"Too afraid to talk about this movie" — When Sebastian Stan shared that no one in Hollywood wanted to talk about his Trump biopic

Sebastian Stan's turn as the real estate mogul Donald Trump in The Apprentice has been touted as one of the best performances of 2024. The film chronicles Trump's rise in the world of real estate and his relationship with the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn during the 1970s and 1980s.

The biopic was screened in Los Angeles on November 19, 2024, two weeks after Trump won his second presidential election. During the screening, Sebastian Stan shared that he wanted to appear on Variety's popular Actors on Actors video series, where two actors engage in a one-on-one conversation about their work and career, to discuss the movie.

However, no Hollywood A-lister was willing to join him, as he claimed they were "afraid to talk about this movie." Stan elaborated by saying:

"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.....we couldn’t get past the publicists or the people representing them, because (they were) too afraid to talk about this movie."

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What did Donald Trump say about Sebastian Stan's The Apprentice?

While Sebastian Stan's statement was met with skepticism, the co-editor in chief of Variety, Ramin Setoodeh, released a statement to People Magazine verifying his claims the next day:

"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," he said.

Furthermore, Donald Trump himself was not impressed with his portrayal in the movie, which depicted him s**ually assaulting his first wife Ivana. He took to his Truth Social to lambast the film soon after its release in October 2024, calling it "fake and classless" before saying:

"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.'"

He continued:

"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!.....which is far bigger than any of us."

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Sebastian Stan has received accolades for his performance in The Apprentice

Ali Abbasi directed The Apprentice from a screenplay written by Gabriel Sherman. The film is produced by Daniel Bekerman, Amy Baer, Ruth Treacy, Jacob Jarek, Julianne Forde, Tony Grier, and Louis Tisné. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2024, and was released in theaters on October 11, 2024.

Box Office Mojo reported that the film's box office collections reached $17.3 million, compared to its budget of $16 million. Nevertheless, it was met with an overwhelmingly positive response by critics, with one claiming Sebastian Stan "shine(s) in a simplistic yet entertaining foray into the world of a young Trump."

Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Charlie Carrick, Jason Blicker, Catherine McNally, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Stuart Hughes, and more round out the film's supporting cast.

Both Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, who plays Roy Cohn, have bagged acting nominations at the top award ceremonies in 2025. Moreover, Stan earned a 'Best Actor' nomination at the 97th Academy Awards in January 2025, marking the first Oscar nomination in the 42-year-old's career. The award ceremony is scheduled to take place on March 2, 2025.

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