(Paris) Actor Sebastian Stan, revelation of the film The Apprentice in theaters in the United States on Friday, takes on a high-risk role, that of young Donald Trump, whom he considers “more accessible than we would like to admit”.
To prepare to play the businessman, former president of the United States and American presidential candidate, Stan says he devoured every interview he could find, all the videos and recordings of Trump from the late 1990s. 1970 to early 1980s.
He listened to it “non-stop”, while driving, walking, shopping or “in his bathroom”, he told AFP during the last Cannes Film Festival, where the film was in production. competition. This role forced him to gain weight, even if certain scenes required the installation of prosthetics.
The Apprentice paints an uncompromising portrait of Trump, but it is ultimately in the scenes where he reveals himself to be the most human that the acting was the most delicate.
For Sebastian Stan, “the most complicated scene, the one that (has) always scared him” is the one in which his character mourns the loss of his older brother Freddy, who died of alcoholism at 42 years old.
Donald Trump genuinely cares about Freddy and Ivana, his ex-wife, before his humanity is dulled by power and wealth. “It’s interesting how we don’t want to remember that from him,” notes the actor.
Stan also says he understood Trump’s “behavior and personality” while preparing this film. A large part of The Apprentice depicts the young man as a nervous and naive outsider coming from the outskirts of New York and trying to find his place in the cutthroat, elitist world of Manhattan, with which he knows little.
Capitalist society
For the comedian, who was born in communist Romania and only moved to the United States at the age of 12, this vision of Trump struggling to find his place may resonate.
“My mother told me that I had to become someone,” he explained to AFP. “There was a lot of shame when I grew up, coming from Romania… there was the idea of keeping quiet and blending in.”
The actor saw a parallel between his mother’s message and the intense pressure put on Donald Trump and his brothers by their father, Fred, who was particularly harsh.
At the beginning of the film, the young man fails to convince his father that he can conclude a daring hotel deal.
Rather, it is Roy Cohn, a lawyer with powerful political contacts, who believes in the potential of the apprentice promoter and takes him under his wing.
If Donald Trump is initially a little uncomfortable with the lawyer’s desire to “violate a few technical details”, he quickly adheres to the murky methods of his mentor and even surpasses them in his quest for glory.
The film shows how “anyone who grows up in America” can be corrupted by the capitalist society that rewards greed, cruelty and ambition, Stan judges.
“Nothing is ever good enough. You watch people succeed, but there’s always better, you always have to have more,” he adds.
The comedian’s career has exploded in recent years, thanks in large part to his role as James “Bucky” Barnes in the Captain America and in other Marvel films. We will soon find him in A Different Mana film about disability and beauty, which won him the Best Actor Prize in Berlin.