A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
In his lifetime, Joseph Merrick—better known by his sideshow epithet, “The Elephant Man”—took to closing letters with a poem he’d fashioned from verses by others: “Could I create myself anew / I would not fail in pleasing you,” he promised in one couplet. In Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man, a man with a similarly extravagant physiognomy is afforded, by way of a bit of Seconds-esque sci-fi slash body horror, just such a chance to “create himself anew.” As in John Frankenheimer’s 1966 film, however, the question of precisely what this man seeks to gain by this radical act becomes profoundly muddied.
Edward (Sebastian Stan) aspires to be an actor but is far from comfortable in his skin. Pitched an experimental drug that promises—if successful—to engender a major physical transformation, he gives himself over to the risky treatment. Beneath the excess flesh that falls away in goopy, blood-slimed clumps is a handsome new visage, one viewers will know as Stan’s. Buoyed by the results of his extreme makeover, Edward loses no time rebranding himself as “Guy,” a slick and womanizing real-estate bro. But his newfound confidence is shaken when he meets Oswald—played by Adam Pearson, an actor and disability advocate with neurofibromatosis who also appeared in Schimberg’s previous film, Chained for Life (2018) (and who too was branded “Elephant Man” in his youth). Oswald’s face is the uncanny mirror of the old Edward’s, and yet he is no shrinking violet, but rather a gregarious charmer.
As in Chained for Life, which unfolds on the set of a fictional exploitation film, sometimes fudging the line between the two narrative planes, there is a hall of mirrors element to A Different Man. But here, the locus of refraction is not cinema but the theater, and the disorientation is the protagonist’s, rather than the viewer’s: Edward-as-Guy finds himself in competition with Oswald for the lead role in a play written by Ingrid, his intermittently flirty former neighbor (Renate Reinsve, of The Worst Person in the World [2021], making her English-language debut). It’s a role that Edward recognizes as having been modeled on him, even if he’s now unrecognizable to her. In rehearsals, Edward dons a mask in order to (once again) look the part, but increasingly, and to his quiet horror, it seems that Oswald might just be a better version of himself.
The way in which the narratives of A Different Man nest and rhyme evokes the films of Charlie Kaufman, though Schimberg operates in a somewhat gentler, more reserved—if still capable of jarring—key. His engagement with and subversion of tropes common to films about disability and disfigurement reveal both black humor and a deep-seated humanism.
When I spoke with the writer-director earlier this year in Berlin, where the film was competing for the Golden Bear, we dug into the traps of disability representation, his skepticism of cinema as “empathy machine,” and the universal difficulty of self-acceptance.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: Both this film and Chained for Life examine very explicitly how disfigurement and disability are represented in narrative. I read somewhere that you’ve seen pretty much every film with disfigurement in it.
AARON SCHIMBERG: That might be hyperbole, but certainly many of them.
NOTEBOOK: When was it that you started to develop a consciousness around these patterns in disability representation?
SCHIMBERG: I think it happened through osmosis; I internalized it very young. I was born with a cleft palate, and so very early on, I was cognizant that if I saw anybody like myself in a film, it was usually a negative portrayal, or it was an overly saccharine portrayal, and that never seemed to speak at all to my experience—or it was a horror film, of course.
NOTEBOOK: Which is what Chained for Life was tackling in particular.
SCHIMBERG: Yes. Even when I was in high school and writing plays or scripts, I was always trying to mostly express myself; I wasn’t thinking in terms of “combating” other types of portrayals. I was just trying to do something that spoke more to my experience—and it was only through doing that that I realized that there was another layer I was up against, which is that people not only had their own stereotypes about disfigurement and disability, but also about movies about disfigurement and disability. For instance, I think that Chained for Life was in some ways marginalized for its subject matter alone. People didn’t want to see a movie about the subject. And I understood that, because I don’t want to see a movie about the subject either, for the most part—because I know that it will be, generally, a certain kind of movie, and not one that I’m interested in.
NOTEBOOK: Around the time of Chained for Life’s theatrical release, you wrote a piece for Talkhouse about the language being used to describe the film. You mention that at a certain point the word “heartwarming” got attached to it, and that you had mixed feelings about that. “Heartwarming” is a tag that gets attached to certain kinds of films about disability, or a tone that gets purposefully adopted, I think essentially in order to reassure the most likely able-bodied viewer, like, “We’re gonna get through this together, and you’re invited, and it’s all good.”
SCHIMBERG: Exactly. Recently, I was watching this film I’ve seen many times, which I think is not a particularly great film, but a complicated one, Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask [1985].
NOTEBOOK: Oh, yeah. That’s a weird one.
