The Apprenctice star, Sebastian Stan, has admitted that other actors have been afraid to do appearances with him as they didn’t want to discuss Donald Trump.
Stan stars as Trump in a controversial biopic about the president-elect, which focuses on his early days as a real estate tycoon and his relationship with lawyer Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong.
The movie, which received mixed reviews and was released prior to the US election on 5 November, received strong backlash from Trump himself, branding the people involved “human scum”.
Stan has now said that there has been so much of a row around the film that other actors are now starting to distance themselves from him.
During a recent Q&A about the film in Los Angeles, alongside director Ali Abbas, the Marvel star said that he was unable to take part in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series due to others being unwilling to talk about Trump.
“I couldn’t find another actor to do it with me, because they were too afraid to to go and talk about this movie. So I couldn’t do it,” explained the 42-year-old.
Stan added: “You know, I’ve got to do a lot of great things, and that’s not pointing at anyone specific. It was… we couldn’t get past the publicists or the people representing them, because [they were] too afraid to talk about this movie.”
“And it’s like, that’s when I think we lose the situation,” he continued. “Because if it really becomes like that - fear or that discomfort to talk about this - then we’re really going to have a problem.”
Sebastian Stan and Director Ali Abassi attended the #THEAPPRENTICE Screening and #SebastianStan said he was invited to Variety Actor on Actor interview but couldn’t find an actor want to do it with him , because their publicists were hesitated to let them talk about this movie so… pic.twitter.com/cWRvzx0bHF
— MaggieMinLA (@MaggieMinLA) November 19, 2024
“For many, the idea that Trump is the same as any one of us is a really difficult thing to deal with at the moment and I understand the emotions are very high, but I think that’s the only way you’re going to grasp this film,” said Stan.
“If all it’s saying is you cannot keep casting this person aside, especially after they get the popular vote, should we not give this a closer look and try to understand what it is about this person that’s even driving that?”
In a statement given to People magazine Variety Co-Editor in Chief Ramin Setoodeh confirmed that Stan’s account was true.
“What Sebastian said is accurate, he said. “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.”
Stan has received a small amount of support since speaking out on the issue. His I, Tonya co-star Paul Walter Hauser has offered to do “Actors on Actors” style chat with him.
Trump has previously dismissed the film, which features a scene where he rapes his ex-wife Ivana, as “pure fiction”.
In a rant on his Truth Social website, he wrote: “A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully ‘bomb.’ It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
