Sebastian Stan has been on the road, promoting Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice for weeks/months. Stan plays a young Donald Trump, and Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn, who mentored and guided Trump’s rise to… power or something. The actual Trump campaign has tried to get this film shut down from the start, but it’s premiered at several film festivals and it’s already out in some movie theaters. Meanwhile, people always sort of forget that Sebastian Stan is an immigrant – he is Romanian, born in Romania, and he became a naturalized American citizen when he was 20 years old. I’ve wondered if and when Stan would actually use the promotional platform to direct some criticism at the real Donald Trump. Well, he finally did it.

Sebastian Stan is suggesting moviegoers “dig deeper” when it comes to Donald Trump. The 42-year-old actor, who plays Trump in his new film The Apprentice, was recently asked by The Hollywood Reporter whether he thought his portrayal of the Republican presidential nominee might sway voters ahead of the November elections.

“I don’t know,” Stan told the outlet. “But what I do hope is that people, regardless of their opinion, are curious enough to try to dig deeper. Because I think we’re living in a world where it’s so easy to be handed an opinion everywhere you turn. And I know a lot of people love social media, and that’s where they go for information and for things. You’re being told what to think. You’re being told what to do.”

The actor went on to say that he hoped people would make their own judgment calls after doing their own research into Trump and the kind of man that he is — something which he hoped his new movie helped encourage.

“If you have any inkling of interest, go and really ask yourself: ‘Who is this man? Do you really know? Do you really trust this person to lead a country?’ He’s been trying to censor this movie, and at the same time, he claims that he acknowledges free speech … I can’t think of anything more hypocritical,” he added. “So at the end of the day, it’s about him as a character. Forget the politics and just go in there and use your instinct and ask yourself: Do you trust this man? That’s what the movie is about.”

Stan was referring to Trump’s campaign issuing a statement after the film’s premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May, saying that they planned to file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.” The film notably includes several controversial moments, including a scene in which Stan’s Trump character is shown raping then-wife Ivana.

[From People]

Yeah, I’ve thought all along that there’s no real market for this film. MAGA cultists don’t want to acknowledge their orange god’s sleazy backstory, and liberals don’t want to see a film humanize Trump in any way. I bring this up because it feels like Stan is under orders – maybe? – to try to sell this movie to a large swath of people, MAGAts and Democrats, and I just don’t think anyone’s buying it. Like, of all of the sh-tty things Trump has done and said just this year, “trying to censor a movie about his early years” barely makes the top 50.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.