Sebastian Stan did Shatner cosplay to land Star Trek (2009)

Say what you like about Sebastian Stan: the man isn’t afraid to transform himself for a role – or even a potential role. Stan is currently doing media tours for his Donald Trump movie The studentin which he was outfitted with multiple wigs and prosthetic viscera, in keeping with Trump’s increasingly citrusy take on various periods in his life. He has also appeared in projects such as Pam & Tommywhere he did his best to embody Tommy Lee, not to mention the various changes he went through to play Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But this dedication to the cosplay aspects of the acting career apparently goes way back, as Stan revealed to Josh Horowitz during a new episode of the Happy sad confused podcast this week – including a moment when Stan apparently sent JJ ​​Abrams a photo set of him doing his best William Shatner-as-Captain Kirk impersonation in the lead-up to the 2009 Star Trek film.


Stan told the story as part of a longer meditation on breakout roles it didn’t getting, noting that the Kirk part was the first he got really close to. (He also remembers ending up in a room with Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto and Ryan Reynolds competing for Green Lantern; hard to say who was “lucky” with that particular outcome.) Because PullStan says his agent convinced him to dress up as Shatner from a classic Star Trek stills, mimicking some poses and then sending them to Abrams in an “Eh, pretty good, huh?” kind of way.

This obviously didn’t work, but the result is a) perseverance pays off in the end, and b) these photos presumably exist somewhereand we should be allowed to see them, because we bet they look pretty wacky.

(via Variety)