A Canadian Screen Awards that put marginalized voices front and center and challenged the global political landscape saw The Apprentice, a film about a young Donald Trump, dominate the national film and TV awards Sunday night in Toronto.
Director Ali Abbasi’s Trump origin story won best movie, while Sebastian Stan, the Romania-born American actor who plays the future U.S. president alongside Jeremy Strong as his consigliere Roy Cohn, earned top honors for best leading role.
Daniel Bekerman, co-producer of the Canada/Ireland/Denmark co-production The Apprentice, said when accepting the prize, “Our movie shows how the young Donald Trump amassed wealth and power by finding a dilapidated building and slapping his name on it as president. We’ll see how that works out.”
Then Bekerman turned to Trump taunting Canada as a possible 51st state for the United States. “Now he wants to slap his name on this country. This is a challenge, but a good challenge, because as independent filmmakers and storytellers, what we need to do, what is our responsibility, is to tell stories with honesty that can build trust and build community. The rise of indigenous cinema in this country gives me hope. The rise of queer cinema in this country gives me hope. But we’re faced with power structures that want to silence us. It’s time to lock arms,” he added.
Bekerman added that The Apprentice, which bowed in Cannes, received nominations at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. “But Ali, I told you, you have to come to Canada if you want to find some guts in this industry,” he said in a call-out to director Abbasi in the audience.
Category: The Apprentice
Sebastian attended The 97th Annual Oscars. I’ve added over 250+ UHQ/untagged photos to the gallery along with video interviews and accompanying screencaptures. Thank you to Sandra for the extra assistance.
Public Appearances > 2025 > 03/02/25 – The 97th Annual Oscars Red Carpet – [Arrivals]
Public Appearances > 2025 > 03/02/25 – Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones [Inside]
Public Appearances > 2025 > 03/02/25 – Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones [Arrivals]
Screen Captures > Television Appearances > 97th Oscars 2025 Red Carpet – E Interview (March 2, 2025)
Screen Captures > Television Appearances > 97th Oscars 2025 Red Carpet – GMA ABC Interview (March 2, 2025)
Screen Captures > Web Videos > Oscars: Cartier [Behind the Scenes]
Photo Sessions > Session #160
Sebastian attended the BAFTAS and below is another interview with Jeremy Strong below including 200+ UHQ screencaps from the interview below. Thank you to Sandra for the video notification.
Sebastian attended EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 . I’ve added OVER 200+ UHQ/untagged photos to the gallery. There’s numerous videos and interviews from last night below along with 500+ screencaps . Thank you to Sandra for the extra assistance.
Public Appearances > 2025 > 02/16/25 – EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – [Champagne Reception]
Public Appearances > 2025 > 02/16/25 – EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – [Arrivals]
Public Appearances > 2025 > 02/16/25 – EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – [Dinner]
Photo Sessions > Session #159
Screen Captures > Television Appearances > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 Red Carpet (Feburary 16, 2025)
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – BAFTA Nominee Party Interview
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – BAFTA Live Stream Interview
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – IG Livestream
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – Deadline
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – MTV UK
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – GQ British Interview #2
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – GQ British Interview #1
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – AP Entertainment
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – ITV News #1
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – GQ British Interview #3
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – ITV News #2
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – British Vogue
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – Vanity Fair
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > EE BAFTA Film Awards 2025 – Interview
New York Times – He is attracting different attention, and some leading man hardware, after standout performances in “The Apprentice” and “A Different Man.”
For accompanying photo: Session #157 – Caroline Tompkins.
For the accompanying video clip click here.
For the screencaps of the video clip click here
For years, it seemed fair to assume that the actor Sebastian Stan could make a career on both sides of Hollywood. There was dabbling in juicy supporting roles — he played the ex-husbands of both Tonya Harding and Pamela Anderson — while comfortably returning to the action-hero part for which he is best known: Bucky Barnes. As the erstwhile sidekick of Captain America, Stan has been a regular in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies since 2011 (including “Thunderbolts*,” which hits theaters in May). There are surely worse fates than simply maintaining that balance.
“There’s a group of actors — I’ll put Colin Farrell in this group as well — that are so handsome that in some sense it works against them,” said Jessica Chastain, Stan’s friend and castmate in “The Martian” and “The 355.”
