'The Apprentice': Here's how Sebastian Stan prepared to play Trump
Hollywood actor Sebastian Stan, who has previously headlined several popular projects, is playing a young Donald Trump in the new film The Apprentice. Speaking to CNN recently, Stan discussed his process and mentioned that he relied on "instinct and collaboration" to create his character. He highlighted serving the story and character without any judgment or bias. The film is helmed by Ali Abbasi.
Stan is detached from all the 'noise'
Stan told CNN, "I think instinct is everything and collaboration. You have to go into that and look at what serves the story, the character, without judgment, (without) all the good, the bad and the ugly." "You have to detach from fear and all of the noise that's surrounding us at this time," he said.
'I wanted to go for the essence'
In another interview with EW, Stan had revealed, "Ali [Abbasi] and I never knew how much prosthetics we really needed." "I think we were both concerned that I don't look like him in some ways, but I was always trying to steer to less prosthetics because I didn't want to go with a complete likeness. I wanted to go for the essence."
Strong's portrayal of Cohn was a result of 'osmosis'
The film also stars Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, Trump's former attorney, and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump. Strong revealed that his portrayal was a result of "osmosis" after studying the late attorney extensively. He described becoming obsessed with understanding Cohn until it overtook him and manifested in his performance. "Your job is to sort of learn and understand these people holistically, fully, dimensionally," he told CNN.
Director Abbasi focused on central relationship in 'The Apprentice'
Despite the external pressures, Abbasi said distribution wasn't his biggest challenge. "I have to say that for me, some of the most difficult ones were how to organize this story" with "so many characters that all feel very important." Finally, he chose to focus on the central relationship between Stan and Strong's characters. "We want to focus on this very specific relationship...and see him become transformed through that," he explained. It will be released in India on October 18.
