NEW YORK – Adam Pearson is an actual man about city.
After taking pictures “A Different Man” round Brooklyn and Manhattan in 2022, the British actor is again within the metropolis selling his absurdist new darkish comedy. In his spare time, he’s doing “all the touristy things”: getting rocky street cookies at Levain Bakery (“phenomenal”) and going to the “Friends” museum (“My friend wants a Central Perk sign”).
“I’m going to a cat café tomorrow called Meow Parlour,” he says, sipping a Coke at a resort restaurant. “I’ve never felt more like a child in my life.”
With “A Different Man” (in theaters now), Pearson, 39, is lastly getting his movie-star second. The movie follows Edward (Sebastian Stan), a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis (NF), who undergoes experimental surgical procedure to eliminate the rampant tumors rising on his face. But even with them gone, he nonetheless lacks the simple charisma of Oswald (Pearson), an affable hotshot with the identical medical situation.
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The movie ingeniously riffs on confidence, self-love, and interior magnificence. While Edward chooses to be envious and lonely, Oswald is a success with the women and the most well-liked man at karaoke night time. (Although Oswald covers R&B group Rose Royce, Pearson is partial to metallic bands like Downstait and System of a Down.)
The scintillating Oswald was written particularly for Pearson by director Aaron Schimberg, after working collectively on the 2019 drama “Chained for Life.” He’s usually been supplied shy, reclusive characters, however “I’m nothing like that in real life,” Pearson says. “I got to come to this role and show some range as an actor. Now, one way or another, somebody’s gotta give me my flowers!”
Adam Pearson believes that ‘individuals worry what they do not know'
Pearson was 5 when he was recognized with NF kind 1, a uncommon genetic dysfunction that causes benign tumors to develop on his face. (Despite practically 40 surgical procedures to take away the bumps, they proceed to come again.) Growing up in a working-class neighborhood of London, Pearson was bullied consistently by youngsters in school, and academics hardly ever stepped in to assist him.
“I handled it so badly for a while,” he recollects. “ ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’ It sounds cute, but it’s a complete fallacy. I was a lot smarter than the kids bullying me, so I’d just wind up blowing up at them.” He grew up watching a number of British comedy, and had a razor-sharp wit from an early age: “So if they said something that was a 3 on the playground Richter scale, I’d take it to an 8.”
In hindsight, he would’ve dealt with issues otherwise. “You defend yourself, but in doing so, you sell yourself short. You become the worst person in the world,” Pearson says. “If I could talk to my younger self, I’d both give myself a slap and reassure myself that it’s going really good in 2024, so just hang in there.”
Pearson now works with the U.Okay.-based charity Changing Faces, going to faculties and serving to educate youngsters about facial disfigurements and seen variations. He says there was nobody turning level when he determined to embrace his situation. Rather, he realized that “people fear what they don’t know,” and the one manner to break stigmas are by speaking about them.
“You’re allowed one good cry about anything, and then you’ve got to Taylor Swift it and shake it off,” Pearson says. “It’s not up to disabled people to fix a problem they didn’t create, but equally, who’s better equipped to fix it?”
The ‘Different Man' star says he went from ‘undesirable to plain'
Pearson all the time loved performing as a child, however by no means noticed himself mirrored on display screen. (“I thought, ‘Is it legal for me to want to do this?’ ”) After incomes a university diploma in enterprise administration, he labored behind the scenes for years in TV manufacturing. One day, whereas casting a brand new collection, he bought an e-mail from Changing Faces, saying that director Jonathan Glazer was searching for somebody with a facial disfigurement for his new film “Under the Skin.” He determined to submit his resume.
As destiny would have it, Pearson was hit by a cab on the best way to his audition and broke his leg. He instantly referred to as Glazer to apologize, insisting he would solely be 10 minutes late.
“Jonathan turns up to the scene of the crime, and was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize you did your own stunt work,’ ” Pearson recollects. “At this point, I’m high as a giraffe on morphine, and I apparently replied, ‘Do I look like I’ve got a stunt double?’ “
Glazer was instantly charmed, and cast Pearson in the 2013 sci-fi horror film alongside Scarlett Johansson. Making the movie, he remembers competing with Johansson to see who could tell the dirtiest jokes (“She’s wickedly funny”). He made up comparable video games with his “Different Man” co-star Renate Reinsve: Each day, they’d see who may say “good morning” in probably the most passive-aggressive manner doable.
“We had a lot of fun together,” Reinsve says. “Adam is so hilarious and fantastic to be around. He also has a great and very entertaining collection of T-shirts.” (Today, he’s carrying a “Mighty Ducks” movie tee.)
Next up, he’d love to make a comedy with Adam Sandler. And after years of telling people who he solely did “some acting,” he’s lastly prepared now to “say that I’m an actor first.”
“I’m over the imposter syndrome of it all,” Pearson says with a smile. “The whole ‘why am I here’ thing? I’m here because I’m damn good at my job. I went from being undesirable to undeniable – and now, I’m undisputable.”
