Category: Articles

Sep

News: Sebastian Stan Talks Oscar-Worthy ‘A Different Man’ and Playing Donald Trump

The Daily Beast The actor gives the performance of his career in “A Different Man.” He talks to us about the juicy new movie and the loud discourse surrounding his Trump movie “The Apprentice.”

Sebastian Stan is more than just a Marvel standout, and he proves that in phenomenal fashion with A Different Man, Aaron Schimberg’s noir-ish tale of transformation, mania, and murder.

Initially encased in facial prosthetics, Stan is extraordinary as Edward, who finds a miracle cure for his neurofibromatosis (a condition that results in disfiguring tumors), only to wind up starring in an off-Broadway play about his former life that’s written by the neighbor (Renate Reinsve) for whom he pines and which ultimately features a stranger (Adam Pearson) who looks exactly like he once did.

Charting Edward’s constantly shifting feelings about his past and present selves with agility and intensity, the actor crafts a complex portrait of desire, discomfort, confusion, and self-destruction. Like a one-man funhouse mirror, he’s a lost soul trying to lucidly see and accept himself, and Stan conveys his upheaval with equal parts poignancy, creepiness, and absurdity.

Premiering in theaters on Sept. 20, A Different Man is one of the year’s best, and further confirmation that Stan is an artist of impressive versatility. While best known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s metal-armed Winter Soldier, he’s spent his downtime from superheroics tackling a wide variety of projects, be they Craig Gillespie’s ripped-from-the-headlines I, Tonya and Pam & Tommy, Mimi Cave’s horrific thriller Fresh, or the upcoming The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi’s controversial biographical drama in which he plays a young Donald Trump.

Without much fanfare, Stan has become a bold Hollywood risk-taker, moving between blockbusters and independent productions—not to mention genres—with confidence and skill. His latest, however, is his crowning achievement to date, demonstrating not only his gift for intricate characterizations but also for comedy, which helps augment the film’s head-spinning surrealism and darkness. A performance that mutates and surprises with every whiplash plot twist, it’s a bona fide tour-de-force.

Stan isn’t done with comic-book spectaculars quite yet; Thunderbolts*, his newest Marvel assignment, arrives next summer. Nonetheless, his work in A Different Man is so tremendous that, in a just world, it would herald a future of even more daring roles. For now, however, he’s concentrating on Schimberg’s masterful feature, which he discussed with us—along with a bit about his upcoming turn as Trump—in advance of the film’s debut.
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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 20, 2024

A Different Man Articles Interviews Press

Sep

News: Sebastian Stan Talks Career Interests And His ‘A Different Man’ Film

Forbes

Sure, you likely know him for his many Marvel film appearances as Bucky Barnes, but actor Sebastian Stan has often taken “the road less traveled” when it comes to his career, having built quite the unique repertoire of memorable performances in far less conventional films.

That observation has arguably never been more visible than with his involvement in the new A24 film, A Different Man. Written & directed by Aaron Schimberg and co-starring Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve, it tells the story of Edward (Stan), an aspiring actor who undergoes a breakthrough medical procedure to transform his facial appearance, but soon regrets his decision when he becomes obsessed with reclaiming what he has lost.

I sat down with Stan, Pearson and Schimberg to uncover the origin and the creative thought process that went into this new project, which is now playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles – nationwide come October 4. For filmmaker Schimberg, this purposefully uncomfortable narrative and the overall project hits rather close to home.

Schimberg said, “I mean, for me, it’s sort of a personal story. I have cleft palate and it’s just sort of me thinking about how it’s affected me in my life and others’ perception of me and my perception about myself. My previous film [Chained for Life] also dealt with the subject in some ways, so that’s sort of what I am always thinking about when I am starting to write a film. I was also thinking about Adam because I had worked with him previously and he played a shy character in Chained for Life, my last film, and he’s not shy at all – and yet, people I think sort of thought that he was playing himself in my movie because they sort of assumed that he must be shy. So, I was inspired to write something that was closer to who he is – taken to a comical extreme, maybe, and I wanted him to show off his range, but I also just wanted to work with him again, so these were some of the starting points.”

