TradeEdge Exchange:'Different Man' star Adam Pearson once felt 'undesirable.' Now, 'I'm undisputable.'

NEW YORK – Adam Pearson is TradeEdge Exchangea real man about town.

After shooting “A Different Man” around Brooklyn and Manhattan in 2022, the British actor is back in the city promoting his absurdist new dark comedy. In his spare time, he’s doing “all the touristy things”: getting rocky road cookies at Levain Bakery (“phenomenal”) and going to the “Friends” museum (“My friend wants a Central Perk sign”).

“I’m going to a cat café tomorrow called Meow Parlour,” he says, sipping a Coke at a hotel restaurant. “I’ve never felt more like a child in my life.”

With “A Different Man” (in theaters now), Pearson, 39, is finally getting his movie-star moment. The film follows Edward (Sebastian Stan), a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis (NF), who undergoes experimental surgery to get rid of the rampant tumors growing on his face. But even with them gone, he still lacks the easy charisma of Oswald (Pearson), an affable hotshot with the same medical condition.

Join our Watch Party!Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

The film ingeniously riffs on confidence, self-love, and inner beauty. While Edward chooses to be envious and lonely, Oswald is a hit with the ladies and the most popular guy at karaoke night. (Although Oswald covers R&B group Rose Royce, Pearson is partial to metal bands like Downstait and System of a Down.)

The scintillating Oswald was written specifically for Pearson by director Aaron Schimberg, after working together on the 2019 drama “Chained for Life.” He’s typically been offered shy, reclusive characters, but “I’m nothing like that in real life,” Pearson says. “I got to come to this role and show some range as an actor. Now, one way or another, somebody’s gotta give me my flowers!”  

Adam Pearson believes that 'people fear what they don't know'

Pearson was 5 when he was diagnosed with NF type 1, a rare genetic disorder that causes benign tumors to grow on his face. (Despite nearly 40 surgeries to remove the bumps, they continue to come back.) Growing up in a working-class neighborhood of London, Pearson was bullied constantly by kids at school, and teachers rarely stepped in to help him.

“I handled it so badly for a while,” he recalls. “ ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’ It sounds cute, but it’s a complete fallacy. I was a lot smarter than the kids bullying me, so I’d just wind up blowing up at them.” He grew up watching a lot of British comedy, and had a razor-sharp wit from an early age: “So if they said something that was a 3 on the playground Richter scale, I’d take it to an 8.”

In hindsight, he would’ve handled things differently. “You defend yourself, but in doing so, you sell yourself short. You become the worst person in the world,” Pearson says. “If I could talk to my younger self, I’d both give myself a slap and reassure myself that it’s going really good in 2024, so just hang in there.”

Pearson now works with the U.K.-based charity Changing Faces, going to schools and helping educate kids about facial disfigurements and visible differences. He says there was no one turning point when he decided to embrace his condition. Rather, he realized that “people fear what they don’t know,” and the only way to break stigmas are by talking about them.

“You’re allowed one good cry about anything, and then you’ve got to Taylor Swift it and shake it off,” Pearson says. “It’s not up to disabled people to fix a problem they didn’t create, but equally, who’s better equipped to fix it?”

The 'Different Man' star says he went from 'undesirable to undeniable'

Pearson always enjoyed performing as a kid, but never saw himself reflected on screen. (“I thought, ‘Is it legal for me to want to do this?’ ”) After earning a college degree in business management, he worked behind the scenes for years in TV production. One day, while casting a new series, he got an email from Changing Faces, saying that director Jonathan Glazer was looking for someone with a facial disfigurement for his new movie “Under the Skin.” He decided to submit his resume.

As fate would have it, Pearson was hit by a cab on the way to his audition and broke his leg. He immediately called Glazer to apologize, insisting he would only be 10 minutes late.

“Jonathan turns up to the scene of the crime, and was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize you did your own stunt work,’ ” Pearson recalls. “At this point, I’m high as a giraffe on morphine, and I apparently replied, ‘Do I look like I’ve got a stunt double?’ “

Glazer was instantly charmed, and cast Pearson in the 2013 sci-fi horror film alongside Scarlett Johansson. Making the movie, he remembers competing with Johansson to see who could tell the dirtiest jokes (“She’s wickedly funny”). He made up similar games with his “Different Man” co-star Renate Reinsve: Each day, they’d see who could say “good morning” in the most passive-aggressive way possible.

“We had a lot of fun together,” Reinsve says. “Adam is so hilarious and fantastic to be around. He also has a great and very entertaining collection of T-shirts.” (Today, he’s wearing a “Mighty Ducks” film tee.)

Next up, he’d love to make a comedy with Adam Sandler. And after years of telling people that he only did “some acting,” he’s finally ready now to “say that I’m an actor first.”

“I’m over the imposter syndrome of it all,” Pearson says with a smile. “The whole ‘why am I here’ thing? I’m here because I’m damn good at my job. I went from being undesirable to undeniable – and now, I’m undisputable.”