Sebastian Stan was highly praised for portraying Donald Trump in the biographical drama, The Apprentice. While the movie did not make a huge splash at the box office, it stirred up a lot of controversy prior to its release, thanks mainly to the former and new president of America. Now Stan has revealed that since Trump’s unprecedented election victory, he has found himself being shut out when it comes to being able to speak about the movie – even having to cancel an episode of Variety’s Actors on Actors series as no one would participate with him.
Speaking at a Q&A after a screening of The Apprentice, Stan joined director Ali Abbasi to talk about the film, and revealed that he has struggled to find people willing to openly discuss the movie and its subject in any way for fear of receiving some kind of blowback for it. Stan said:
“I’m not here to name anyone, but the amount of love that we have received from the biggest directors, actors and writers who have seen the movie and rave about it. But then, for instance, I had an offer to do Variety’s Actors on Actors this Friday, and I couldn’t find another actor to do it with me because they were too afraid to go and talk about this movie, so I couldn’t do it.
It doesn’t matter, that’s ok, that’s not to point the finger at anybody. I’ve gotten to do a lot of great things. That’s when I think we lose the situation, because if it really becomes that fear or that discomfort to talk about this, then we are really going to have a problem.”
Later in the day, a Variety co-editor confirmed that Stan had been offered the chance to appear on Actors on Actors and had been unable to find anyone to appear alongside him. They said:
“What Sebastian said is accurate. We invited him to participate in ‘Actors on Actors,’ the biggest franchise of awards season, but other actors didn’t want to pair with him because they didn’t want to talk about Donald Trump.”
Sebastian Stan Felt Pressure Making the Movie
Taking on the role of a divisive and very controversial public figure like Donald Trump obviously comes with pressure. The film was subjected to many distribution rejections. Trump’s lawyers attempted to have the movie canned before it could be released. Then there were the reactions of both those for and against the larger-than-life businessman to handle. For Stan, the biggest pressure was being able to tell the story in a way that looked beyond the sensational headlines, and looked at the reasons why Trump is the man who has won the popular vote with many Americans. He said:
“Every second felt like life or death. Because of who we are dealing with, we are all exhausted of this f*cking person, or some people are not, but my job was to look at all the facts and we had to look at all the things from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and why he had been on the cover of Time Magazine back then as he just was. Why was he on Oprah, and Larry King and GQ and why they were saying he was the first contractor to hire women. Why these things existed, not just focussing on the worst things. So the pressure for me was to just try to get you to be able to continue on this journey in a way, given what you know.”
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