Pearson, a British actor with neurofibromatosis, which is a rare genetic disorder that typically causes benign tumors of the nerves and growths in other parts of the body, went on to share what it was about A Different Man and his Oswald character that most intrigued him to want to make this his next film.

“Well, I enjoyed working with Aaron the first time, so when he said, ‘Would you consider working with me again?’ Straight away, I was like, Ding Ding! Round two – let’s rock and roll. Then the script – all the words have weight. There’s very little wasted motion in the script. The end result of the film is quite challenging and holds up a mirror to an audience. I’ve never been a fan of hand-holding or sugar-coating. I think audiences can be a lot smarter than we often give them credit for. A good film will change what you think for a couple of days, but a great film will change how you think for the rest of your life. We’re certainly trying, at least, to be in the great film business.”

With Stan not only acting in A Different Man but also an executive producer, I wondered how he has perhaps noticed his interests and priorities towards the stories that matter most to him as a professional and human being evolving as time goes on.

Stan said, “Well, you get a little older and the questions get a little scarier. A few years ago, I just decided to kind of just be a little bit more aggressive about finding specific work that was interesting and different and kind of challenging for me than what I was getting to do. Eventually, you find yourself in conversations that are in the development of certain things and that might lead to a producing kind of aspect. I think in this [A Different Man] situation, I was involved before A24 came on, which never really happens for me. Not only because of obviously how I felt about the story and so on, I felt really brought in by Aaron and [producer] Vanessa [McDonnell] into their journey with this film and like what they were wanting to do. So, I felt a much bigger attachment than I usually do as an actor in a way.”

When it came time to film A Different Man, Stan recalls the production not having much time, which he actually found to be helpful within his producer role “because when you’re involved in some capacity beyond acting, sometimes you can kind of go, Hey, let’s continue shooting or something. You can help add more to the making of it in some capacity and that was big for us, given our time – that we didn’t have a lot of time.”

In fact, during one particular scene in the film, Stan remembers while everybody else was wrapping up the production trucks for the night, he decided to head out on the streets of New York City with his A Different Man director of photography Wyatt Garfield and Schimberg to grab additional footage. “I just kind of took one of his other little cameras and then we started going up and down Columbus Avenue. It was Friday night and we just got all these shots. Maybe you don’t always get to do that, so that was helpful.”

As I began to conclude my conversation with these three gentlemen, I wondered what Pearson and Stan would say to their A Different Man characters, Oswald and Edward, after seeing their stories play out on-screen and understanding their wants out of life.

Pearson said, “I’d be like to Oswald, Maybe turn it down a little bit. Be nicer to [Stan’s character Edward] because he might not say it, but he loves you and he needs you right now.”

As for the message Stan would tell Edward, he said, “Listen to me! I’m here – I’m telling you. I don’t know how I feel about this. Just hear me out.”

He then added: “It’s very interesting because we all have these moments in life, big or small, where you make a decision or you even say something because you’re with other people or you’re supposed to say something the right way, but you know your reaction in the moment or the decision you’re making is not what your gut is like really telling you. Then, you feel kind of like you’ve abandoned yourself, but then you just quickly deny that – that can kind of like spiral down. We’ve all kind of not owned certain things in the moment and that’s sort of what happens. He kind of drowns out that voice.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 20, 2024

A Different Man Articles Photos Press

Sep

News: Meet the makeup wizard who transformed Sebastian Stan into ‘A Different Man’

LA Times

At the tender age of 5, Mike Marino saw “The Elephant Man” for the first time and his life was forever changed. When David Lynch’s haunting and heartbreaking story of the disfigured John Merrick would air on HBO in the early 1980s, Marino found himself horrified but unable to look away, sparking a fascination with prosthetics that would eventually lead him to becoming one of Hollywood’s top makeup artists.

