Actor Who Played Trump in Controversial Film, Snubbed By Hollywood

Sebastian Stan says actors are "afraid" to interview him for his Donald Trump movie, The Apprentice.

The Captain America star, 42, revealed in an interview that he was invited to participate in Variety magazine's Actors on Actors series, where fellow actors interview each other. But he could find an actor who would interview him because, according to Stan, their publicists were too afraid to talk about Trump.

Here's what Stan said in an interview with the director Ali Abbasi, "The amount of love that I've received from some of the biggest [...] actors, directors, producers, writers who've seen the movie, and they rave about it." But he went on to add, "I couldn't find another actor to do it with me because they were too afraid to go and talk about this movie."

Variety Co-Editor in Chief Ramin Setoodeh confirmed Stan's account in a statement to USA TODAY.

"What Sebastian said is accurate. 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."

Hollywood elites have always been vocal about their disdain for Trump. Numerous A-list celebs have publicly decried President Trump, calling him a threat to democracy, repeating false claims about his character, pretending to cut off his head (Kathy Griffin), and using their award shows to slander him.

So it's surprising that not a single actor would sit down with Sebastian Stan to talk about his Donald Trump film. Does it have something to do with the massive shift in popular opinion which rejected Hollywood and the Democrat party?

Not to mention, the film was almost pulled after the Trump Campaign threatened legal action, calling it "pure fiction." The filmmakers played fast and loose with the truth, twisting third-hand material from lawyers and journalists to create a version of Trump that fits with the over-dramatic liberal narrative. If you are looking for a plot summary, we can catch you up to speed in three words: orange man bad.

The filmmakers have tried to use Trump's legal threats to convince people to watch the film. "If you're going to attack art, which is what he [Trump] did with the film, then that should say something," said Sebastian Stan, adding "Probably because truth hurts."

It's funny, on one hand, Stan says that Trump is attacking art, as if this film is "art" and not a story about a real human being whom the filmmakers gladly portray as a rapist, homophobe, narcissistic, and all round hateful person. But in the next breath, Stan says that it's all true. So, is this an artist's expression or a true story?

The main controversy surrounding the film regards a scene, where Sebastian Stan (playing Trump) sexually assaults Ivana Trump (Maria Bakalova). The scene plays on old allegations that have since been walked back and refuted by Ivana Trump on numerous occasions.

"I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald," Ivana said in a statement. "The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised 3 children that we love and are very proud of."

Apparently, Ali Abbasi, fought very hard to keep the rape scene in the movie. He was even surprised to find out that viewers found the scene distasteful. “I find it really surprising that everyone in the U.S. seems to be very focused on the personal stuff,” says the Iranian director in a Golden Globes interview.

Abbasi's idea of art is strange, the man clearly has not concept of art or creation, you don't have to watch his films to understand that, it's apparent from his own words. But he does have an inflated sense of morality, commenting on the intensely personal aspects of another man's life. Speaking about things that no one has complete knowledge of and pressing old wounds.

These are the very same people that blacklisted Mel Gibson for a drunken rant while they all turned a blind eye to sexual crimes of Harvey Weinstein, Bryan Singer, and David O. Russell. It's laughable.

The funny thing is that people from the right did not support the film because it was a clear character assassination, and people from the left didn't support the film because they can't stand anything remotely sympathetic towards Trump (which it certainly was not).

The Iranian director told NPR that financing for the film "fell apart" several times because liberal figures in Hollywood thought the film was "too sympathetic" of Trump.

In an October post on Truth Social, Trump described the film as a "cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country."

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