its opposite while discussing with your colleagues! But it’s completely legitimate to see the film this way, and I’m not far from having the same opinion on Cristian’s point of view. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that, because it’s the children of this couple who are at stake. And no matter their beliefs or their education: everyone can understand the heartbreak of having custody of their children taken away. Especially when one of them is a baby. » Sebastian Stan tells us that he is going to become a father in the middle of summer. “ Needless to say, my opinion on this shouldn’t change much. » (Laughs.)

Fjord, by Cristian Mungiu, with Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Alin Panc… Released August 19.