A Different Man | Deadline Studio at Sundance
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 A different man.
00:16 Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure
00:20 to drastically transform his appearance.
00:22 But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare.
00:26 As he loses out on the role, he was born to play
00:29 and become obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.
00:32 I think there's several themes.
00:34 I wouldn't want to pin it down to one,
00:36 but I certainly think identity is one of the themes.
00:40 Specifically, how much our self-identity,
00:45 or the way we think about ourselves,
00:47 is defined by other people, by what people think of us.
00:52 Especially if the general consensus is stacked
00:58 against you, if people in general
01:00 tend to find you wanting or defective in some way.
01:06 How do you maintain your sense of identity?
01:10 How do you maintain your sense of dignity alone
01:14 against the negative judgment of others?
01:19 So that is certainly one of the themes of the film.
01:22 Certainly, I mean, I was--
01:25 I have a cleft palate.
01:26 And that certainly is--
01:28 influences my way of viewing the world
01:33 and has influenced all my films.
01:36 And so, yeah, I think that's a subject that I'm always
01:41 trying to mine in some way.
01:44 Sebastian, I play Edward.
01:46 And I think, like it was said in the logline,
01:49 he's an actor.
01:50 And he decides to take on this sort of experiment.
01:59 And then his life changes forever as a result of it.
02:05 It's the journey of this person who, as Aaron kind of
02:11 highlighted, has a confrontation with his ego and identity
02:22 and makes a choice that affects his life forever in a way
02:28 that he didn't probably anticipate.
02:31 But yeah, it's all one person.
02:35 I actually think that's one of the reasons.
02:37 I actually think identifying it as two people
02:39 is kind of the problem to begin with, because it's internally--
02:46 yes.
02:47 Yeah, I'm just saying it's--
02:50 the soul of the internal arc is always what's happening.
02:57 But we do hang on the exterior, which is, I think,
03:01 what the problem is in many ways.
03:02 He goes by two different names after he sort of changes
03:06 his identity.
03:06 But to us, in the script, it's always one name.
03:10 I mean, he's really just one person.
03:12 So Ingrid is a very kind girl next door.
03:18 And Edward moves in.
03:20 She's an aspiring writer, director, and very ambitious,
03:26 I guess, with her whole life.
03:27 And she doesn't let herself fall in love with her new neighbor.
03:31 But when he disappears, she kind of
03:33 becomes obsessed with taking his story and telling his story
03:36 and puts on this play where--
03:41 yeah, should I say what happens after all the twists and turns?
03:47 How much?
03:48 No.
03:50 How much do we reveal?
03:51 What?
03:52 It's the real question.
03:53 How much do we reveal right now?
03:55 I always leave them wanting more.
03:58 Stuff happens.
04:00 Go see the movie.
04:01 And Adam Pearson, actor, played a role of Oswald,
04:04 just this gregarious, very successful, warm, friendly guy,
04:09 friend to all, hero to many, and just sort of comes in
04:14 and just gets involved.
04:17 And then Sebastian's character just becomes obsessed.
04:21 I just thought it's something I immediately
04:26 wanted to be involved in.
04:27 And then we had a meeting, and it went well.
04:29 And then I think from then on, obviously, you guys
04:33 go back to A Chain for Life and probably earlier.
04:38 Yeah, I wrote the role of Oswald for Adam Pearson,
04:43 whom I worked with before.
04:47 I never write roles for anybody else, especially at the point
04:51 I was writing this, because I don't know who I can get.
04:54 And so I'll only write parts for friends
04:57 or people I've worked with.
04:59 And so in roles where I don't know who I'm going to cast,
05:04 I think about old, dead actors just to guide me,
05:09 like I thought of Cary Grant or something and Ingrid Bergman.
05:16 So I just had something to hang on to.
05:20 But Sebastian came to me, and we hit it off immediately.
05:26 I mean, we talked for an hour, maybe two hours.
05:30 And then the movie was happening,
05:32 and we were shooting within seven weeks.
05:34 I mean, we went from doing nothing
05:36 or trying to get this thing together,
05:39 and then it was happening.
05:42 And then Sebastian and I both had just
05:45 seen Renata's movie and A Worst Person in the World.
