‘The Apprentice’ star Sebastian Stan opens up on Trump biopic

Hollywood actor Sebastian Stan has opened up on his journey to become former US president Donald Trump in his biopic titled, “The Apprentice.”

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Directed by Ali Abbasi, ‘The Apprentice,’ promises to give a dive into the underbelly of the American empire as it is set to hit theatres on October 11.

While Stan portrays a young Trump, Jeremy Strong plays political fixer Roy Cohn along with Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump and Martin Donovan as Fred Trump Sr.

Talking about his process to embody the younger self of the former US president during an interview, Sebastian Stan said that he worked hard to give new insights about America’s most scrutinised politician.

“I think he’s a lot smarter than people want to say about him, because he repeats things consistently, and he’s given you a brand,” said Stan who watched videos of Donald Trump on a loop while preparing for ‘The Apprentice.’

“I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone. And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods — from the ’70s all the way to today — so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him,” the Hollywood actor said.

According to Stan, he would ad-lib entire scenes at director Ali Abbasi’s request to understand how to react in each moment.

“Ali Abbasi could come in on the second take and say, ‘Why don’t you talk a little bit about the taxes and how you don’t want to pay?’ So I had to know what charities they were going to in 1983. Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali was going to take this,” he stated.

The Hollywood actor revealed that he gained 15 pounds within two months as the director wanted to meet the shooting deadline for ‘The Apprentice.’

“You’d be surprised. You can gain a lot of weight in two months,” Sebastian Stan responded when asked about his weight gain for the movie in a short time.

It is worth mentioning here that the movie first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20. However, it could not find a buyer and Donald Trump’s campaign also threatened to sue the makers for allegedly distorting facts about his life.

Following its premiere, the former US president’s 2024 campaign in a statement called the film “garbage” and “pure fiction.”

“We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said in a statement.