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Associated Press

Hard as it may be to believe, there are not a lot of Hollywood agents clamouring for their star clients to take the role of one of the most polarising political figures of the 21st century.
Marvel actor Sebastian Stan, though, was committed to The Apprentice. More than anything, he believed in its director, the Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi. And, even though it made him nervous – or maybe because it made it him nervous – he wanted to do it.
He wanted to play Donald Trump.
“There wasn’t a lot of competition,” Stan says, chuckling.
“It was one of those things I thought: if this isn’t going to happen, it’s not going to [be] because of me. It’s not going to not happen because I’m scared.”


The Apprentice is easily the most controversial movie of the autumn. It stars Stan as a young Trump playing apprentice to the lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) while trying to make a name for himself in 1980s New York real estate.
Already, the film has had one of the most tortured paths to cinemas of any 2024 release.
After its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May, all the major studios and top speciality labels passed on making an offer.
One potential issue was a cease and desist letter from Trump’s legal team. Another was that one of the movie’s investors – Dan Snyder, the former owner of the Washington Commanders American football team and a Trump supporter – wanted to exit the movie.
Only last week, Briarcliff Entertainment announced that it would open The Apprentice on October 11, just weeks before the US presidential election. It is still fighting for more screens. The filmmakers have taken the unusual step of launching a Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign to raise money for its release.
“This project has been pretty crazy, from beginning to the end,” Abbasi says. “It’s still not completely there. It’s going to get more crazy, maybe.”

Trump’s re-election campaign has vigorously opposed the movie. After its Cannes debut, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the film “pure fiction”. After its release date was confirmed, Cheung declared it “election interference by Hollywood elites”.
What role, if any, The Apprentice might play in the lead-up to the November 5 election will be one of the most notable movie storylines this autumn.
While many Hollywood stars are vocal supporters of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, it is far rarer that plainly political films squeak through today’s sequel- and superhero-dominated movie industry.
That makes for a unique election-year test case. Will liberals want to see a film about Trump? Will conservatives turn out for a film Trump opposes?
Abbasi, whose previous film Holy Spider turned a questioning eye on Iranian society through the story of a serial killer targeting women, says he is not trying to tell anyone how to vote.
“Do I want to show you some stuff about character? Yes, I would very much love that and I think we have some great stuff to show,” he says.
“What you do with that knowledge is up to you. But that knowledge might come in handy if you want to go and vote.”
[The movie] was almost effectively banned, and I find that, alone, very frightening and a harbinger of dark things
Jeremy Strong
To Abbasi, grappling with contemporary politics is his responsibility as a filmmaker. As ubiquitous as Trump is, Abbasi argues attempts to really understand the former president have been paltry.
“With Donald and [his first wife] Ivana, they’ve never really been treated as human beings,” Abbasi says. “They’re either treated badly or extremely good – it’s like this mythological thing.
“The only way if you want to break that myth is to deconstruct it. I think a humanistic view is the best way you can deconstruct that myth.”
He likens Trump to Barry Lyndon, the main character in the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, about an Irishman attempting to become a member of the English aristocracy.
“When you think about Barry Lyndon, you don’t think about that guy as being a bad guy or a good guy. He has this ambivalence and this uncanny ability to navigate.
“He wants to be somebody. He doesn’t really know what or why. He just sort of wants to ascend.”
The Apprentice had a mixed reception from critics at Cannes, although Stan and Strong were widely praised. The movie notably includes a scene in which Trump, as played by Stan, rapes Ivana (played by Maria Bakalova).
In Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, she stated that Trump raped her. Trump denied the allegation and Ivana Trump later said she did not mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.

But, Abbasi maintains, The Apprentice is not a hit job. He has insisted that Trump himself might like the movie. At the same time, some critics have questioned whether The Apprentice shows too much empathy to Trump and Cohn, who was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the 1954 US Senate hearings about communists in America.
“I don’t think any of us are above it,” Stan says. “I don’t think any of us are born perfect people or we’re not morally compromised. It’s really, really much muddier and trickier than that, life is.
“I think the only way we can learn is through empathy. I think we have to protect empathy and continue to nourish it. And I think one way of nourishing empathy is showing what its exact opposite can be.”
Stan, who plays Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) in Marvel movies, was drawn to the film partly because Abbasi, who is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, brought a European perspective. It is something that Stan, who was born in Romania and emigrated to the New York area with his mother at age 12, partly shares.
He views the film as an origin story for a “win at all costs” ideology.

Strong is renowned for staying in character. (Abbasi recalls sometimes being confused by Strong’s demeanour on set before he realised he was still Roy Cohn.) But Stan also, unwittingly, dabbled in such immersion. He points to his diet, including one scene in which he repeatedly ate cheeseballs.
“I must have had, like, 25 to 30 cheeseballs that night,” Stan says. “The next morning I woke up and, I’m sorry to say, but I was on the toilet at 6.30 in the morning before I was getting picked up. And I was in such pain. I couldn’t leave that toilet.
“It was like: yeah, I guess this is method acting.”
When the fate of The Apprentice seemed uncertain, Abbasi was in disbelief. He felt he had made an edgy film, but an entertaining one.
“I always thought of the United States, yes, it’s not a perfect place. But one thing was always repeated to me: this is the land of the free. This is the land of freedom of speech. You can say what you want here,” he says.
“That’s not what I’ve been met with. I’ve been met with sheer business calculations.”

Strong echoes those sentiments.
“It was almost effectively banned, and I find that, alone, very frightening and a harbinger of dark things,” he says. “But first and foremost, it’s a movie. It’s not a political act or a political event. It’s a movie.”
Ultimately, all three of them just want people to see The Apprentice – if possible – with an open mind.
“We’re in a very black-and-white mentality right now, and I went into this movie knowing that,” Stan says. “But let’s take the road less travelled, and maybe other people will, too.
“I think we have to look at public figures that are consequential in our times, in our lives, and we have to reflect and evaluate them.”


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Jeremy Strong, left, and Sebastian Stan in the movie âThe Apprentice.â (Cannes Film Festival/TNS)

Jeremy Strong (left) as lawyer Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in The Apprentice, directed by Ali Abbasi. The movie promises to be one of the most controversial this year. Photo: TNS

Maria Bakalova, who plays Ivana Trump, and Sebastian Stan, as Donald Trump, in a still from The Apprentice. Photo: Briarcliff Entertainment

Donald Trump and his then wife Ivana Trump stand outside the Federal Courthouse in New York after Ivana was sworn in as a United States citizen, in May 1988. Photo: AP

The Apprentice cast and crew (from left) producer Julianne Forde, producer Ruth Treacy, actor Maria Bakalova, director Ali Abbasi, actor Sebastian Stan and producer Amy Baer at the film’s premiere at Cannes on May 20, 2024. Photo: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP

Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan in a still from The Apprentice. Photo: Briarcliff Entertainment

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Director Ali Abbasi and stars Sebastian Stan – who plays Trump – and Jeremy Strong open up about the controversial movie The Apprentice


Director Ali Abbasi and stars Sebastian Stan – who plays Trump – and Jeremy Strong open up about the controversial movie The Apprentice.
