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Donald Trump never followed through on threats to take The Apprentice to court, but star Sebastian Stan has certainly experienced personal praise and a public rebuffing from his fellow A-Listers and their PR teams over the controversial biopic.
"The amount of love that I've received from some of the biggest, in terms of actors, directors, producers, and writers, who have seen the movie, and they rave about it," Stan said this week at a LA screening of the film. "But then, for instance, I had an offer to do Variety Actors on Actors this Friday, and I couldn't find another actor to do it with me."
"They were too afraid to go and talk about this movie, so I couldn't do it," the Emmy nominated Pam & Tommy actor added with Apprentice director Ali Abbasi by his side.
"That's not pointing at anyone specific," Stan went on to tell audience members, we couldn't get past the publicists or the people representing them because they were too afraid to talk about this movie."
Abbasi added his two cents online on Tuesday:
"What Sebastian said is accurate," Variety co-editor Ramin Setoodeh told Deadline in a statement Wednesday. "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."
Penned by journalist Gabe Sherman, The Apprentice follows the trajectory and rise to prominence of young and somewhat naïve rich boy Trump (Stan) under the tutorage of ruthless Republican lawyer and ex-Joe McCarthy bagman Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Even with a scene depicting a sexual assault by Trump of his first wife Ivana Trump (Maria Baklovia), the film is more sympatric to the future president than many would have assumed. The Briarcliff Entertainment distributed The Apprentice had a surprise screening at Telluride in August before a wider release on October 11 to middling box office.
In the days that followed the film's release on 1,740 screens, Trump himself took to social media to lash out at what he called a "cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job." His campaign disputed the sexual assault scene, which was mentioned by the now deceased Ivana Trump publicly at the time of the couple's divorce before being rescinded by her later in life.
It should be repeated, as has often been the case with Trump, the lawsuit threats against The Apprentice proved all smoke, no fire, but the die was cast it seems.
"You can be outraged over people's reluctance, sure, but no one really knows what Trump is going to do," one prominent flack said to Deadline of the Stan snub. "You don't want to be the one to see your client in jeopardy, do you?" she added, indicating regret over the situation.
"I get it, I don't like it, but I get it," another PR executive stated of the lack of partners for Stan for Actors on Actors. "The movie, and everyone associated with it has been on notice from Republicans since Cannes," the exec noted of the legal threats and the long road to finding distribution since the Apprentice debuted in the south of France festival in May.
The Variety sit-down with CAA-repped Stan and another actor was set to occur last week, not "this Friday" as the Apprentice star states on the screening panel from earlier this week, Deadline has learned. Contingent on a pairing, Stan was offered a spot in the Variety series with potential dates. When no one could be found who would participate with him, the spot in the now completed series was given to another duo.
As a number of media titans like Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos are seemingly seeking to recalibrate their sometimes adversarial relationship with the authoritarian inclined Trump, Hollywood, a bastion of deep pocket Democratic donors and progressive policy advocates, has seen a shift towards appeasing the former Celebrity Apprentice host. Studio and streamer bosses have been near universally silent publicly on Trump's return to power the past two weeks.
Blasted by Megyn Kelly and other conservative media folk for her "f*ck Donald Trump comments after the election, Snow White star Rachel Zegler backtracked pretty fast with a clearly PR penned apology for letting my emotions get the best of me." The Gal Gadot co-starring live action version of the Disney classic will be coming out next spring.
With that, the hesitancy to stand too close to Stan doesn't seem to extend to his place the blockbuster realm of Disney's MCU, at least not yet.
Just days ago, Marvel kingpin Kevin Feige referred to the "great Sebastian Stan" while plugging Thunderbolts and other MCU project remotely at the Disney APAC Content Showcase in Singapore.
The studio president heaped also praise on Stan's longtime MCU role "the Winter Soldier, one of the most popular, fan favorite characters that we have." Co-starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florene Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, the Jake Schreier helmed Thunderbolts comes out on May 2, 2025. Stan's Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes does not appear in the Anthony Mackie-led Captain America: Brave New World, which will be released on Valentines Day 2025.
Disney did not respond to request for comment on Stan's Apprentice backlash and if there would be a spillover effect for Thunderbolts and other projects with him. If the Mouse House does reply, this post will be updated.
A remarkable political comeback, Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in both the Electoral College and, by a thin margin, the popular vote on November 5. Promising retribution to his enemies and critics, he 45 POTUS will become the 47 POTUS upon taking the oath of office on January 20, 2025.
