Sebastian Stan

Biography:

Sebastian Stan was born on August 13, 1982, in Constanța, Romania (then part of the Romanian SR). His pianist mother named him after composer Johann Sebastian Bach. After his parents divorced when he was two, Stan moved with his mother, Georgeta Orlovschi, to Vienna, Austria, in the wake of the 1989 revolutions. Four years later, they relocated to Rockland County, New York, following her marriage to the headmaster of a U.S. school. Raised in the Romanian Orthodox Church, Stan became a U.S. citizen in 2002.

While attending school in Rockland, he performed in productions such as Harvey, Cyrano de Bergerac, Little Shop of Horrors, and West Side Story. He also participated in the Stagedoor Manor summer program, where he decided to pursue acting professionally. He went on to study at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, spending a year abroad at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London before graduating in 2005.

Stan’s acting career began with a brief appearance in Michael Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) and gained momentum with a 2003 role on Law & Order. Early film credits include Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding and The Covenant (2006). He also had recurring roles on Gossip Girl (2007) and starred in the NBC drama Kings (2009). In 2010, he appeared in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and the comedy Hot Tub Time Machine. His breakout came in 2011 when he debuted as Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger, launching his long-running involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

In the following years, Stan balanced film and television roles. He starred in Gone (2012), The Apparition (2012), and played the Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time. His performance in USA Network’s Political Animals earned him a Critics’ Choice nomination. On stage, he appeared in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Picnic (2013).

He reprised his Marvel role as the Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), beginning a nine-film contract with Marvel Studios. He went on to appear in Ant-Man (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Outside the MCU, he co-starred in Ricki and the Flash (2015), The Martian (2015), Logan Lucky (2017), and received acclaim for his role as Jeff Gillooly in I, Tonya (2017).

His later projects include Destroyer (2018), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018), The Last Full Measure (2020), The Devil All the Time (2020), and the Marvel series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021).

In 2022, Stan played Tommy Lee in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. That same year, he starred in the thriller Fresh. He went on to appear in Sharper (2023) and won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in A Different Man (2024). That year, he also portrayed a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice, which earned him Academy Award and BAFTA nominations.

By 2025, Stan had reprised his role as Bucky Barnes in Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts, and is set to return again in Avengers: Doomsday. He was also invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2025.