Sebastian Stan did a Shatner cosplay photo shoot to try to land Star Trek (2009)
Stan was so hungry for the part of Captain Kirk that he did a photoshoot of himself as William Shatner and sent it to Abrams.
Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI
Say what you like about Sebastian Stan, the man is not afraid to transform himself for a role—or even a potential one. Stan’s currently doing media tours for his Donald Trump movie The Apprentice, which saw him get outfitted with multiple wigs and prosthetic guts to match Trump’s increasingly citrusified look at different periods in his life. He’s also appeared in projects like Pam & Tommy, where he did his best to embody Tommy Lee, to say nothing of the various changes he’s undergone to play Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But this dedication to the cosplay aspects of the acting career apparently goes way back, as Stan revealed to Josh Horowitz during a new installment of the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week—including a moment where Stan apparently sent J.J. Abrams a photo set of him doing his best William Shatner-as-Captain Kirk imitation in the run up to the 2009 Star Trek film.
Stan recounted the story as part of a longer meditation on breakout roles he didn’t get, noting that the Kirk part was the first one he got really close on. (He also remembers ending up in a room with Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto, and Ryan Reynolds in the fight for Green Lantern; hard to say who was “lucky” in that particular outcome.) For Trek, Stan says his agent talked him into dressing up like Shatner from some classic Star Trek stills, imitating some poses, and then sending them to Abrams in a “Eh, pretty good, huh?” kind of way.
This obviously did not work, but the upshot is a) perseverance pays off eventually, and b) that these pictures do, presumably, exist somewhere, and we should be allowed to see them, because we bet they look pretty dang goofy.