Sebastian Stan opens up about fatherhood and the responsibility of becoming a parent: ‘I want to be a good dad’

Actor Sebastian Stan has spoken candidly about fatherhood, relationships and the changing expectations placed on men, offering a personal insight into maturity, emotional openness and the responsibility he feels as he grows older.

Sebastian Stan on fatherhood and masculinity

During a recent conversation reflecting on his personal life and emotional growth, Stan revisited themes he first touched upon during his Golden Globes acceptance speech last year for A Different Man. In that speech, the actor referred to his stepfather, “who took on a single mom and a grown-up kid,” and thanked him “for being a real man.”

The comments have since become part of a broader discussion surrounding Stan’s evolving understanding of masculinity and relationships.

Speaking about the prospect of becoming a father, Stan said, “I want to be a good dad.”

He added, “I’m feeling the responsibility of being a good father. And not to mention a good man.”

Stan linked those concerns directly to his own views on fatherhood and relationships, saying he increasingly feels a responsibility to lead with empathy, patience and emotional honesty.

“I’m feeling the responsibility of being a good father,” he says. “And not to mention a good man. I’m 43 and I feel, in a lot of ways, I’m just starting to learn now. It’s just crazy to me. So, I love when I see I’m discovering different people’s point of view. I try to read as much as I can, no matter what the point of view is, just to understand it.”

Asked what being a man feels like to him now, the actor paused before offering an unexpected comparison.

“It’s funny, in the last couple years, I’ve started to identify sometimes being a man with just holding a plank for a very long, long time.”

Stan later explained that the image reflected endurance, tolerance and emotional resilience rather than traditional ideas of strength.

“Yes. Because I think it is about tolerance. And I think that’s something that we’re not teaching young men. We’re not teaching them how to tolerate discomfort, how to understand their own emotions, their own anger, their own frustrations. Nobody’s educating them on how to embrace depression, or being sad, feeling things, being weak, crying. I reconnected with my own [biological] father much later in life, but I was able to draw this inspiration of, ‘It’s OK for you to feel whatever you’re feeling.’”

Speaking further on the subject, the actor said modern ideas about manhood are facing increased scrutiny at a time when many young men are struggling to find meaningful guidance and emotional support.

“I think the question of masculinity is really under a magnifying glass at the moment,” he says. “There are way smarter people than me that have been talking about this. Jonathan Haidt, for instance, who wrote that great book The Anxious Generation, has been talking not just about boys, but little girls also, and the lack of influences outside of the phone and the technology and what that’s doing. There’s also this other great book, I think it’s called Of Boys and Men [by Richard V. Reeves]. And you really see how young men right now are suffering from a lack of true male role models. We’re having a lot of examples at the moment of very narcissistic, very aggressive, very entitled examples of being a man… It’s incredibly upsetting. It’s painful to see.”

Sebastian Stan is all set to attend the 2026 Cannes Film Festival for his film Fjord, directed by Cristian Mungiu.