“I was so afraid of it, but little did I know how beautiful that story was and how much of an imprint it would leave on my brain and soul,” says Marino, 47, who earned consecutive Oscar nominations in 2022 and 2023 for his makeup work on “Coming 2 America” and “The Batman,” the latter starring a totally transformed Colin Farrell. “If it wasn’t for that film, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”

But for actor, TV presenter and disability rights advocate Adam Pearson, Lynch’s film took on a more painful role in his life. Growing up in England with neurofibromatosis type 1, a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on his face, Pearson was often taunted by classmates who cruelly called him “Elephant Man” and other names. As he got older, he saw how movies routinely depicted people with disfigurements as freaks, villains or victims, stripping away their humanity. “There’s an element of laziness to it,” says Pearson, 39. “How do we show this character is evil? Let’s slap a scar on them.”

Now, through a twist of fate, the lives of Marino and Pearson have intersected on a very different project: the darkly funny, mind-bending psychological thriller “A Different Man.” Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the A24 film stars Sebastian Stan as Edward, a shy, disfigured actor working in New York City who undergoes an experimental procedure to transform his appearance, only to find himself losing the role he was born to play — himself — to a cheerful, outgoing man named Oswald with his same facial deformity, played by Pearson. Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) co-stars as a playwright whose latest work brings Edward’s identity crisis to a head.

“A Different Man,” which The Times called “a self-deconstructing meta-pretzel of a dark comedy” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackles complex themes of identity, beauty and disability with a blend of Charlie Kaufman-esque surrealism and David Cronenbergian body horror. Along with Stan’s performance, Marino’s meticulously crafted prosthetics are key to bringing Edward and his inner agonies to life, reflecting the deeper emotional anguish of a man trying to escape his own skin.

“The movie portrays how the shell of who we are should not dictate our spirit and our personality,” Marino says. “I think it’s a very important film, much like ‘The Elephant Man’ was.”

When Schimberg first wrote the script, inspired by his own struggles with a cleft palate and his experience working with Pearson on his 2019 satire “Chained for Life,” he initially had no idea how he would actually pull off the film’s demanding prosthetics work. “I was sort of blissfully ignorant,” says Schimberg. “After Sebastian came aboard, we started cobbling the film together very quickly. It was only about a month before shooting that I realized this film was going to completely fall apart if we didn’t get this right. It was very down to the wire.”

Signing on as an executive producer for the film, Stan asked around about makeup artists in the New York area who could handle such a difficult job under that kind of time pressure. One answer consistently came back: “Literally everyone, hands down, was like, ‘You’ve got to get Marino,’ ” the actor recalls.

Though he was already busy with a job on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Marino, who has done his share of more fantastical creatures, leapt at the challenge of re-creating a real-life disfigurement like Pearson’s. “I’m fascinated with people that have something going on with their skin because it’s just the most interesting, artistic, natural thing,” Marino says. “For me, there’s an amazing beauty to how Adam looks. This was not about a scary face or a monstrous person. I don’t like to do things like that with no soul or purpose.”

Marino’s passion for makeup and prosthetics took root early in life, inspired by industry legends like Dick Smith (“The Exorcist”) and Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London”). Growing up in New York, Marino started honing his skills as a preteen by practicing on his friends with latex, foam and various chemicals, destroying his bedroom rug in the process, to the chagrin of his parents. While still in high school, he mailed his portfolio to Smith and received encouragement and advice by phone from the makeup legend, who won an Oscar in 1985 for “Amadeus” and earned an honorary Academy Award for his life’s work in 2012. “Once he acknowledged me, it was like, OK, this is serious. There was no stopping me.”

After cutting his teeth on “Saturday Night Live” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Marino broke into film with the 2007 psychological thriller “Anamorph” and quickly became known for his versatility, seamlessly switching between fantasy creatures and more subtle, realistic applications. His work on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” amplified the film’s psychological horror, while on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” he enhanced the film’s digital de-aging of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino with carefully crafted prosthetics.

Outside of film, Marino created the Weeknd’s plastic-surgery-gone-wrong look for the singer’s “Save Your Tears” video. “It’s all problems to solve,” Marino says. “There is no playbook.”

