“All I can do is be true to my own experience and what I feel is ethical and right in the stories I want to undertake. It’s not up to me to correct the history of disability representation.”
“He showed me that the avant-garde could be not only accessible but more exhilarating than the so-called mainstream, that following your own path and being uncompromising is not only viable but preferable.”
Those were Aaron Schimberg’s words about beloved filmmaker David Lynch, who passed away the day before we spoke. Lynch’s influence on American cinema is vast, and while Schimberg doesn’t claim direct references (“It would be foolish; I can’t live up to that.”), it has bled into his work via osmosis. A Different Man, Schimberg’s third film, follows an actor with neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental treatment that cures his condition, only for him to star in an off-Broadway play inspired by his life. Mike Marino, the makeup designer who designed the prosthetics, claims Lynch’s The Elephant Man as the inspiration for his entrance into the film industry.
Lynch – specifically Schimberg’s assessment of his legacy – also offers a window into Schimberg’s approach to cinema, currently represented by A Different Man. The film, starring Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson, and Renate Reinsve, premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival to glowing reviews and has garnered steady acclaim throughout 2024. Stan’s performance was recognized with the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy, and the film won the Gotham Award for Best Feature, shocking awards watchers.
For all its acclaim, A Different Man is an intensely personal story for Schimberg. The filmmaker was born with a cleft palate, a disfigurement that left him grappling with similar emotional and psychological challenges facing his protagonist Edward Lemuel, played by Stan. “[The film] is my own personal expression of dealing with my own issues, with how having a disfigurement has affected me and influenced my identity,” Schimberg said. “I feel like it completely defined me in often negative ways.”
One such way, which also shapes the film and how Edward sees the world, is the internalization of people’s perceptions of someone with a disability, whether they are real or imagined. “We worry so much about what others think that I almost feel I can read their minds,” Schimberg explained. “The film is doing that; it’s assuming what the viewer is thinking and then adding more complicating factors or elements to shift their perspectives a little bit, only to open up new avenues for contemplation, not to give any specific answers. The whole structure of the film is designed to make people reflective.”
Opaque assumptions and perceptions drive Schimberg’s script and direction. While he claims some ownership of Edward’s point of view because of their similar experiences with disabilities, Schimberg separates himself from the interiorities of his other characters.
“It’s a mandate of mine that when I’m writing a script, I really don’t know what my characters are thinking,” Schimberg said. “I’m giving them dialogue, and I can assume what they’re thinking, but I don’t know. I think it adds a certain ambiguity to my films because [they are] about how we don’t know what other people are thinking. I do think having a disfigurement influenced this part of my scriptwriting. It’s always wondering what people really think of you, what motivates them, and not being able to know. My scripts come out of having to constantly spend time worrying about that.”
One character whose rife with ambiguities is Ingrid (Reinsve), Edward’s next-door neighbor and a budding playwright who develops the play based on his life. “I have to wonder, what does Ingrid really think of Edward? What does she think of Oswald? We don’t know. I [also] want to give Renate the power to keep those secrets to herself. I can influence how she’s behaving, but I can’t necessarily influence what motivates that behavior. It’s a tricky line.”
One great example of Ingrid’s shrouded motivations is when, in the middle of sex with Edward, she asks him to wear the 3D-printed mask given to him before his medical treatment, which he uses to audition as the lead in her play successfully. When he returns with the mask and climbs back on top of her, she laughs, calling Edward, the mask, the entire situation, or all of the above “ridiculous.” It is one of the shortest scenes in the script, and he initially hadn’t expected it to carry much weight. “When we got into the room and it was happening, I thought, ‘Holy shit, this scene is really heavy.’ I was really surprised by it.” The surprise comes from Schimberg’s deliberate ambiguity: neither he, Edward, nor the audience know why Ingrid is laughing. It allows our imaginations to run rampant and assume the worst.
