Long before Donald Trump became America's 45th president, he was a reality TV series star; a business mogul and businessman who had inherited and then expanded much of his father's real estate company.
Throughout the Eighties, when Trump was in his late 30s and 40s, he transitioned from being an important New Yorker to a well-liked celebrity: he became known for his bullish personality, heralded as a media savvy industrialist. He partied with Bill Clinton, was friends with Michael Jackson, published a best-selling book (The Art of the Deal, 1987) and was a regular at Studio 54.
Now, this period of Trump's life is going to be depicted in a new film, The Apprentice, from Ali Abbasi, the award-winning Iranian director who directed the 2022 crime thriller Holy Spider, and several episodes of The Last of Us.
With The Martian and I, Tonya star Sebastian Stan set to play the businessman, and with Jeremy Strong also cast in the film, it's safe to say our interest has been more than piqued. Here's everything to know about the new film.
What is The Apprentice going to be about?
The film will follow Trump throughout the Seventies and Eighties as he expands his business empire. This was a time in which Trump opened casinos and hotels, including the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The film will explore power and ambition, and will put his friendship with notorious lawyer and prosecutor Roy Cohn under the microscope.
Roy Cohn is still best-known as the chief counsel during the 1954 Army–McCarthy hearings, but in the years before his 1986 death he had become a political fixer. According to one scathing 2019 Politico article, he didn’t pay his bills, didn't pay his taxes, and was "was preening and combative, look-at-me lavish and loud".
"The truth was he hated what he was," said the article. "A lawyer who hated lawyers, a Jewish person who hated Jewish people, and a gay person, fiercely closeted if haphazardly hidden, who hated gay people, calling them “fags”. Cohn will be played by Jeremy Strong.
Why is the film called The Apprentice?
Nearly two decades before he became the US President, Trump co-produced and hosted The Apprentice, a TV competition show in which players completed business-focused challenges in the hopes of winning a six-figure contract at one of his businesses (the UK version, hosted by Sir Alan Sugar, is a spin-off).
The film's title will also be referring back to Cohn and Trump's relationship, as Cohn became a kind of mentor figure to the businessman.
Who is it going to star?
The new film will star Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, the model and socialite who was married to Trump between 1977 and 1990.
41-year-old actor Stan has featured in dozens of films and TV shows Gossip Girl (2007-2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Martian (2015), Logan Lucky (2017), I, Tonya (2017) Fresh (2022). Last year he starred as Tommy Lee in the Hulu miniseries Pam & Tommy, for which he was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe award.
Strong has won fans around the world for playing another despised New York businessman in HBO's Succession. He picked up a Golden Globe award and an Emmy for playing tormented and ambitious heir, Kendall Roy.
Oscar-nominated 27-year-old Bulgarian actor Maria Bakalova has starred in a number of high profile films including Transgression (2017), The Father (2019), Last Call (2020), Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) and Women Do Cry (2021).
What other projects has Ali Abbasi been involved in?
Tehran-born Ali Abbasi moved to Sweden when he was 21 years old, studying architecture in Stockholm. He then moved to Copenhagen, where he still lives, and enrolled in Denmark's national film school. His first feature-length film, a Danish horror, was released in 2016 and holds an impressive 92 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
He then directed the 2018 Swedish fantasy film Border, which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes and was selected as Sweden's Academy Award entry in 2019.
Last year he released the excellent Persian-language crime thriller, Holy Spider, which reimagined the true story of the hunt for a serial killer in Iran's Mashhad in the early Noughties. It was chosen as Denmark's entry for the 2023 Oscars.
Who else is onboard?
The Apprentice has been co-written by Abbasi and American author and journalist Gabriel Sherman, who wrote a 2014 biography of ex-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.
Does the film have a release date?
Not yet. The Apprentice is currently in the process of being filmed, and Stan was recently spotted in Toronto filming his new movies, completely transformed into the businessman.