Diving into “A Different Man,” Marino used photographs and 3D scans of Pearson’s face, which has undergone some 40 surgeries over the years, as the basis for a multi-piece silicone prosthetic that would work with Stan’s features. “There was no way I could completely replicate Adam’s exact proportions,” he says. “I had to make some aesthetic choices.”

While the makeup work in “The Elephant Man” benefited from that film’s grainy black-and-white cinematography, the prosthetics in “A Different Man” had to withstand more unforgiving scrutiny. To put his Edward face to the test, Stan would walk from Marino’s makeup chair to the set through the streets of New York and crowds of strangers, giving him tremendous insight into how people treat those who look different.

“I went to my old coffee shop and the same barista who’d served me for years couldn’t identify me,” Stan recalls. “I got to really feel people’s reactions in real time. There were people who couldn’t even look at me, other people were staring and sometimes you’d get a bigger reaction, like, ‘Oh s—, it’s the Elephant Man!’ As Adam puts it, you feel like public property.”

Pearson, who shares his character’s sunny gregariousness, encouraged Stan to think about it like he does with his own experience as a movie star. “I was like, ‘You don’t know the level of invasion I get with people pointing, staring and taking photos, but you do understand a very similar thing from this angle, so lean into that heavily,’ ” he says. “ ‘And if it makes you uncomfortable, lean into it further.’ ”

While wearing the prosthetics, Stan could only see out of one eye and had limited hearing in one ear, challenges that helped further inform his performance as a man who has learned to shy away from potential threats and insults. “Edward is a character that has had to endure a lot of emotional abuse and probably some physical abuse, so he is probably always on his left foot a little bit in case something happens,” Stan says.

As Edward’s face changes following his radical treatment, Marino made additional prosthetics showing the transition, including an “extremely soft, mushy version” that, in a particularly Cronenbergian scene, Stan could pull off in chunks.

Marino’s talent for transforming stars is on full display in Farrell’s hulking, thuggish look as the Penguin in 2022’s “The Batman” and the new HBO spinoff series. “When Colin saw the sculpture I made, ideas started exploding,” Marino says. “Once we did a makeup test, it was magical — he knew how to speak, how to walk and he was already the guy.”

Marino, who is preparing to make his directorial debut based on a script he wrote set in the 1980s (“It’s deliberately not effects-heavy,” he hints), has lost none of his passion for the transformative power of latex and silicone since the days he was obsessively poring through issues of Cinefex magazine as a teenager. “If you think of Michelangelo showing beauty 500 years ago in painting and sculpture, I’m still showing that same beauty but in this new hyper-realistic way, in silicone,” says Marino, who named his makeup effects studio Prosthetic Renaissance. “It’s a very unique art. It’s like moving sculptures and paintings all at once.”

As for Pearson, if he were offered an experimental treatment to change his face, like in “A Different Man,” he says he wouldn’t take it. Despite the challenges it has brought him, Pearson believes his face has shaped the life he leads today.

“I joke with my friends that my disability does a lot of heavy lifting for my appalling personality,” he says with a laugh. “Everyone thinks it’s hard to go from non-disabled to disabled but I think the other way around would be even harder. The path we walk and the struggles we go through make us who we are and they’re inseparable from one another.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 20, 2024

A Different Man Articles Interviews Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: Meet Sebastian Stan, the actor who plays Donald Trump in The Apprentice

Vogue France – From Gossip Girl to Marvel Studios, to more independent productions: Sebastian Stan’s career has been a roller coaster ride. During his visit to the Deauville American Film Festival, Vogue put the actor, who at 42 years old won a Revelation Award.

