Sebastian Stan Will Lead a Fiery Greek Romance in ‘Monday’

The ‘I, Tonya’ actor strives for some more scenery to chew, but that could serve as a wonderful change-up in his filmography.

Sebastian Stan rose to prominence as the pretty bad boy in The Covenant and Gossip Girl before transforming into one of the core sources of angst and emotional fodder in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, he has more recently shown a welcome proclivity for playing against these more cut-and-dry types with each new onscreen opportunity. Specifically, we can now add Monday to Stan’s list of burgeoning acting challenges.

Deadline has the scoop that Stan will be headlining this new drama from Suntan director Argyris Papadimitropoulos. Denise Gough – who features opposite Keira Knightley in Colette and constantly makes waves in theater circuits – is set to co-lead Monday with Stan. Furthermore, to ensure we’re more than ready for a new romance to take the world by storm, producers behind Before Midnight, Belle, Loving, and La La Land will also lend their expertise to the project.

But not so fast. There’s more to this story than meets the eye. Set in Greece, Monday will be a love story bookended by self-destruction, as a young American couple falls into a “tsunami of a romance” across Athens and the Greek islands. That’s as much of a summary as Deadline offers, but Papadimitropoulos himself has been discerning about the film’s intensity. He tells the outlet:

“Many people don’t feel like getting involved in intense relationships anymore. And that to me is so sad. Chloe and Mickey’s story is a very honest look at one relationship, and in it there are elements everyone will recognize from their own experiences.”

The chase for pockets of intimacy is very much within Papadimitropoulos’ wheelhouse, and nothing speaks to his penchant for frightening dualities more than his most recent feature Suntan. The film follows a middle-aged man who falls into the company of a young woman, only to become woefully obsessed with her.

We’ve recommended it as one of the best summertime movies around, but not for any particularly jovial reason. Rather, Suntan presents an unnerving and confrontational degeneration of its protagonist. The situation is unflinching, uncomfortable, and filled with second-hand embarrassment. No one wears rose-colored glasses from the get-go in Suntan, but the film only spirals downwards into unapologetic darkness. There is nothing archetypal about this scorching vacation film.

This precedent set by Suntan lends a layer of dread over the prospect of Papadimitropoulos orchestrating yet another “romance,” especially one that’s billed as anything close to gritty and destructive. However, his unrelenting lens ultimately makes for unforgettable cinema, even if we feel a little sick after it all ends. Isn’t that like an actor’s catnip?

The post Sebastian Stan Will Lead a Fiery Greek Romance in ‘Monday’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.