Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic is set to hit theaters less than a month before Election Day on Friday, October 11. Sebastian Stan stars as Trump the businessman well before his days as U.S. president, and opposite Jeremy Strong as right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn. At the film‘s New York City premiere on Tuesday, October 8, the stars talked about the perfect timing of the project.
“It’s very fortuitous, I guess,” Stan told IndieWire. “And also, apparently it’s coming out on Fred Trump’s actual birthday, which I just learned about an hour ago. Well, maybe that’s meant to mean something.”
“I mean, we’re here on a red carpet and all the hoopla, but like, kidding aside, it feels like the highest stakes moment in the history of this country we happen to be in,” Strong told us. “We happen to have been part of a film that tells the story of Donald Trump’s apprenticeship with Roy Cohn, which in real life has sort of led to incalculable harm and destruction.”
“We don’t know what the future portends, and I think this movie has something to say about it,” Strong continued. “I think it’s essential for people in this country to see it and then make their own decisions about what kind of men these are.”
IndieWire critic David Ehrlich wrote in the review out of Cannes that “The Apprentice” begins with Trump depicted as an “insecure Manhattan nepo baby who fumbles around the city in search of his slumlord father’s non-existent affection.” Ehrlich compared the film to having “‘Godfather’-like dimensions with a fittingly vain and sociopathic riff on one of that masterpiece’s signature moments, as Abbasi intercuts Cohn’s funeral with footage of Trump going under the knife for a liposuction.”
The film also features Maria Bakalova as Ivanka Trump. She said she hesitated to join the movie but not because of the Trump story.
“I mean, it was a hesitation because she was a real person,” she said. “That was a hesitation. The last name, for me, didn’t really matter that much. The fact that she’s real and I have to portray her with respect and dignity and do my homework to get to know as much as possible about her journey, that was the hesitation. But knowing that I was going to be working with Ali, I was like, ‘I know that that’s going to be incredible.’”
Bakalova, who starred in Halina Reijn’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” also said she’s excited to see the director’s upcoming follow-up “Babygirl.”
“I haven’t seen it. I’m dying to see it. I know it’s incredible. I’ve already had people, friends of mine, that have seen it and even Rachel Sennott, everybody’s talking. It’s brilliant. I was having a conversation with somebody recently, and they couldn’t comprehend the idea that Halina managed to do both ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ and ‘Babygirl.’ [The latter] is such a Gen Z, very contemporary film, and this one apparently is something on a completely different level. So I cannot wait to see.”
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“The Apprentice” premieres October 11 in theaters.