Schimberg cites another scene that surprised him with its effectiveness: the karaoke scene. Edward and Ingrid’s rehearsals are interrupted by the random appearance of Oswald (Pearson), a man with Edward’s same condition. He immediately draws everyone’s attention but, unlike Edward, carries himself with a sparkling disposition that appears to override people’s perception of his disfigurement. That comes into sharp focus when Edward watches Oswald perform on stage at a local bar, mesmerizing the audience and leaving Edward reeling at what Oswald’s attention-grabbing charisma means to the life Edward has chosen to live up to that point.
“That scene came out of me being too self-conscious to do karaoke,” Schimberg recalled. “I would watch other people do it, and I think if I go up there, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. It was so terrifying to me. So the idea of somebody else who maybe had a cleft palate like me going up there and not giving a shit, what would that do to my sense of self?”
Besides seeing Oswald perform confidently, Edward also watches how the audience responds, hoping they will confirm his negative perceptions. “He’s looking for some cues,” Schimberg explained. “Do people actually like Oswald, or are they laughing or feeling pity for him? He can’t comprehend it. At the end of the scene, he looks over to the two girls, one of whom is Oswald’s friend, and they’re laughing hysterically. In the script, it says that Edward finds comfort in their laughter. It’s like he needs it, but again, we don’t know what they’re laughing at, whether they’re laughing at Oswald or whether they’re laughing at some jokes they’re telling amongst themselves that have nothing to do with Oswald. We don’t know. But Edward thinks that they must be laughing at Oswald, as they would be laughing at him. He finds comfort in that.”
The karaoke scene culminated in what Schimberg described as Edward’s “accumulation of humiliations.” The film’s second half carries a satirical atmosphere designed to push Edward to the brink of insanity, from the repetition of visual motifs to the dizzying debates between him, Oswald, and Ingrid about the play and whether he is right for the role. “People can relate to feelings of jealousy, which blows things out of proportion. You feel like you’re in competition with them, but in fact, if that person didn’t exist, it doesn’t mean you would be in their place. So I think Edward’s seeing Oswald and reflecting on himself, which drives him a little bit crazy.” Schimberg acknowledges Stan’s ability to communicate that complexity in the scene. “We spend so long looking at Sebastian, and he says so much with his expression. I think that it gives the scene a lot of weight that maybe it wouldn’t have if he hadn’t expressed so much of what he’s been feeling through the movie with just his eyes in that scene. It made the scene have even more resonance that I don’t even know that I intended.”
Besides playing Edward, Stan was also an executive producer on A Different Man. The film was shot in 22 days in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that, while Schimberg had more resources than he was used to, the film was still made in a constricted, high-stress situation with “no room for error.” Schimberg described the shoot as “a leap of faith that it was all coming together,” with one to two takes of each scene and limited coverage. Stan’s support came through his flexible availability and access to critical resources, most notably Mike Marino.
“Mike Marino works on much bigger budget projects, and he’s also booked, working on other very high-profile projects at the time, so it was out of our league in a way,” Schimberg explained. “But Sebastian said, ‘This is the guy we have to have,’ and he made it happen, and he got Mike to do it well below his rate. And Sebastian, of course, also worked well below his rate. He was willing to go out on a limb and help in any way he could, using his connections to help us. He just believed in the project, and that alone is such a big thing from an actor like that.”
And then there is Adam Pearson, whose character Oswald is the sparkling counterpoint to Stan’s Edward and his toxic self-loathing. Pearson’s work in the film has been acclaimed, with nominations from the Gothams and the Independent Spirit Awards. Schimberg worked with Pearson in 2018’s Chained for Life and wanted to work with him again to show another side of his acting ability. “In Chained for Life, he played this shy character, and everyone assumed that’s how he is. I wanted to show off another side of him.” Pearson’s charisma and comfortability in his skin sparked what Schimberg described as an “identity crisis” that helped inform the film. “Just knowing Adam made me question, ‘Do I have to be this way? Why am I like this? Could I be living my life differently?’ Those were some of the inspirations.”
If Stan’s Edward reflects A Different Man’s exploration of internalization and assumptions, then Pearson’s Oswald is a conduit for how the film tackles representation in art. The film’s greatest tragic irony is that Edward is the perfect actor for Ingrid’s play because he has experienced every emotion that Ingrid approximates in her play script. However, because he has been cured of his neurofibromatosis and is no longer Edward, he also no longer physically represents the character. Schimberg spends the film’s second half positing whether Edward is the right man to play Ingrid’s Edward, especially upon the arrival of Oswald. It’s a stirring, even dizzying, debate that touches on multiple points of minority representation: authenticity, exploitation, ethics, hypocrisy, superficiality, and even how one’s identity shapes one’s art.
