‘The Apprentice’ First Look: Sebastian Stan Is a Young Donald Trump Building His Empire

Samantha Bergeson

April 11, 2024 at 9:00 a.m.·2 min read

Sebastian Stan is continuing to be a master of disguise.

After portraying Tommy Lee in Hulu series “Pam and Tommy” and transforming via prosthetics for “A Different Man,” Stan is now taking on the role of a lifetime: Donald Trump. Stan leads “The Apprentice,” directed by “Border” and “Holy Spider” filmmaker Ali Abbasi from a script by Gabe Sherman.

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“The Apprentice” is debuting at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in competition alongside buzzy features like Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope,” and David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds.”

“The Apprentice” centers on Trump’s (Stan) rise to fame following what the official description calls a “Faustian deal” with right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Trump’s marriage to Ivana Trump (Maria Bakalova) and relationship with his family including Fred Trump Sr. (Martin Donovan) are also interrogated onscreen. The film is written by first-time feature screenwriter Gabriel Sherman.

The feature is produced by Daniel Bekerman for Scythia Films (Canada), Jacob Jarek for Profile Pictures (Denmark), Ruth Treacy and Julianne Forde for Tailored Films (Ireland), and director Abbasi and Louis Tisne for Film Institute (Denmark). Executive producers are Amy Baer, Mark H. Rapaport, Emanuel Nunez, Josh Marks, Grant S. Johnson, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Thorsten Schumacher, Niamh Fagan, Gabe Sherman, Lee Broda, Greg Denny, and James Shani.

Actor Stan previously told IndieWire that he selects roles that scare him, especially post-MCU reign. He’s starred in Marvel projects as Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier. “A Different Man” won Stan the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the 2024 Berlinale.

“More and more as I’ve gotten older, when I read something that really kind of freaks me out a little bit and I get the voice that’s like, ‘Don’t ever go near this,’ then I’m more drawn to it as a result,” Stan said in 2022. “I find usually that fear is a good indicator of something that I have to sort of step into perhaps to understand better. I hate comfort. I don’t like to feel comfortable, work-wise. I feel it’s easy to get comfortable. I think it’s easy to get sort of trapped as an actor and to just do things.”

“The Apprentice” premieres in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Abbasi’s “Border” won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2018, while “Holy Spider” competed for the Palme d’Or in 2022. See the full 2024 lineup here.

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