Sebastian Stan, renowned from 'The Apprentice', unveils his reliance for portraying a youthful Donald Trump: "Gut feeling is all-important."
The film, featuring Jeremy Strong, an acclaimed actor from "Succession," as Trump's ex-attorney and confidant Roy Cohn, along with Maria Bakalova, a nominee for an Oscar from "Borat 2," portraying Ivana Trump, required Stan to delve into Trump's early years to perfect his portrayal.
Stan, in a recent conversation with CNN, expressed, "I believe instinct and collaboration are everything. You need to immerse yourself in what serves the story and character without prejudice or consideration of the good, bad, and ugly."
For Stan, the turbulence surrounding the former president and the upcoming Republican candidate was something he had to isolate himself from.
"You must disconnect from fear and the clamor that envelops us at the moment," he shared about his approach to his performance.
Previous depictions of Cohn include last year's Emmy-nominated "Fellow Travelers," where Will Brill portrayed him, and 2003's award-winning HBO miniseries "Angels in America," which featured Al Pacino in the role.
Strong mentioned that his portrayal of Cohn was influenced by "osmosis" after an endless study of the late attorney.
"You become engrossed until it consumes you, and then it manifests itself naturally," Strong told CNN, adding that he watched numerous video clips of Cohn. "His gaze, his conduct, those reptilian eyes, and the turmoil, self-denial, hatred, and venom within him."
"It's not like I'll put on this appearance and that," he added. "It's a holistic approach. Your duty is to comprehensively understand these people, inside and out, multi-dimensionally, and then it plays out on set without thought."
Predictably, the film "The Apprentice" has been met with controversy. CNN reported in May, around the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, that Trump's team was contemplating a lawsuit over the film's release and distribution.
"This is nothing but fictitious garbage that sensationalizes lies that have been debunked for a long time," Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement to CNN at the time.
In an interview with CNN, the film's director Abbasi questioned whether US audiences would ever have the chance to see it. Remarkably, the distribution challenges weren't the most significant hurdles Abbasi faced while making "The Apprentice."
"I would say that for me, some of the most challenging ones were figuring out how to structure this narrative," he continued, adding that it was a vast tapestry with "many characters, each of whom feels important."
Abbasi's solution was to focus on the central relationship between the characters played by Stan and Strong.
"We want to zero in on this specific relationship, the transformational relationship between them and witness his transformation through it and become the person we know today," he said. "Therefore, that became the central thread of the story, and we organized everything around it, which was very helpful."
"The Apprentice" is now showing in theaters.
Stan mentioned that to fully embody his character, he needed to isolate himself from the controversies surrounding Trump, stating, "You must disconnect from fear and the clamor that envelops us at the moment." Furthermore, the film's director Abbasi highlighted the importance of focusing on the central relationship between Stan and Strong's characters, emphasizing, "We want to zero in on this specific relationship, the transformational relationship between them."