SCHIMBERG: Yeah—I think it’s really trying to show disfigurement in a different way. I think it’s aware of some of the tropes, and it’s trying to avoid them, but it gets stuck in a trap. And one of the weird or curious things about the movie is that there are several scenes where they show Rocky—Rocky Dennis is the character [played by Eric Stoltz]—showing up for the first day of school. This happens more than once in the film. And of course, this is a trope of any kind of “outsider” film: you know, they’re going to school, which is a hard day for anybody, and they’re going to be made fun of, and it’s going to be hard for them—but very little happens in these scenes. And I always wondered, why do they keep showing this? You know that he was bullied; I’ve read stories about the real Rocky Dennis—and I know that I was bullied, and my disfigurement is much less severe. So why are they showing these scenes? My theory, and it’s based on no inside information, is that you can’t show him being bullied, because they’re trying to make this movie about how normal this person is. If you show somebody being bullied, you either want that character to get revenge or to see him go into some kind of downward spiral. If he just lives with it, if he just sort of accepts it, you’re going to think that something’s wrong with him, that maybe he’s not that bright. It’s hard [for a viewer] to understand.
That was one of the initial ideas behind A Different Man—one way to look at it, or at least the second half of the movie, is that it’s really from the point of view of somebody judging a disfigured person; Edward is judging Oswald throughout the movie. But the audience doesn’t have to distance themselves from him, because we know why he’s got a laser focus on this guy: because he’s thinking about himself, he’s thinking about what he’s gone through. There’s this idea that the way we judge people is really the way we feel about ourselves, and so it’s really literalizing that—he’s looking at Oswald and he’s jealous of him, he’s giving him qualities that he may or may not have, because he’s thinking about himself.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: Maybe we could speak a bit about the structure, because the film builds in a really fascinating way, and there’s this reversal of a common disability drama premise—Edward transforms into this handsome guy, whereas typically the transformation that begets the movie narrative is a “disabling” one. Did you have it in mind to invert that?
SCHIMBERG: I did, on some level. The film has this passing of the torch: you have an able-bodied actor playing a disabled character, and then he kind of passes off the film to Adam Pearson, who has a facial disfigurement, and he overtakes the film. So, yeah, I’m always hyper-aware of these tropes, but unfortunately— People keep calling it a “meta” film, which they also did with Chained for Life.
NOTEBOOK: Well, both have got these nested narratives going on.
SCHIMBERG: Yeah, and I don’t deny that, but it’s almost a result of strategies that I have to adopt in order to make this issue palatable. You know, when people talk about film, I’ve heard this term “empathy machine,” this idea that you can empathize with anybody in a film. But I don’t know that “empathy” is the correct word for identifying with the protagonist of a movie. I mean, of course, you’re going to identify with somebody who’s the center of the world in a movie, and whoever the protagonist is, [they’re] the center. You’re going to take on that protagonist’s feelings, and if they’re wronged by other people, you’re gonna become defensive of them—but really you’re seeing them in you. Even if you would actually be the bully in real life, if that character is being bullied, you’re not going to identify with the bullies. You have to develop strategies to really have empathy toward characters who aren’t like you.
In Chained for Life, the protagonist is not Adam Pearson. The protagonist is somebody who’s working with Adam Pearson and is having feelings about working with Adam Pearson. And in this film, for part of it, you’re identifying with this disfigured person, but really, for most of it, you’re identifying with somebody who’s looking at a disfigured person and doesn’t like what he sees—or likes what he sees and doesn’t understand why, and he’s struggling and he’s envious. Of course, envy is a universal feeling; looking at somebody and saying, “Why does this person have what I don’t have?” But all of these strategies come from having to find ways to make people relate to somebody that they may not have charitable feelings about in their everyday life. It’s almost like you have to create more and more distance in the film to get closer to the humanity of these characters. It seems counterproductive, in a way.
NOTEBOOK: Well, one step back, two steps forward, right? But I feel like the film does work like the proverbial “empathy machine”…
SCHIMBERG: That’s my hope! But these are the strategies you have to adopt to get there.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: In terms of reference points, the film riffs on Beauty and the Beast, and I understand that the concept originally sprung from Jekyll and Hyde, but I kept thinking of Seconds—a film that’s also split by the transformation of the protagonist, though his “before” and “after” are played by two different actors, which is not the case here. Was Seconds a conscious reference point?
SCHIMBERG: No—and it sounds like I’m lying, but I saw Seconds in high school and I remember liking it, but I barely remember it. It’s certainly been brought up a lot, andI’m not denying any sort of subconscious influence… I do strongly remember the opening credit sequence, and I talked with Wyatt [Garfield], the DP, about doing that kind of thing for the opening, which ultimately didn’t really happen. But no, I was thinking about films with transformation in them, and I don’t know why I haven’t revisited Seconds. I think at this point I’m afraid to.
But Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that was for a different story. Basically, I had two different ideas that I put together: one was about a character who was gonna be played by Adam Pearson and he turns into Sebastian Stan at night and lives this alternate life, but I couldn’t really make any headway with that—and then I had this completely different idea, based on my experience of seeing Wonder [2017], and the idea that somebody who saw a disfigured person then went and wrote a novel [Wonder by R. J. Palacio, 2012], and then a film, based on their own terror of this person… And so, my film was going to be about a person who strongly suspects that this whole franchise was based on somebody catching sight of him in a store somewhere—but that idea was too unwieldy. It seemed too internal, in a way. I thought, “What am I really trying to say with these ideas?” I realized how they were sort of connected and put them together, and then A Different Man was basically just laid out for me from beginning to end.
NOTEBOOK: This film stems in part from you and Adam Pearson wanting to work together again, and here he’s obviously playing a very different kind of guy from his character in Chained for Life, or indeed than in his film debut, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin [2013]; Oswald is this gregarious, “life of the party” type. How much was this role shaped by a desire to kind of “show his range”?
SCHIMBERG: Part of it was about showing his range, yeah—because I saw some people say, “Well, Adam’s just playing himself in Chained for Life,” and to me, it was a very nuanced performance. People just assume that because he’s quiet in the film, that that’s of course just how he is, and he isn’t. So that was certainly an impetus. But maybe on a more personal level, I have a cleft palate, and I’ve always let it define me—negatively for the most part. I certainly have wondered, is there any good that has come from this? You know, I’ve made movies about it, it’s given me a different point of view, and maybe these are good things, but I’ve always been very self-conscious about it. Adam doesn’t let his disfigurement define him, or at the very least, he takes control of how he wishes to be perceived. That inspired me when I met him, when I was making Chained for Life, but it also made me wonder, can I learn from that? Can I change? Can I think about this more positively? And I’m not sure that I can. I’m more neurotic and shy by nature, and I think in some ways, I’m stuck being the way that I am.
Of course, the other question is—and I’m not speaking for Adam at all—but how much is Adam needing to do this in order to put people at ease, you know? I don’t know what he’s thinking, but certainly, Adam has the same struggles as I do and more. I think he’s genuinely comfortable with himself, but I know that things aren’t always easy for him. And so there’s that question too: how do we present ourselves? A lot of people have suggested, “Well, the film is really [saying], ‘Just be yourself’; ‘If only Edward would have accepted himself.’”
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: It felt a little bit more fatalistic to me.
SCHIMBERG: Yeah, that question is raised in the film, butI don’t think it comes to that conclusion. There’s not a moral lesson there. I don’t judge Edward if he’s not able to accept himself—it’s very hard to accept yourself, for anybody. I haven’t accepted myself. I’m always coming up short in any number of ways. Edward may be looking at Oswald, thinking, “How, how is he able to do it?” but we don’t know what Oswald is thinking.
NOTEBOOK: I thought it was very funny, the way in which Oswald’s talents accumulate throughout the film—it’s never quite fantastical, but, you know, one minute he’s doing yoga in the park, the next, he’s doing karaoke. The way that it escalates is kind of a joke on Edward, but perhaps it also speaks to this idea that presenting oneself as confident can be a way to reassure whoever you’re engaging with—like, “I’ve got this and I’m cool, so don’t worry about me.”
SCHIMBERG: Yeah, and I’ve always been very reticent to be confident, because I’m afraid that people will hate me for it, you know? That people will want to knock me down. Granted, I’m not naturally confident, maybe it’s also a Midwestern thing, but I tend to tamp down expectations, and I’m never happy about anything.
NOTEBOOK: [Laughing] That’s the headline.
SCHIMBERG: I mean, from a career perspective, yesterday [the film’s Berlinale premiere] was one of the greatest days of my life. It was the fulfillment of the lifelong dream: I had this sold-out premiere in competition at the Berlinale, something that I’ve spent years trying to achieve—and right before the screening, I read this very unkind tweet; unkind about me, uncharitable about the film. And so I’m sitting there watching the film, and of course, that’s what I’m thinking about. At the same time, I’m thinking, “This is what the film is about,” you know, “What am I doing?” Like, I should be enjoying this.
NOTEBOOK: That’s quite a dramatic example of how much easier it is to accept criticism than praise. I’m sorry that this really messed with what should have been a purely happy moment.
SCHIMBERG: But of course it was gonna happen. It’s my fault for even looking at Twitter. And, you know, it doesn’t matter how many good reviews there are, it just goes right through me. But criticisms, they haunt you for the rest of your life.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: Let’s go back to less haunted times, to the genesis of the project. You had Adam, your right-hand man in this venture, and then Sebastian Stan came on board, and he wanted to produce as well, which kicked things into gear, I believe. What was it that drew you to him?
