Actor Sebastian Stan says his portrayal of President-elect Donald Trump in the controversial film “The Apprentice” has gotten him iced out of a traditional awards season honor.
Speaking at a Los Angeles screening Tuesday, Stan said he’d been invited to participate in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” interview series, only to have his appearance jettisoned when no other actor was willing to discuss his performance on the record.
“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,” he explained, as seen as video of the event.
Though Stan said fellow actors have complimented him privately on his “Apprentice” performance, he went on to note: “We couldn’t get past the publicists or the people representing them.”
After footage of Stan’s remarks began making the rounds on social media, Variety’s co-editor Ramin Setoodeh released a statement to Deadline and other outlets corroborating the claims.
“What Sebastian said is accurate,” the statement read. “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.”
The “Actors on Actors” series traditionally features a pair of stars sitting down for an intimate, on-camera conversation about projects that have been generating awards buzz. Recent participants include Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone, both of whom won Oscars for their performances in “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” respectively.
“The Apprentice” was released in theaters last month after a much-buzzed-about premiere at France’s Cannes Film Festival in May. Directed by Ali Abbasi, the movie is a fictionalized take on Trump’s years as a real estate magnate in 1970s and ’80s New York, as well as his relationship with his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and ties to infamous lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).
We Need Your Support
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
Despite positive reviews, “The Apprentice” was considered a box office disappointment, earning a reported $1.6 million in its opening weekend. In a post on Truth Social, Trump himself deemed the film “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job,” and blasted those involved in the project as “human scum” after his attorneys were seemingly unable to quash its release.
Though Stan may have to forgo “Actors on Actors” for now, he’s hopeful that “The Apprentice” will encourage discourse elsewhere.
“I think that’s the only way you’re going to grasp this film — all it’s saying is you cannot keep casting this person aside, especially after they got the popular vote,” he said Tuesday. “Should we not give this a closer look and try to understand what it is about this person that’s even driving that?”