05:49 And we both said to each other, what do you think?
05:53 We should be great.
05:54 And I thought it was almost hubris to say her name out loud,
06:00 because I knew she was having a moment.
06:04 And I thought, if she's not--
06:06 for her first English-language film,
06:09 we don't want to waste time asking her,
06:12 because it's just not going to happen.
06:14 And Sebastian said, well, you should
06:17 ask if it's what you want.
06:18 So we asked, and I think two days later, we were talking,
06:22 and she was in.
06:24 So it all happened very quickly.
06:26 Oh, I love the script.
06:27 It reminded me-- I told you in the first meeting
06:29 that it was very like Charlie Kaufman, who I love.
06:34 And our first conversation, we had kind of the same ideas
06:37 of how much to play and how much to plan.
06:40 And I was very scared, because it
06:43 was my first international English-speaking role.
06:46 But yeah, and it was very fast.
06:49 It was-- yeah.
06:50 It was about 22 days or something.
06:52 22 days.
06:53 I think we got a half--
06:55 23rd half day due--
06:58 because we were shooting during COVID,
07:01 we lost a lot of people to COVID.
07:04 And one part in particular, we lost on the day he showed up.
07:10 It was sort of a cameo role.
07:12 And he had to leave because of COVID.
07:16 So we got an extra half day to bring him back and reshoot
07:20 that part.
07:21 But yeah, 22 and a half days, basically.
07:24 I've been pumped since I got here.
07:26 I spent the whole festival walking around like a dog that
07:29 has just seen a magic trick.
07:32 Like, it's great.
07:33 I feel it's very warm and very charming.
07:36 But it really tries to talk about some big themes.
07:43 So yeah, I saw it all alone for the first time.
07:47 And I laughed and was very charmed.
07:51 Yeah.
07:52 I think what Aaron is exploring with this movie
07:54 is really, really, really important.
07:56 And I actually worry that sometimes people
08:00 come to movies now-- and a lot of reasons is for this, right?
08:04 Because with a very sort of short attention span,
08:06 and they need these things.
08:10 And so I really hope people kind of just like--
08:13 rather than try to figure out or just really try and sit
08:18 with the experience that they have in the film
08:20 and what it might--
08:22 because I think one of the things I loved about the script
08:25 and obviously why I want to work with him was he--
08:28 there's a lot of things he's saying.
08:30 And it actually is universal in a lot of ways.
08:35 Because it's about identity and acceptance and the ego.
08:39 And many things in the film happen to us regularly
08:42 when we sacrifice ourselves for a certain idea
08:48 or certain things and your own self-truth and honesty
08:54 go out down the toilet with it.
08:56 And I think this is a movie that I just feel
08:59 speaks in many, many levels.
09:00 And we had this interview the other day.
09:06 And I want to highlight it again, where he said he was like,
09:09 so often--
09:10 and you can say this better than me, I think.
09:13 But so often, he's trying to make a movie about the subject
09:17 of our own discomfort around disability,
09:20 our own unawareness of it.
09:23 And it's so difficult to do.
09:26 Because if you're doing something, you're
09:27 either caught between a rock or a hard place.
09:30 And then the subject altogether doesn't happen.
09:33 And it's like that's--
09:35 and I just think just hoping people go see it.
09:40 That's really all that--
09:41 just to kind of experience it.
09:44 That's all we want.
09:45 I want people to go see it.
09:46 And I want people to talk about it.
09:49 I think we as humans tend to avoid discomfort at all costs.
09:54 Like, it's a bad thing.
09:56 But I think a little bit of discomfort,
09:58 when you can push through it, in the end,
10:00 makes us better people.
10:02 And there's so much nuance and talking points in this song.
10:06 It's always really easy to make a song
10:09 and yell at an audience and tell them what to think.
10:12 And if you do that, you can change what they think
10:16 to maybe a day.
10:17 Whereas something like this, it's
10:19 nuance and a real springboard for conversation,
10:23 does it on a whole different level.
10:25 Good cinema will change what you think.
10:28 And great cinema will change how you think.
10:31 And I can say that Aaron Schoenberg is
10:32 in the great cinema business.
10:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:37 [APPLAUSE]
10:41 (upbeat music)