Zach Levy (Allison Joyce)
Here’s our metropolis’ real Man of Steel.
Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun is a professional strongman from New Jersey who can perform feats that would make an Olympic weightlifter jealous — and is said to be the only known person in the world who can bend a penny in half with his bare hands.
Pleskun, who is the subject of a documentary that opens Jan. 26 at the IFC Film Center, can also bend rebar and chisels into U-shapes, lift a truck with his legs and hold back two airplanes with his arms.
“I was always into strength and weightlifting my whole life, ever since I’ve been a kid,” the South Brunswick native said. “I’ve always been fascinated with strength and power . . . but then I had to figure out what to do with it.”
The documentary, “Strongman,” follows Pleskun’s life as he performs his act in humble venues while trying to spread his message about positive thinking.
Pleskun, 53, has been performing feats of strength since 1988, when he ripped apart a racquet ball and realized that he had the power to do miracles of muscle.
“I was able to control the entrance to the doorway of inner-mind strength,” he told The Post. “That would be what I call unlimited natural strength.”
Pleskun, who works at a metal scrap yard, likes to do feats people can easily relate to, such as swinging sledgehammers by the bottom of their handles.
But his top act is folding pennies and quarters in his hands like bottle caps.
Pleskun, a vegetarian who can bench-press more than 500 pounds, said that bending coins takes a tremendous commitment.
“That took years of going up against [it] mentally. Now I pretty much can do that at will,” he said. “I like to do things way out on the edge, where your level of difficulty is at the highest.”
He said that he hoped the film, directed by New Yorker Zach Levy, will help to get his positive message out there.
“I’m very excited,” he said. “I like it because I want to shed light to the public . . . so that the kids . . . they can believe in themselves.”