They made a movie about Trump. Then no one would release 'The Apprentice'

NEW YORK — Hard as it may be to believe, there aren’t a lot of Hollywood agents clamoring for their star clients to take the role of one of the most polarizing political figures of the 21st century.

Film-Fall Preview — Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan in a scene from the film "The Apprentice."
Pief Weyman, Briarcliff Entertainment

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 happen because of me,” Stan says. “It’s not going to not happen because I’m scared.”

By a landslide, “The Apprentice” is the most controversial movie of the fall. It stars Stan as a young Trump playing apprentice to the attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) while trying to make a name for himself in 1980s New York real estate. Already, “The Apprentice” has had one of the most tortured paths to movie theaters of any 2024 release.

After its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, all the major studios and top specialty 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 and a Trump supporter — wanted to exit the movie.

Only last week, Briarcliff Entertainment announced that it will open “The Apprentice” on Oct. 11, just weeks before Election Day. And it’s still fighting for more screens. On Tuesday, the filmmakers took 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 reelection campaign vigorously opposed the movie. After its Cannes debut, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the film “pure fiction.” On Friday, 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 Nov. 5 will be one of the most notable storylines at the movies this fall. While many Hollywood stars are vocal supporters of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, it’s 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’s not trying to tell anyone how to vote.

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Filled with more one-liners than a volume of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, it’s like a CliffNotes look at an important time in American history.

“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,” says Abbasi. “What you do with that knowledge is up to you. But that knowledge might come in handy if you want to go and vote.”

To Abbasi, grappling with contemporary politics is his responsibility as a filmmaker. As ubiquitous as Trump is, Abbasi argues there have been paltry attempts to really understand the former president.

“With Donald and 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.”

“For me, the best comp for him is Barry Lyndon,” Abbasi adds, referencing the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. “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” found a mixed reception from critics at Cannes, though Stan and Strong were widely praised. The movie notably includes a scene in which Trump, 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 didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.

But, Abbasi maintains, “The Apprentice” is not a hit job. He 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 Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the 1954 communist hearings.

“I don’t think any of us are above it. I don’t think any of us are born perfect people or we’re not morally compromised,” says Stan. “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.”