Sebastian Stan started to really enter the public eye with his recurring role on Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2010, but it was just after that time when he became a global star thanks to his role as Bucky Barnes in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger. Considering he's still playing the role (including in 2025's Thunderbolts*), he's had one of the longest tenures of any MCU star.
Of course, Stan has been a part of other noteworthy projects since joining the MCU, and has proved himself as a bona fide master of his trade. In 2024, there's been A24's A Different Man and the Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, where he gives incredible performances in both. While neither film has set the box office on fire, they've scored solid reviews, with many citing Stan as a highlight. These more artistic films are a stark contrast from the blockbuster franchise work of the MCU, but despite his arthouse acclaim, Stan still regrets missing some mainstream franchise parts, as he told Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast.
The first role he mentions is Captain James Tiberius Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). It's a role that predated his turn as Bucky Barnes by two years, and ultimately went to Chris Pine. It helped make Pine an A-lister, and one imagines it could have done the same for Stan. In Stan's words:
"There were a couple of things I didn't get that I really desperately wanted. But Captain Kirk for J.J. Abrams; that was one of the first I got very close to. I remember I was really, really close, and I remember I had a screen test with [Abrams] at Paramount, and my manager had me do a separate photo shoot where I would try and replicate all these William Shatner pictures just to send to him, see how much I looked like him, but I didn't get it."
Sebastian Stan Was Almost the Green Lantern
The second role Stan missed out on was in a movie that came out the very same summer as Captain America: The First Avenger: none other than Hal Jordan in the critically-dismissed box office bomb Green Lantern. While losing the role to Ryan Reynolds may have stung at the time, at least part of him is happy about it now. After all, were he to star in that, the chances of him also being featured as Bucky Barnes in another superhero movie the same summer would be slim.
Not to mention, while Hal Jordan was the lead character in that film, and was much showier than Barnes' role in the narrative of The First Avenger, the former flick has gone on to be a cautionary tale regarding having an abundance of special effects over a focus on story and character development. Oh, and a recurring joke in the Deadpool movies. But Bucky Barnes has experienced great change and remains as prominent a presence in the MCU now as he ever was, if not more so.
"Green Lantern was another that I screen tested for. I remember getting there, and it was like me, Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto, Ryan Reynolds and maybe one other person, and I'm looking at the guys going, 'I'm f***ed! There's no way this is happening!' But you come close, and it wouldn't happen, and in a way, I gotta tell you, looking back, I'm almost glad it didn't. Because I don't know if I could have handled that level of attention like some of those guys."
The thing is, most of the attention that the movie and Reynolds himself received wasn't of the positive variety. It was the biggest bomb of the summer movie season, and at such an early stage of Stan's career, it could have had a major effect on how studios saw his ability to lead a film. So, all's well that ends well. Check out Stan's interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast below.