While being too good-looking a movie star may be world’s-smallest-violin territory, a whirlwind year with two standout unconventional performances now has the 42-year-old cast in a very different light. It has also already brought in some leading-man hardware, with more maybe to come.
Sebastian Stan is up for an Oscar for his portrayal of President Trump early in his career, when Roy Cohn was his lawyer and mentor. Stan says Cohn schooled Trump in “denying reality and reshaping the truth.” He spoke with Terry Gross about his childhood in Romania, wearing prosthetics for A Different Man, and his breakthrough role on Law & Order.
Sebastian attended Virtuosos Award – 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival . I’ve added 200+ UHQ/untagged photos to the gallery along with over 200+ UHQ screencaps from the event and interviews below (including video from the event). Thank you to Sandra for the extra assistance.
Public Appearances > 2025 > 02/09/25 – Virtuosos Award – 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival – [Inside/Award]
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > SBIFF 2025 – Virtuosos Award Sebastian Stan Discussion
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > SBIFF 2025 – Virtuosos Award Group Discussion & Award Presentation
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > Red Carpet Interview #1
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > Red Carpet Interview #2
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > Red Carpet Interview #3
Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2025 > Red Carpet Interview #4
It’s the noise living in all of our heads—when we turn on the news, scroll through Elon Musk’s X, or listen to any number of podcasts. Donald Trump’s voice even forced its way into awards season with The Apprentice, which fictionalizes the president’s ascent in the New York City real estate scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Despite a long and difficult battle for distribution, the film earned a pair of Oscar nominations: one for Sebastian Stan’s lead performance as Trump, and the other for Jeremy Strong’s supporting turn as his shadowy mentor, Roy Cohn.
Stan’s performance is made not just by his sideswept blonde wig and perpetually pouted lips, but his total mastery of Trump’s idiosyncratic diction. For that, we can thank dialect coach Liz Himelstein, who has devoted her life to helping performers find characters through accent. That means phonetically breaking down dialogue—every vowel, diphthong, and consonant change—in addition to giving her high-profile clients primary source material they can study.
The key to Stan’s transformation turned out to be Trump’s 1980 conversation with gossip columnist Rona Barrett. “In that interview, we found so much of him,” Himelstein tells Vanity Fair, speaking in the soothing, perfectly enunciated tone one would expect from a person who teaches accents for a living. “It was a treasure trove of sounds and cadence, and also [Trump] being 34 years old, his younger voice.”
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Sebastian Stan has had a wild twelve months that I strangely found myself a small part of.
Stan received critical acclaim and awards attention for two films: A Different Man, where he played an actor with a facial disfigurement, and The Apprentice, where he played a young Donald Trump. Both performances are intricately detailed and precise, evading stereotypes and caricatures amidst shifting themes and tones. They also encapsulate a common theme in his work that I first noticed in Fresh: exploring characters’ darker impulses that others either miss or deliberately ignore. Despite their acclaim, both films struggled with distribution and promotion, with The Apprentice facing lawsuit threats and industry hesitance to engage with the film. He went viral after revealing that he couldn’t participate in Variety’s Actors on Actors series because other actors’ publicists didn’t want them discussing the newly-elected president. (My tweet describing the situation as reprehensible went viral, too.) Despite the blowback, Stan remained upfront and outspoken, fashioning himself as a fearless, principled artist during a fraught political and cultural moment.
Stan’s unique position and detailed approach to his work were reinforced in my interview with him for AwardsWatch, conducted days after he won the Golden Globe for A Different Man and before his Oscar nomination for The Apprentice. It was a full circle moment of sorts for me, after advocating for A Different Man since seeing it in April, interviewing Matia Bakalova for The Apprentice, and meeting director Aaron Schimberg following a screening in New York. During our conversation, I sensed that he wanted to meet his moment in time responsibly, emphasizing how important curiosity and empathy were to the human condition. Given his challenges in releasing and promoting his films, I also sensed, through our few interactions, how genuinely moved he was by the support and recognition he’s received. (Case in point: he was incredibly generous with his time when he didn’t have to be.) It’s near-impossible not to be thrilled for him and the acknowledgment of his talent and thoughtfulness.
My goal in publishing this interview in full is for others to sense what I have about Sebastian Stan over these past twelve months by giving him the space to share his journey, in this awards season and in the larger context of his complex career.
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