SCHIMBERG: Well, Sebastian really came to us. We weren’t going out to people specifically. My last film was not on many people’s radars—but we did have Killer Films and Christine Vachon on board, so we had some names. We heard Sebastian was interested, and I was very skeptical—not of Sebastian, but of anybody coming to me. I thought, “Okay, now it’s going to be a conversation, and then maybe years of waiting for someone to become available.” But I talked to Sebastian via Zoom, and right away we could both tell, this is going to happen. I don’t know why he trusted me, but he loved the last film, he understood the script, he wanted to do it. And I could see there was something that was really going to work about it. There was some tortured part of himself that he needed to express, a part of himself that he doesn’t get to express in other roles. I mean, his performance is absolutely brilliant, but I have to give credit to him for reading the script and then just being all-in immediately.
NOTEBOOK: I imagine it like that thing when Tom Cruise makes a phone call, and suddenly people are assembling, there’s a helicopter, caterers have appeared.
SCHIMBERG: That’s what it was. After that Zoom call, we were basically in pre-production—A24 was on board, it was all happening.
NOTEBOOK: And here we are! I also wanted to ask about how Sebastian and Adam prepared for their roles. Sebastian’s playing a character whose initial appearance is clearly modeled on Adam’s, which must have been psychedelic for both of them, but especially Adam. Was there much rehearsal, or did they turn up to the shoot and just kind of have to feel things out?
SCHIMBERG: Coming from an independent film background, rehearsal is a luxury that I haven’t really had. I’ve always had one day of rehearsal—and that day is always incredibly useful. That being said, Sebastian and Adam did talk beforehand, and I think Adam made himself fully available to Sebastian and to Mike Marino, who did the prosthetics.
NOTEBOOK: I wanted to ask about those too, because I think this is your first film to feature FX stuff. Were you nervous about that? The need for prosthetics to be really good in order to not be distracting for a viewer or for the actor themselves is a source of tension in the play-within-the-film.
SCHIMBERG: You know, when I was writing the script, I just thought, “Somebody will be there to figure this out.”
NOTEBOOK: And it turned out to be the guy from The Batman [2022], so you were in good hands.
SCHIMBERG: Yeah, but it happened so fast. Like, we were three weeks out from shooting, and we suddenly realized that we needed to figure this out; that it will make or break the film. It was Sebastian who brought Mike on board and thank God he did, because it’s brilliant work. I told Mike what we were trying to do, and he seemed to understand, but I didn’t see the makeup on Sebastian until the day before, or maybe a few days before we were shooting. I just sort of trusted it would work out, and fortunately, it did.
With so many things in this movie, with all the films, it’s been like, “I hope this works out. We don’t have time to think about it.” There’s always pieces that have to come together, and one thing could just make the whole thing fall apart. For the most part, I’ve just been very lucky.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024).
NOTEBOOK: You mentioned Christine Vachon, which reminds me: I loved the score, and I found it really evocative of the score for May December [2023]. There’s also a pointed use of zooms in both films. Is there some connection there?
SCHIMBERG: No relation; May December was actually shot a few months after. I met Umberto [Smerilli] many years ago, and I knew he was a great composer—he’s only done Italian films up to this point, this is his first American film—but I was a little afraid to work with him. By this point he was a friend, and I didn’t want to threaten that friendship, because the relationship between composer and director can sometimes be contentious. But in fact, hiring him was one of the best decisions I ever made. Not only is his score absolutely brilliant, but we worked together so well. Even last night, I was saying, “Don’t ever abandon me, Umberto.”
NOTEBOOK: Let the record show you got the jump on Todd Haynes there. To wrap up, I wanted to return to the idea of disfigurement and disability representation. Those kinds of performances by able-bodied actors often have an Oscar bait-y element to them; the transformation of a conventionally beautiful star gets fetishized in this particular way. I think this film has a really complicated relationship to that idea, but I only saw it yesterday. So I’m still processing, but I wondered if you had some more collected thoughts on the subject.
SCHIMBERG: I wasn’t really thinking about Oscar bait specifically, but of course, that is another trope of the disability film. What happened was, it’s always been my natural instinct to cast people with disfigurements as characters with disfigurements. I’ve historically done that since Go Down Death [2013]; I never thought about doing it any other way. But there were some criticisms—not a lot, but as you know, I take criticism to heart—with Chained for Life, that just by having Adam in the film, it was exploitative.
NOTEBOOK: I mean, that probably says more about the person writing than it does about the film.
SCHIMBERG: Yeah, but you know, it’s a bind—because on one hand, to cast an able-bodied person as a disabled person goes against everything in the discussions about representation that have been happening. But then, if you can’t cast people who actually have disfigurements either, what does that mean? It seems to mean we just don’t want to deal with this issue. And essentially, I thought, okay, well, I’ll try both. I’ll have a Hollywood actor in makeup and I’ll have Adam Pearson, and I’ll have them go to war, both as characters but also as separate ideas.