“I Wanted Him to Like Me”: Paul Walter Hauser on the First Day He Met Sebastian Stan

Paul Walter Hauser and Sebastian Stan met on the set of I, Tonya in 2017 — Hauser as bodyguard Shawn Eckardt, Stan as Jeff Gillooly. In a video recorded for The Nerd Wire, Hauser told us about their first day.

It did not go the way he wanted.

The physical

“The first day we met, we had to get physicals… to make sure that we are cleared to work on the movie. It’s an insurance thing.”

They didn’t know each other. Hauser needed a ride.

“We’ve never hung out before, but we’re like, hey — he’s got a car, I don’t. Let’s ride over to the doctor together.”

The poem

On the way back, a man stopped them and read them poetry.

“We’re both humoring him and listening… thanking him for his artistry in that brief two, three minute moment.”

They had dinner plans and errands. Hauser realized what was actually being asked of him.

“I pulled cash out of my wallet, ’cause I’m realizing this guy doesn’t want us to say ‘good poetry.’ He wants a couple bucks. He’s living outside here.”

The bush

“I’m pulling out this money, and I crumpled it up and I threw it at him as if to like, hey — catch. And it landed in like a thorn bush.”

Hauser’s own description of the moment:

“It was like a scene in a Saw movie where it’s like, I have to get the key to uncuff me and my friends, but the key is in a pile of needles or something.”

And nine years later:

“I never stop thinking about how badly I felt about that guy. Hopefully he found a ten or twenty dollar bill in that bush somewhere and lived to tell about it.”

“I feel like an idiot to this day.”

The part that makes it land is what he was trying to do:

“You don’t know each other that well, and I wanna look cool in front of Sebastian. I want him to like me. And I just did the weirdest thing ever.”

The steak

The evening recovered. They went to Houston’s in Atlanta, and Stan taught him something he still uses.

“He taught me about ordering a steak Pittsburgh style, I think it’s called, where they char the outside and the inside is still like medium or medium rare. To this day I still order that once in a while. That was a Sebastian thing.”

(Pittsburgh-style is a real order — seared hard on the outside, rare within. The name is usually traced to steelworkers cooking on mill equipment.)

On Stan’s run

Hauser also spoke about watching Stan’s career from the outside:

“I’ve always known how talented he was since we worked together… I could not be happier that the world is appreciative of Sebastian Stan the way I am, and he’s getting these deserving opportunities.”

And, in the middle of it, an aside that is its own small thing:

“I love him to death.”