The Apprentice: Movie’s creators talk taking on Donald Trump and telling a human story

Charting his rise from rich kid to real estate tycoon, the new Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice is in cinemas now – weeks out from the US election. George Fenwick talks to the film’s director, Ali Abbasi, writer Gabriel Sherman, and stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong about bringing the bombastic personality to the big screen.

At 1am (US time) on Monday, October 14, a day before Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice screened at the London Film Festival, the presidential candidate himself unleashed a tirade on his social media platform Truth Social. Though he called the movie “politically disgusting” and branded the filmmakers “hateful scum”, Iranian director Ali Abbasi is unfazed. In fact, he appreciates Trump’s lack of filter.

“[Trump] being funny and relentless at the same time gives him an authenticity as a human being that I think a lot of politicians lack,” says Abbasi. “Even the fact that he tweeted about the movie – if this was a Kamala Harris movie, she wouldn’t do that. She would consult with her political advisers and they would say, ‘don’t do that because it’s not helping you’. But he did.”

For Abbasi, whose credits include the acclaimed thriller Holy Spider (2022), his admiration of Trump ends there, and is plainly evident in The Apprentice.

Opening in 1973 New York City against a backdrop of high crime and rising neoliberalism, the film charts Trump’s (Sebastian Stan) rise from naive rich kid to real-estate tycoon under the mentorship of the ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), from who he learns how to win using bombast, aggression and manipulation of the law. (“If you’re indicted, you’re invited,” Cohn tells friends at a party.)

The Apprentice director Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman both see the film as a love story of sorts between "ruthless" lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) and Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan).

The script, from Vanity Fair political journalist Gabriel Sherman, also depicts Trump sexually assaulting his former wife Ivana Trump, and eventually betraying Cohn through despicable means – details Sherman drew from public record. In short, it’s no wonder Trump has threatened legal action against The Apprentice, but he may be surprised to find it also humanises him.

After covering Trump for 20 years, Sherman sought to understand the psychology of the man. “Nobody is born this way,” says Sherman. “No one comes out of the womb talking with their hands and shouting. When I wrote about the 2016 election, his advisers told me he was using the lessons Roy Cohn taught him, so that was the inspiration – the sort-of Frankenstein story of how Cohn created this personality that he then lost control of.”

With Cohn and Trump, director Abbasi wanted to depict a relationship that was more than only business.

‘Love story’

Both Sherman and Abbasi see it as a love story between Cohn and Trump. “It’s my romantic comedy,” Sherman jokes. “I think Roy was in love with Donald. I don’t think Donald ever returned the favour, but when I did my research, I got access to Roy’s private archives. I looked through Roy’s photographs and a lot of his former boyfriends and lovers were blonde, blue-eyed men who looked strikingly like Donald.”

Abbasi wanted to depict the relationship as more than just a business partnership. “Yes, they want to use each other, but there’s something deeper,” he says. “There’s real affection and tenderness, and that’s where the human mystery is.”

The Apprentice director Ali Abbasi.

To create an “implicit tension” between Trump and Cohn on screen, Abbasi spoke separately to his lead actors about how to perform their mutual attraction. Sebastian Stan, worlds away from his most famous role as Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, says that imbued their dynamic with a thrilling volatility.

“It was the unpredictability in what Jeremy [Strong] was bringing every day and every take, and as a result [I felt] always on my toes and very alive and in the moment,” he says. “I was immediately very much in awe of that, and it was a great parallel to the relationship that we were exploring.”

Succession star Jeremy Strong plays "ruthless" lawyer Roy Cohn.

Emmy-winning Succession star Jeremy Strong, who plays Cohn, doesn’t remember that conversation with Abbasi. ”Conversations about ideas, about psychology and relationships, I tend to cover my ears,” he says. But he credits Abbasi for allowing him to take risks within his understanding of their relationship, which he also viewed as akin to a love story. “When you have a scene partner like Sebastian, it’s just alive between you, and there’s a danger because you don’t know what’s coming next.”

Ominous timing

Strong is troubled by Trump’s tirade against the film. “He called us ‘human scum,’ which is a phrase that’s been used a lot historically, by Hitler, by Stalin, by Kim Jong Un, by [former Brazil President Jair] Bolsonaro,” he says. “It’s not a nice phrase, and the historical situations that it invokes, I find it just terrifying.

“I would just hope that we cannot join this fray of divisiveness and fomenting hatred and name calling. We’re here as actors, and essentially humanists, trying to tell a complex story about very complex people. Let him spew venom about it, and if that draws people to see a film and a work of art, then that would be a wonderful thing.”

Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, with Sebastian Stan as husband Donald.

With the film now in New Zealand theatres and released in the US weeks before the election, its creators are hyper-aware of the film’s ominous timing — which, after years of development, Sherman couldn’t have predicted.

“It looked like the movie was going to get made after he lost the 2020 election, and then January 6 happened, and everyone freaked out; they were like, is this guy going to be Hitler? What’s happening to America?” he says. All their funders pulled out, and it took until 2023 to pull the money together again – just as Trump was preparing his comeback. “But we didn’t know that he was going to be the Republican nominee, so once we started filming in November 2023 we had no idea he would be running.”

Sebastian Stan takes on Donald Trump in the new biopic.

What Sherman did predict was the uphill battle to find US distribution. Following its Cannes premiere in May, The Apprentice immediately sold to distributors worldwide, but was without an American home for months until Briarcliff Entertainment signed on in August.

“I always thought the movie would be more accepted internationally than at home because as Americans, even if you don’t support Donald Trump, we all have to take responsibility for our culture [that] created him,” he says. “It’s not surprising that this movie is finding an audience internationally, because people who don’t live in America are trying to understand: how did Trump become like this?”

As for New Zealand, he harbours a sliver of jealousy. “You’re so far away, I feel like you’re safe over there,” he laughs. “You can look at it from across the world and be like, ‘you’re crazy’.”

The Apprentice is in New Zealand cinemas now.