Sebastian Stan defends Marvel films, teases 'Thunderbolts*' movie
Sebastian Stan won't stand for any Marvel hate.
The 42-year-old actor, who made his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes in 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger," teased his next movie in the long-running film series and shut down those who want to "pick on" the franchise in a new interview with Variety published Thursday.
"It's become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films]," he told the outlet. "And that's fine. Everyone's got an opinion."
"But they're a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well," he continued. "This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that's Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge."
Stan said he gets "protective" of the franchise "because the intention is really f------ good."
He added, "It's just f------ hard to make a good movie over and over again."
Stan will star in "Thunderbolts*" next summer, in which he leads a ragtag group of heroes -- many of them reformed supervillains -- played by Florence Pugh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman and Geraldine Viswanathan.
The actor teased the Jake Schreier-directed film as being "kind of like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,'" explaining both of them as being about "a guy coming into this group that was chaotic and degenerate, and somehow finding a way to unite them."
With Stan playing Barnes -- aka The Winter Soldier -- across numerous movies and even a TV series, the actor said he is "constantly looking for different ways of challenging" himself.
That explains him being a part of two of the year's buzziest films heading into awards season: "A Different Man," out Sept. 20, and "The Apprentice," out Oct. 11.
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