On October 9, Sebastian Stan be will Donald Trump in The Apprentice . Some know him for his role as Carter Baizen in Gossip Girl . Others, for that of the Winter Soldier in Marvel productions. But recently, the American actor, of Romanian origin, has ventured into more independent fiction, which sheds a new light on his career. At the Deauville American Film Festival , he came to present A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg , in which he plays Edward, a young disabled actor decides who to change his appearance to, he believes at the time, improve his life. On the contrary, this transformation marks the beginning of his fall. An antagonistic role such as he has long played on our screens, and which he continues in The Apprentice , presented in May 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival , and directed by filmmaker Ali Abbasi . So many elements that made us want to talk with the 42-year-old actor during his visit to Normandy , where he was awarded the Revelation Prize. As proof of the new direction taken in his career, today considered by the proponents of European cinema, possibly, let’s confess, more snobbish than their American compatriots.
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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 12, 2024

Articles Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: ‘The Apprentice’ Producers Explain Why They Need a Kickstarter Campaign

Hollywood Reporter – Daniel Bekerman and Amy Baer talk about the legal threats from Trump that spooked distributors and why crowdfunding was right for their film: “We wanted to do whatever we could to make sure that the movie was seen.”

* NOTE: If you want to donate to the kickstarter click here: RELEASE THE APPRENTICE

Yesterday, the filmmakers behind Donald Trump movie The Apprentice launched a Kickstarter campaign to assist with the October theatrical release of the film with a goal of raising $100,000. A day later, it has already topped that goal, raising more than $139,000 for the campaign, dubbed “Release The Apprentice.”

A Kickstarter campaign is not the go-to move for a splashy, albeit independently financed, feature with award-winning stars like Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, and a debut at the Cannes Film Festival. But The Apprentice has had a long and embattled journey to get to theaters.

Since the film’s festival debut, its potential release has been mired in uncertainty. Dan Snyder, the pro-Trump billionaire, is involved with Kinematics, the company that put up equity for the film against domestic rights. Snyder was reportedly was displeased with the film’s depiction of Trump and sought to block its release. After the film’s Cannes debut, Trump’s lawyers sent a cease and desist letter also in an attempt to block the film’s release.

The Apprentice, from director Ali Abbasi, explores Donald Trump’s (Stan) rise to power in 1980s America under the influence of the firebrand right-wing attorney Roy Cohn (Strong). Among the scenes that reportedly earned the ire of the former president and his backers are a sequence where he rapes his first wife Ivana and also scenes that show Trump getting liposuction.

Ahead of the film’s screening at the Telluride Film Festival, it was reported that Briarcliff Entertainment would release The Apprentice on Oct 11. And, in addition to yesterday’s Kickstarter, it was announced that Kinematics exited the project over “creative differences,” with fellow producer James Shani’s Rich Spirit buying out the company’s interest.

After a whirlwind couple of months, The Apprentice producers Daniel Bekerman and Amy Baer talked to The Hollywood Reporter about Trump’s threats, the Kickstarter campaign and their hopes for the film.
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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 06, 2024

Articles Interviews Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: They made a movie about Trump. Then no one would release it.

AP News

* NOTE: If you want to donate to the kickstarter click here: RELEASE THE APPRENTICE

NEW YORK (AP) — 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 polarizing political figures of the 21st century.

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 has 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.

“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.”
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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, 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 didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.
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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 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.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 04, 2024

Articles Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: Donald Trump Movie ‘The Apprentice’ Launches Kickstarter to Raise Money for Longer Theatrical Release

Variety

* NOTE: If you want to donate to the kickstarter click here: RELEASE THE APPRENTICE

Filmmakers of “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story in which Sebastian Stan portrays a young Donald Trump, are asking for money to bolster the film’s theatrical release.

In a highly unusual move, they launched a Kickstarter called “Release the Apprentice” to “keep the film in as many theaters for as long as possible,” according to a press release. The crowdfunding campaign features tiered reward levels based on donation amounts, including a $25 donation which allows people to stream the film after it hits theaters, and a $100 donation for which donors will be able to see their name in a special section on the end credits. Higher level pledges include one of three actual toupees worn by Stan on-screen and VIP tickets to attend the film’s premiere in NYC.

“The Apprentice is first and foremost humanist, which makes it radically different from all the political noise,” said executive producer Amy Baer.

“Despite the integrity of the film and without even seeing it, Trump’s campaign sought to suppress it,” added producer Dan Bekerman. “The idea that artists can no longer freely criticize the powerful should concern us all. We need your help to resoundingly reject this dangerous precedent.”

