Stan stars in ‘The Apprentice,’ which follows the Republican presidential nominee during the early days of his career
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Sebastian Stan is suggesting moviegoers “dig deeper” when it comes to Donald Trump.
The 42-year-old actor, who plays Trump in his new film The Apprentice, was recently asked by The Hollywood Reporter whether he thought his portrayal of the Republican presidential nominee might sway voters ahead of the November elections.
“I don’t know,” Stan told the outlet. “But what I do hope is that people, regardless of their opinion, are curious enough to try to dig deeper. Because I think we’re living in a world where it’s so easy to be handed an opinion everywhere you turn.”
He continued, “And I know a lot of people love social media, and that’s where they go for information and for things. You’re being told what to think. You’re being told what to do.”
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The actor went on to say that he hoped people would make their own judgment calls after doing their own research into Trump and the kind of man that he is — something which he hoped his new movie helped encourage.
“If you have any inkling of interest, go and really ask yourself: ‘Who is this man? Do you really know? Do you really trust this person to lead a country?,’” Stan said.
“He’s been trying to censor this movie, and at the same time, he claims that he acknowledges free speech … I can’t think of anything more hypocritical,” he added. “So at the end of the day, it’s about him as a character. Forget the politics and just go in there and use your instinct and ask yourself: Do you trust this man? That’s what the movie is about.”
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Stan was referring to Trump’s campaign issuing a statement after the film’s premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May, saying that they planned to file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.” The film notably includes several controversial moments, including a scene in which Stan’s Trump character is shown raping then-wife Ivana.
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store. It belongs in a dumpster fire.”
In response to the threat of legal action, the film’s director Ali Abbasi, 43, appeared unconcerned at a festival press conference for the film on May 21, saying, “I mean, everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate, though, you know?”
The Apprentice film team also launched a Kickstarter campaign last month to raise money for distribution efforts. They reached their $100,000 fundraising goal in less than 12 hours.
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“Wow we crushed our kickstarter target in one day! Apparently people DO want to see #TheApprentice in cinemas,” Abbasi wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
According to a synopsis of the film, The Apprentice follows “a young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today.” The movie also stars Succession actor Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Bodies Bodies Bodies actress Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump.
The Apprentice is out in theaters.