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Sebastian Stan piled on the pounds to play Donald Trump - only to have to lose it to return in the MCU's Thunderbolts*
Delays in both productions meant his weight kept bouncing back and forth for each character.
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We all know that getting into superhero shape is tough – despite what those weird ads on social media tell you. Now imagine having to keep working yourself down to negligible body fat after piling on pounds for another role and you’ve got the hell that Sebastian Stan has been living in as he played Donald Trump in the upcoming biopic The Apprentice and the Winter Soldier in the MCU’s anti-hero ensemble Thunderbolts* almost side-by-side. How did he pull it off? The power of PB&J sandwiches.
During a sit down with GQ, Stan, who has been playing Bucky Barnes in Marvel movies since 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, explained his unintentional yo-yo diet. To film The Apprentice, Sebastian Stan wanted to embody the future president as much as possible, and that included knocking back loads of Coca-Cola and scarfing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to emulate Trump’s diet and to fill in the former president’s signature ill-fitting suits.
That wouldn’t be a problem, normally, except production got delayed on The Apprentice, which cleared up Sebastian Stan’s schedule to film Thunderbolts*. That meant getting his body fat back to the microscopic levels we’ve grown to expect from our superhero films. Then 2023’s Hollywood strikes hit and Thunderbolts* filming was also delayed, forcing Stan to put on his Trump weight once again.
“I’m f*ckin’ 41; I just worked pretty hard to get in shape here!” was Sebastian Stan’s reaction to having to pile on the pounds again, which is understandable because he was still going to have to lose that weight – again – before filming Thunderbolts* for its 2025 release. Essentially, Sebastian Stan has been living in a kind of weight loss-gain cycle that would be a cry for help from anyone in any other industry.
Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:
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