Schimberg acknowledges that there are no easy answers for what true representation looks like. His goal with this film was to address the spectrum of answers while also addressing the criticisms he received when he cast Pearson in Chained for Life. “A few people criticized the movie for being exploitative just for having Adam in it, as if he doesn’t have agency or he doesn’t know what it’s like to be perceived. I don’t agree with that criticism at all, although there are also instances where people with disabilities and disfigurements are used in exploitative ways. The criticism rattled me a little bit because it’s always been my view since I have personal experience with this that I wanted to write films about disfigurement and cast people with disfigurements.”
Schimberg continued, “If I’m going to be criticized for that, there are only two other options. One is to cast an actor in prosthetics, which has been done historically but seems to go against everything we think of in terms of representation. The other option is not to deal with the subject at all and not to represent it on screen, which sometimes I think is maybe what people really want. So one of the very ideas for this film is to do both. I’m going to have an actor with neurofibromatosis, and I’m going to have an actor playing someone with neurofibromatosis, put them in a film, and have them go to war, not only as characters but as two separate ideas.”
While he says there are no easy answers to representation, Schimberg does offer a straightforward one. “I do think that having people behind the camera is the answer. I think my own personal experience with this issue is why I was able to make this film and why nobody else has. The more people with disfigurements who are making films, the more people from any marginalized group who are making films; you’re going to find more films that represent these issues in more complex ways and with more authority. That’s one way to deal with representation: simply give more opportunities to writers, directors, and producers who have some first-hand experience and knowledge with these issues.”
Schimberg doesn’t claim to be the authoritative voice on disability and disfigurement. “I’m not making films to necessarily right the wrongs of representation,” he explained. “All I can do is be true to my own experience and what I feel is ethical and right in the stories I want to undertake. It’s not up to me to correct the history of disability representation.” There is no denying that A Different Man has shifted the calculus on how audiences regard disability and disfigurement, opening themselves to thorny questions that inspire changed perspectives and attitudes. The shift will likely continue with the film’s arrival on HBO’s MAX streaming service, smack dab in the middle of awards season, where the film has carved out a substantial space. That space and the responsibility that comes from occupying it is something Schimberg takes seriously, leading authority or not.
“I’m glad people are talking about the film,” Schimberg said. “I had some ambition that it could give a level of visibility to the subject, which has historically been ignored. I feel that I’m expressing things in this film about disability and disfigurement — aspects of my personal experience — which I’ve never seen expressed cinematically before. So I hope that it could have some tangible effect. I do feel that this subject is a difficult sell for people [but] I do want to change how disfigurement is viewed, or at least it’s a goal of mine to give people a window into what it is like. It’s not a morality tale. I’m not trying to tell people how to think. I’m just trying to give them some things to contemplate and show them an alternate point of view.”
Returning to Lynch, his extraordinary influence is reflected in Schimberg’s own uncompromising vision, trained specifically on conceiving and exploring disability on screen. He finds value in the tough questions and the complex conversations borne from them, even if there are no easy, conclusive answers. It is a powerful confirmation of Lynch’s indelible mark on the art form and that his legacy will continue through the lenses of filmmakers like Schimberg, who keep us questioning the world’s endless possibilities.
A Different Man is currently available to stream on MAX.
The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards has added to its formidable creative team, naming celebrated chef David… Read More
I haven't delved much into the last few weeks of Oscar drama regarding Oscar-nominated actress… Read More
Shōgun and Arcane Season 2 win for Episodic The Advanced Imaging Society has announced the winners of… Read More
The Costume Designers Guild Awards (CDGA), which honor achievements of excellence in Costume Design in… Read More
Boy Swallows Universe wins big for Australian television Boy Swallows Universe, Furiosa: A Mad Max… Read More
Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt… Read More
This website uses cookies.