Sebastian Stan Reveals the Iconic Clint Eastwood Character That Inspired His Performance in ‘Avengers: Doomsday'

Published 10/06/2026, 2:41 AM EDT

via Imago

Bucky Barnes has been frozen, brainwashed, rescued and rehabilitated, so it's hardly a surprise that he's emerged as the group's resident curmudgeon. Ahead of Avengers: Doomsday, Sebastian Stan says he looked around at his new castmates and realized he was the Clint Eastwood of the bunch.

As for which Clint Eastwood character he was referring to, Sebastian Stan has a very specific one in mind.

Sebastian Stan brings Clint Eastwood to the set of Avengers: Doomsday?

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That Avengers: Doomsday is keeping the secrecy quotient very high is now a fact that everyone from Florence Pugh to Alan Cumming has given their two cents and five complaints about. While Sebastian Stan does not add to it, he revealed that, amid the secrecy and new dynamics, he came up with a comparison between his character and Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven, where Eastwood plays William Munny, a retired gunslinger.

"I think I am like Clint Eastwood in this group," Stan said while speaking on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast.

Credits: Marvel Studios

According to Stan's statement to Josh Horowitz, he thought of himself as the older bitter guy in the group, helping him get a grasp of the kind of humor he brings to the table as well. Given that Bucky was born in 1917, making him decades older than most of his teammates, the comparison fits.

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If Bucky is the old gunslinger of this crew, the bigger question is who is riding alongside him, and what they are riding into.

Everything we know about Avengers: Doomsday

A fact that almost anyone who remotely knows about cinema, unless Doctor Doom has got them under their cloak, is that the threat in Avengers: Doomsday will be Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr. It brings together the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the New Avengers (the former Thunderbolts), and a returning group of X-Men to defeat the evidently powerful Doom.

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HOLLYWOOD, CA - APRIL 23: Kevin Feige, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, at the Marvel Studios? Avengers: Endgame Cast Handprint Ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX in Hollywood, California on April 23, 2019. Copyright: xFayexSadoux

With the long-cooking plot being strong enough for audiences to inch closer, Marvel, known for its ensemble cast resembling the starry nights, has brought its best bets in the form of Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Pedro Pascal, and Vanessa Kirby, alongside Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler, to the screens. Whatever the old gunslinger is riding into, we'll see it in cinemas on December 18, 2026.

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What do you think about Sebastian Stan drawing inspiration from Clint Eastwood for Bucky? Let us know in the comments.

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Aliza Siddiqui

2024 articles

Aliza Siddiqui is an Entertainment Journalist and Primary Editor at Netflix Junkie. With over a thousand articles previously published at Otakukart, she brings a seasoned voice to pop culture storytelling—infused with her signature wit and editorial finesse. Her passion for cinema sparked with Anne Hathaway’s Princess Diaries and deepened through films like Don't Look Up and The Dictator, which shaped her appreciation for satire and subtext.

Edited By: Itti Mahajan

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