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Sebastian Stan has revealed he ate ramen with “a bunch of soy sauce” to prepare for his role as Donald Trump in a new biopic.
The Apprentice sees the Marvel actor play a young version of the former president as he makes his way in New York real estate and seeks advice from mentor Roy Cohn (Succession’s Jeremy Strong).
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stan and director Ali Abbasi discussed the actor’s physical transformation into Trump.
Abbasi pointed out that they had a “narrow path to navigate,” arguing that if Stan wore “10 percent more” prosthetics it would “look like Saturday Night Live,” but if he wore 10 percent less it would “just be Sebastian in a wig.”
Stan explained: “We were getting closer to shooting and hadn’t agreed on the prosthetics. That’s when Ali said, ‘Maybe you should start gaining weight in your face because you’re older now, so your cheeks are more hollow, and it’s not Marvel.”
Stan said he then called a nutritionist for advice, who said that adding high levels of sodium to his diet would puff up the actor’s face. “He was like, ‘What I need you to do is get ramen, add a bunch of soy sauce, and start having that,’” Stan recalled.
The Apprentice is set to be released in theaters in the US on October 11.
The film initially struggled to find a US distributor or streaming deal despite critical acclaim following its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
At the time, the film’s producers believed that studios and distributors were wary about getting involved with the project because of fear of repercussions should Trump be reelected as president in November.
The biopic reportedly contains a number of unflattering scenes, including Trump using drugs and undergoing cosmetic operations.
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More controversially, it shows Trump raping his first wife Ivana, who had accused him of sexually assaulting her in a 1989 divorce deposition. She later disavowed the allegation in 2015.
Days after the film screened at Cannes, Trump’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter, warning producers not to pursue a distribution deal.
“We filed a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Trump campaign chief spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Independent.
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked,” he added.
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.”
Producers hit back at the Trump campaign’s claims, telling Variety that “the film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president. We want everyone to see it and then decide.”