“The Apprentice” premiered at Cannes Film Festival and landed at Briarcliff Entertainment after struggling to find a buyer. The 1970s-set film, directed by Ali Abbasi, proved controversial on the Croisette over a scene in which Trump rapes his then wife Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova. The movie centers on Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the cutthroat attorney who helped create the man the public knows today.

Trump has criticized “The Apprentice” and the former president’s camp has threatened legal action over the movie, saying in a statement, “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked.”

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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 03, 2024

Articles The Apprentice

Sep

News: The team behind the Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’ talks politics, power and peril

LA Times

TELLURIDE, Colo. —

It is hardly unusual for a director introducing their movie at a film festival to express some anxiety. But as he spoke to the crowd before a packed late-night Telluride screening of his controversial Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” on Saturday, director Ali Abbasi felt himself sweating with his own unique brand of jitters.

The screening, which had been kept under tight wraps heading into the festival, would be the first time a U.S. audience got a look at the film that ignited a firestorm at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where “The Apprentice” earned an 11-minute standing ovation even as it drew threats of lawsuits from the Trump campaign.

“I don’t get nervous often but I am actually nervous,” the Iranian-born Abbasi (“Holy Spider”) told the Telluride crowd. “This [film] has been some years in the making, and now it’s coming back home to you guys.”

“The Apprentice” charts Trump’s rise to fame and power in the New York of the 1970s and ’80s, with Sebastian Stan portraying the real estate developer and future reality TV star and politician alongside Jeremy Strong as his ruthless attorney and mentor Roy Cohn. Scripted by journalist Gabriel Sherman, who wrote a 2014 bestseller about late Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the darkly comic film presents Trump as a sleazy and callous, if charismatic, social climber who learns the art of achieving power through aggressive attacks, ethical disregard and the strategic manipulation of the the media under the tutelage of the amoral and deeply flawed Cohn.

After the film’s unveiling at Cannes, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung blasted it as “garbage” and “pure fiction” and vowed to file a lawsuit against the filmmakers in an effort to derail its release. Studios, streamers and indie distributors were understandably wary of picking up such a political hot potato. But ultimately Briarcliff Entertainment stepped in to distribute the film domestically, scheduling its release less than a month before a presidential election that has already been among the most tumultuous and fiercely contested in U.S. history.

The morning after the Telluride screening — and just 64 days before the election — The Times sat down with Abbasi, Sherman, Stan and Strong to discuss the film’s journey, the challenges of portraying such a polarizing figure and the impact they hope “The Apprentice” will have as the country braces for the final stretch of a deeply divisive election season.

This interview has been condensed and edited.
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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 03, 2024

Articles Interviews Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: Telluride: ‘The Apprentice’ Filmmakers Discuss Blind Criticisms of Their Movie, Offer to Screen It for Trump, Think He Will Like It

Hollywood Reporter – Director Ali Abbasi, writer Gabriel Sherman and actors Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong discuss their hot-button Trump origin story that had its North American premiere on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, just hours after the North American premiere of The Apprentice — a film about the relationship between Donald Trump and his mentor Roy Cohn that everyone in the film community has been talking about for months — the principal creators of the film sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for their first stateside interview about the project. Director Ali Abbasi, writer Gabriel Sherman and stars Sebastian Stan (Trump) and Jeremy Strong (Cohn), seated alongside each other on a giant sofa in a Telluride hotel suite, were still giddy about the fact that The Apprentice had finally made it to America and had been very warmly received, because neither of those outcomes were assured.

Indeed, in the three months since the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Festival, backers of the film faced legal threats from Trump campaign — and resistance from the principal financial backer of the film, a Trump ally who was displeased with its portrayal of the man — that threatened to keep it from ever being seen again. It was not until Friday morning that — as THR was the first to report — a deal was reached through which Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment and James Shani’s Rich Spirit bought out that financier’s interest in the film, paving the way for a U.S. theatrical release starting on Oct. 11, less than a month before the presidential election, and, more immediately, for screenings at Telluride.

