Offscreen Central is horrified by the fires devastating Southern California. As much of our team is based in LA, it is hard for us to go on business as usual. If you are in any of the impacted areas, please stay and stay up to date with precautions needed in your area. The Watch Duty app is a great resource for mapping evacuation updates and orders. The DSA have put together an emergency resource guide for those in the Los Angeles county. The guide includes where to track evacuation warnings, nearby shelter locations and essentials for survival kits.

While we will be dropping work again after a short break, we are hoping to highlight someone in need with each piece dropped. Chloe and Owen lost everything due to the Eaton Canyon Fire. If you can make a small donation, here is their GoFundMe.

A Different Man star Adam Pearson, known for his previous acting work in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, should be recognized for Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Academy Awards. 

The film starts with Edward (Sebastian Stan), an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis, choosing to undergo a drug trial that he hopes will mend his self-esteem by curing him. The experiment works, allowing Edward to now go about the world with a new face, a successful real estate career, and a new name: Guy Moratz. His old life as Edward is dead and gone. 

When Edward feels settled into his new identity as Guy, Pearson enters as Oswald and perfectly shakes up the movie’s second half. As a character, Oswald is an energetic presence, propelled by Pearson’s real-life friendly accent that makes him stand out in the American flick. 

“Back at home, I’m just a bloke,” he comments at one point. “No one pays any attention to me.” 

Although Oswald misses the audition for the play, he still manages to weave his way into the production, dazzling with casual conversation about his jiu-jitsu practice or what he was reading — fittingly, Ingrid’s (Renate Reinsve) favorite book. He can juggle. He can yodel. However, even with Oswald’s charming nature, there’s also a darkness that Pearson manages to tap into as he and Stan continue the dynamic of their characters.

The little cracks in the surface start to show, like when Oswald and Edward go on a walk together, only to encounter a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Pearson’s menacing laugh is heard in the background as Edward remembers how he thought of presidential shooters from Oswald’s name the night before. “A disgruntled actor killed Lincoln,” after all. 

Oswald seems positive on the surface, but his increased presence leads to him replacing Edward in the play’s title role. With each new moment, Oswald continues to take over the aspects of Edward’s life that he threw away. He is confident, carefree, and enjoying all that life has to offer, but also has a detrimental effect on Edward without even recognizing it. By the film’s end, it feels like a brilliant folded puzzle, with so much left to unpack. 

Shockingly, Edward dives deeper into madness, culminating in a jaw-dropping explicit finale — one I tried to shield while watching on a long-haul flight. The film maintains the question: Who is the disgruntled actor? And who is Lincoln? 

While Stan won a Golden Globe for Best Male Actor in Musical or Comedy, the awards show seemingly did not invite Pearson to the event, especially since he has a supporting role. Stan still honored him and director Aaron Schimberg during the winning speech and called for disability advocacy, as Pearson has neurofibromatosis type one.  

However, it still feels unacceptable that the event could include two of the “viral lookalike competition” winners, as one example, but not the actual supporting actor of a winning film—which would not exist without Pearson. 

Despite this, Pearson has picked up an Outstanding Supporting Performance nomination at the Gotham Awards, was runner-up for Best Supporting Performance by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and is nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards — among other accolades. Here is hoping that this will guide him to the Oscars.

A Different Man is currently available on demand and will be streaming on Max on January 17th.
You can find our review of the film here.