‘The Apprentice’ First Footage: Sebastian Stan’s Donald Trump Voice Revealed

Ethan Shanfeld
·2 min read
15

Sebastian Stan takes an interview as a young Donald Trump in the first footage released from “The Apprentice,” a biopic from director Ali Abbasi coming to theaters Oct. 11.

In the one-minute clip, Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong) coaches Trump as he takes an interview over the phone with a reporter. “I intend to acquire the Commodore, and I’m planning on making it the best and the finest building in the city, maybe the country — in the world … it’s going to be the finest building in the world,” Stan says in a tempered voice that is far from a cartoonish impression of Trump. Strong, on his part, goes for Cohn’s nasally New York flare.

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“The Apprentice,” which premiered May 20 at Cannes Film Festival, landed at Briarcliff Entertainment after struggling to find a buyer due to its controversial nature. Major Hollywood studios seemed to not want to touch the movie, which, as Variety reported, shocked Cannes with a scene in which Trump rapes his then wife Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova.

The Trump campaign threatened legal action over the movie, saying in a statement, “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked.”

From writer Gabe Sherman, “The Apprentice” is touted as “a dive into the underbelly of the American empire.” Martin Donovan also stars as Fred Trump Sr.

Set in 1970s America, the movie centers around Trump’s relationship with Cohn, who served as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Cohn was thrust into the limelight as a prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, leading to their execution in 1953.

Watch the footage below.

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