Although Donald Trump trashed The Apprentice, the star of the newly released biopic says he “should be grateful” the film depicts him in a “complex, three-dimensional” way.
Sebastian Stan, who stars as the rising real estate tycoon during the 1970s and ’80s, doesn’t think the controversial project is the hit piece the former president called “a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job.”
Trump admonished the film in a Truth Social post on Sunday, two days after its limited theatrical release — suggesting it was strategically dropped “right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country.”
Describing it was “an origin story,” Stan countered the criticism, explaining to the BBC: “The movie is about how Trump was made, in a way, how he became who he is today, his moral, philosophical, political framework, and a lot of that originates in Roy Cohn.”
Directed by Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice also stars Emmy winner Jeremy Strong in an award-caliber turn as Cohn, the future president’s powerful and polarizing political fixer.
Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova portrays Trump’s first wife, Ivana — who claimed in her 1990 divorce deposition that he once raped her during their marriage. That alleged incident is dramatized in The Apprentice.
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Trump made scathing comments about the film on social media.
“So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us,” the Republican presidential candidate ranted.
“We live in this [hyper-polarized] world where we see things in terms of heroes and villains, but the world isn’t really like that,” Stan said in response. “And neither of us were interested in simply vilifying or [demonizing] these people. Your job as an actor is to leave your [judgment] at the door.”
The Marvel superhero movie heartthrob concluded: “I think [Trump] should be grateful, to be honest. We have pretty much handed him, I think, a very complex, three-dimensional take on his life, and I can’t recall anybody else doing that.”
The film, which only grossed $1.6 million on its opening weekend, premiered at the London Film Festival on Tuesday and is scheduled for release in the UK on Friday.
Despite the somewhat disappointing results, distributors of the movie say they expect it to gain steam in the coming weeks.
“Former President Trump engaging with the film can only help us,” Briarcliff Entertainment chief Tom Ortenberg told Deadline on Monday. “Exit polling is not exactly the best science, but what doesn’t lie is box office trajectory, real numbers. … And we had easily the best Friday, Saturday, Sunday trajectory of any of the other opening movies, which tells us that the movie is connecting.”
–Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News (TNS)
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