A transcript of the converation with Abbasi, Sherman, Stan and Strong, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appears below.
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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 02, 2024

Articles Press The Apprentice

Sep

News: Telluride: Don’t Bet Against Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong’s Oscar Prospects for Trump Origin Story ‘The Apprentice’

Hollywood Reporter – The actors play Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, respectively, in Ali Abbasi’s film, which had its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on Saturday night.

The Apprentice, the Donald Trump origin story that everyone in the film community and beyond has been talking and speculating about, had its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival’s Galaxy Theatre on Saturday night. The stateside unveiling comes three months after its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and just days after Briarcliff Entertainment acquired its U.S. distribution rights amid legal threats from the Trump campaign, with plans to release it in theaters on Oct. 11, less than a month before the presidential election.
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Interest in the film among those who missed it on the Croisette has been through the roof, to the extent that Telluride’s 10 p.m. Saturday night screening — which was added to the fest’s schedule only a few hours before it took place — attracted a full house of 500 people, with many others turned away. Post-screening reactions were, not unexpectedly, divided. But my own impression from finally seeing the film (I had to return from Cannes before it screened there), and the degree to which the people who like it really like it, is that it should not be counted out of the awards race — particularly its lead actor Sebastian Stan, who plays young Trump, and its supporting actor Jeremy Strong, who plays the man who became his consigliere, Roy Cohn.

The Apprentice was written by Vanity Fair’s longtime Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman and directed by Border and Holy Spider helmer Ali Abbasi, in his English-language film debut. It covers the period from 1973, when New York businessman Trump, then 27, first crossed paths with power lawyer Cohn, through 1986, shortly after Cohn died (under circumstances that you should not Google if you don’t already know them), and shortly before the publication of The Art of the Deal, the book that helped to elevate Trump from a braggadocious businessman to a full-fledged celebrity.

Trump supporters have assumed that the film would be a Hollywood hit job. That’s partly because most of them have heard only about a brief scene in which Trump is shown forcing himself on his first wife, Ivanka (Borat Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova), which, in fact, is based on an accusation that Ivanka herself made and then, perhaps under pressure, recanted. But the truth is that The Apprentice — which opens with a disclaimer that a few aspects of its story are imagined, but the vast majority of it is documented — is not some mocking caricature of Trump; it’s actually a portrayal that some Trump haters will find too sympathetic.

It is neither a puff piece nor a hit job, but is, as the Iranian-born Dane Abbasi said during his pre-screening introduction, an outsider-to-America’s effort to hold up a “mirror” to our society and force us to look at it anew. It shows the man who would become president as a young, handsome, charming and promising businessman, as well as someone who was emotionally damaged by his father, steered down a dark path by Cohn, and, consequently, became vain, selfish and occasionally very cruel.

Stan nails Trump’s look, mannerisms and unusual way of speaking — which must have been a daunting assignment, given how many other people have done impersonations of Trump — and Strong captures the dead-eyed look and coiled-snake physicality that Cohn possessed going back to his early years as Joseph McCarthy’s henchman.

One doesn’t have to like a character — or even a film — to appreciate an actor’s guts and abilities. Indeed, in recent years the Academy’s actors branch has nominated numerous impressive portrayals of polarizing people in polarizing movies — among them Megyn Kelly, Richard Nixon, Tammy Faye Bakker, George W. Bush, Lynne Cheney and Dick Cheney, and J.D. Vance’s grandma, none of whom are particular favorites of the Hollywood community.

The Apprentice’s distributor, Briarcliff, is relatively new to the scene, but its chief, Tom Ortenberg, is not new to the awards game, having overseen, during his days at Lionsgate, the campaign for Crash, and during his days at Open Road, the campaign for Spotlight — both of which went on to win the best picture Oscar. He has also already retained a number of highly capable awards consultants to help execute a push for The Apprentice. And the talent behind the film is on the ground at Telluride supporting it. So, much like it would be unwise to count out Trump in 2024, I believe that it would be unwise to count out The Apprentice.

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Published by Samantha

Published on Sep 01, 2024