‘Unflattering’ Donald Trump biopic could actually help him win the 2024 US election-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro

The Apprentice, in which Sebastian Stan stars as a young Donald Trump (R), might possibly help the real Trump (L) clinch the election (Picture: Tailored Films/Getty)

Earlier this week, Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice had its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival, grabbing headlines thanks to its controversial content.

It was one of the festival’s most highly anticipated releases – if not the year’s – with the public keen to know exactly what would be included, how it would be presented and how Marvel actor Sebastian Stan would evoke the former US president, someone he bears little resemblance to.

Well, critics and audience members certainly got a meaty dish of eyebrow-raising scenes served up to them in The Apprentice, from a scene showing alleged non-consensual sex to rather gruesome plastic surgery procedures.

Many will be delighted to see Trump portrayed in an unflattering light in the movie.

However, just months before the US election where he is, once again, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has The Apprentice potentially played right into his – and his loyal supporters’ – hands?

There’s every chance The Apprentice could actually help Trump’s chances in the election by shining the spotlight on him over his rival, an already-weak Democratic candidate in current president, Joe Biden.

Former President Trump is taken on a weak Democratic candidate in President Joe Biden, and has already been declared the presumptive Republican nominee despite being indicted in four criminal investigations (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)

It’s also likely the film will rouse Trump’s ‘MAGA’ masses (a phrase that’s knowingly referenced in The Apprentice) to spring into action with denouncements and even more of a dedicated determination to get him back into the White House.

Trump already made it there in 2016, before losing to Biden in 2020. With other rivals like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis dropping out of the Republican race in January, he’s been the clear frontrunner for the party all year, even though come November he may well be a convicted criminal thanks to the four separate criminal investigations in which he’s been indicted.

If these won’t put off supporters voting for him, it’s highly unlikely The Apprentice will, and what’s more, they will almost certainly rally behind him even more.

The film’s unflattering-to-Trump scenes (to put it mildly) could be seen as confirming the view of his most rabid fans that this film is a hatchet job, and exactly what ‘liberal Hollywood snowflakes’ would do to discredit Trump, if given the chance.

In portraying Trump in an unflattering light in certain scenes, Ali Abbasi’s (C, with Stan and Maria Bakalova) The Apprentice is playing up to what Trump’s loyal fanbase expected (Picture: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Or, as director Ali Abbasi put it at the film’s Cannes press conference to Metro.co.uk and other outlets: ‘If I was him, I would be sitting in New Jersey, Florida, New York – or wherever he is now – and thinking, “Oh, this crazy Iranian guy and some liberal c**ts in Cannes, they gathered and they did this movie and it’s f**ked up and it’s demeaning and it’s a conspiracy”.’

He also later added that he would happily screen the film to Trump and talk to him about it afterward.

Producers also pointed out that the film is, in fact, not an American movie either – it’s a co-production between Canada, Denmark, the UK and Ireland among others, with screenwriter Gabriel Sherman adding: ‘Making a film like this is very challenging, because Hollywood in many ways doesn’t want to rock certain boats.’

Jeremy Strong is also in the movie as lawyer Roy Cohn, who shaped the young Trump into the man we know today (Picture: Tailored Films)

In The Apprentice, Trump is seen undergoing liposuction and scalp reduction surgery in the 1980s in pretty grisly detail. There’s nothing wrong with either of course, but Trump is known to be incredibly sensitive about his comb-over hairstyle, denying that it covers any sort of baldness.

He also denied having the scalp reduction in 1993 as was published in Harry Hurt III’s book Lost Tycoon, stating, according to Newsday (via The Daily Beast): ‘It’s obviously false. It’s incorrect and done by a guy [Hurt] without much talent… He is a guy that is an unattractive guy who is a vindictive and jealous person.’

However, the basis of this came from Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce testimony, under oath. Worse still for Trump, another section of that same sworn testimony formed the inspiration for The Apprentice’s ‘rape’ scene, in which Stan’s Trump forces himself on top of Maria Bakalova as Ivana in a fit of rage.

In the film, he tells her he is no longer attracted to her and is provoked by her gifting him a book about female pleasure and the G spot.

‘Is that your G spot? Did I find it?’ he then shouts as he roughly thrusts into a crying Ivana on the floor.

One especially controversial inclusion is a non-consensual sex scene between Stan’s Trump and Bakalova’s Ivana in The Apprentice (Picture: Tailored Films)

The real-life couple in 1988 (Picture: Susan Farley/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

However, in 2015, Ivana – who died in 2022 aged 73 – recanted that allegation, insisting it was ‘totally without merit’ and that she and her ex were ‘the best of friends’ while her former husband campaigned to be elected president the first time.

She had also tried to soften the language from her deposition ahead of Lost Tycoon’s publication in 1993, distancing herself from her original use of the word ‘rape’ and instead saying he had on the occasion in question ‘behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage’.

Making a film like this is very challenging, because Hollywood in many ways doesn’t want to rock certain boats

‘As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape’, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense,’ she insisted.

So, the fact that Sherman included a similar situation in his screenplay will almost certainly whip up the MAGA massive with cries of ‘fake news’.

Trump’s camp finally officially responded to The Apprentice hours after its premiere on Monday, with campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung claiming the team will be taking legal action and filing a lawsuit ‘to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers’.

Trump is yet to respond to the film personally, but his team has called it ‘garbage’ and ‘pure, malicious defamation’ (Picture: AP)

Cheung also called the film ‘garbage’, claiming it ‘sensationalises lies that have been long debunked’.

‘As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked,’ he continued.

Which is, of course, exactly what Abassi and his team predicted – and corrected – at the press conference.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the film ‘garbage’, claiming it ‘sensationalises lies that have been long debunked’

Finishing with a flourish, the statement ended: ‘This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.’

Trump himself has not yet commented publicly – he is, after all, currently in the middle of his hush-money trial, in which he chose not to testify. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records thought to cover up a payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

It’s also likely he doesn’t want to give The Apprentice any free publicity so soon after its premiere as it plans release dates for later this year – closer to the election.

Abbasi revealed his film is targeting a release date close to the US election, jokingly calling it a ‘promotional event’ (Picture: Tailored Films)

Abbasi joked at the presser: ‘We have a promotional event coming up, called the US elections, which is going to help.

‘So we’re hoping very much that it can come out – if I’m remembering right, the second debate is going to be on September 15 [sic.], so that’s a good release day for us.’

It’s actually September 10, but the filmmaker’s point stands. However, it must be expected that Trump will also be ready to use it to his own advantage then, when the eyes of America, and a lot of the world, are on him.

The Apprentice premiered at Cannes Film Festival on May 20. It is yet to receive a UK release date.

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