NO CHOICE BUT TO STAN

To keep up with the Chrises, Sebastian Stan upgraded his diet, training and whole way of looking at the world. Now he’s starring in his own new Marvel series – and 2020 is shaping up to be his best year ever

- LAUREN LARSON

THE COFFEE-SHOP STAFF are having a silent meltdown. The peppermint tea I ordered was forgotten as soon as Sebastian Stan walked in. He orders a coffee, receives it instantly, and goes to put it down on a table. The lid isn’t fully on, and the coffee spills. It’s almost a “stars are just like us” moment, but then a barista suddenly materializes with a paper towel in his outstretched palm. “It’s wet,” he says eagerly.

Stan, 37, is wearing black shorts, a black T-shirt, mid-calf black socks and a grey hoodie missing its drawstring. He looks very off-duty SoHo, which he is: he’s back home in New York City on furlough from preparations for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, an extravagant collaboration between Marvel and newborn streaming service Disney+.

He’s also wearing a blue baseball cap, which sits slightly higher on his head than it might on the head of someone with less va-va-voom hair. That hair sent the Internet into a tizzy recently, when a poster for Falcon showed Stan with a short cut. In the past when Stan has played the Winter Soldier (né Bucky Barnes), he’s had shoulder-length hair. Next to his forehead, which is giant – the White Cliffs of Dover of foreheads – the longer style made him look very sinister.

Stan is somewhat less recognizable in street clothes, but women still side-eye him on their way to the bathroom.

Maybe they recognize him; or maybe he’s just a little too strapping not to be famous.