Sebastian Stan to Play Young Donald Trump in New Movie

Actor Sebastian Stan will play former U.S. President Donald Trump in a new movie called The Apprentice. According to a report by Deadline, production started this week with several other new details on the project dropping all at once. The movie will be about Trump’s real estate career in the 1970s and 1980s, not his political career or his recent criminal allegations.

The Apprentice will be directed by Ali Abbasi, a Cannes prize-winning director known for his film Holy Spider. Along with Stan, the cast includes his fellow MCU star Maria Bakalova and Succession star Jeremy Strong. Bakalova will play Trump’s first wife, Ivana, while Strong will play his infamous attorney Roy Cohn. The movie is described as “an exploration of power and ambition, set in a world of corruption and deceit,” while the plot hinges particularly on Trump’s mentor-protege relationship with Cohn.

The writer behind this screenplay is Gabriel Sherman, who has already seen some success in political media with The Loudest Voice. Sherman’s book The Loudest Voice in the Room is a biography of Fox News president Roger Ailes, and it was adapted into a TV miniseries for Showtime back in 2019.

News of this project shocked many social media commenters on Thursday – particularly the casting of Stan as a young Trump. Many did not see the resemblance and proclaimed the casting to be an insult to one or the other of them. However, others were eager to see what Stan could bring to this kind of role.

Stan is best known for playing The Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, in recent years he has distinguished himself with some stand-out roles in other movies and TV shows. Recently, his role in the Hulu original film Fresh caught many viewers completely off guard. Perhaps most relevant was last year’s Pam & Tommy where he played Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee opposite Lily James’ Pamela Anderson. Stan was even nominated for an Emmy for the performance.

There’s no indication that Trump himself is involved in the movie in any way. The former president is campaigning to get his office back in 2024, and is currently the frontrunner both in the Republican primary and in the overall race according to the latest polls. However, he is also facing several criminal indictments, and is currently on trial for fraud in the state of New York. Legal experts disagree on whether any of these cases could preclude Trump from running for president again.

The Apprentice went into production this week but so far there’s no estimated release date for the film. With the 2024 presidential election approaching fast, the movie could premiere in a very different political climate than the one it is being made in.