Bucky evolves into that villainous alter ego in subsequent MCU stories, going from fearless soldier to shell-shocked prisoner of war and, eventually,
Bucky evolves into that villainous alter ego in subsequent MCU stories, going from fearless soldier to shell-shocked prisoner of war and, eventually, mind-controlled assassin who struggles to break his programming and redeem himself. Getting the part was beyond game-changing for the actor. “I was actually struggling with work,” Stan says. “I had just gotten off the phone with my business manager, who told me I was saved by $65,000 that came in residuals from Hot Tub Time Machine.” He’d played the smarmy bully in that comedy a year before. Now it was his salvation.
Since then, the Winter Soldier has become one of the most beloved and relatable characters in the MCU, even though his story is far from the time-honored everyman narrative. Bucky resonates because he’s damaged goods—the patron saint of fuckups struggling to do right. The arc culminates in his modern lead role in Thunderbolts*, with Bucky leading a team of former troublemakers and outcasts. Feige says that, without Stan, the character’s strange journey wouldn’t have been the emotional gut punch it is.
After lunch, Stan goes to his appointment at Autonomous FX. The headquarters is tucked near an ice warehouse and a scrapyard in an industrial neighborhood of Van Nuys. Stan is trying on a pair of imitation teeth that slip over his perfect pearly whites. The goal is to give him a more regular-guy look for Fjord, the movie he’s shooting in Norway with filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, a fellow native of Romania.
There’s a story behind these teeth—dating back to before Stan got braces as an adult. “When I got Invisalign, I was so obsessed with them,” he says. “The more you wear them, the faster they work. So I actually wore them at the fucking Captain America: The Winter Soldier premiere. I have them in and I’m smiling with them and people can tell. I was self-conscious because my teeth were always a little….” He splays his fingers into crooked angles.
The prosthetic teeth are modeled on Stan’s own before he fixed them. Stan has another blast from his past waiting for him too. After the fitting, Jason Collins, the founder and lead innovative force behind Autonomous FX, takes Stan through the workshops, where sculptors are making limbs, bodies, and demonic babies. On the shelves, busts of other actors like Christian Bale and Annette Bening, used for previous projects, stare down with vacant eyes.
Collins and his company essentially provide the level-up version of the imitation beards and noses that Stan first loved about acting in high school—except occasionally X-rated. As part of this nostalgia trip, Collins brings out a plastic tub with the remains of the robotic erection from Pam & Tommy. The latex has dried out and decayed away. This penis “character” was voiced by Jason Mantzoukas and had powerful opinions about the Mötley Crüe drummer’s romance with the Baywatch star. It was a risky innovative choice by the showrunners but added levity to the series and was inspired by Lee’s own autobiography, in which he banters philosophically with his sex organ.
The makeup team and the actor forged a bond along the way. “It really becomes a partnership,” Collins says. “We stare at him for weeks and months at a time. So we know the physical structure. We know what the span of his legs is and all that other stuff.”
“You get to know the actor very well,” says Stan. Their earliest meeting involved figuring out how to fit a prosthetic over his actual privates and snake cables for the controls down his backside. “When I first came here, they made a replica to work on. So they had to cast this,” Stan says, gesturing to his crotch. “I remember you’re like, ’All right buddy, well, I guess it’s good to meet you.’”
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