Marvel’s Sebastian Stan to Play Donald Trump in New Movie

Marvel star Sebastian Stan is going to be playing the younger version of former president Donald Trump in a new movie titled (appropriately enough) The Apprentice, from prize-winning Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi (HBO’s The Last of Us, Holy Spider). 

According to the report from Deadline, The Apprentice will focus on “Trump’s efforts to build his real estate business in New York in the ’70s and ’80s, also digging into his relationship with infamous attorney Roy Cohn.”

Sebastian Stan had a breakout run as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise – but he’s also been stacking up acclaim for his non-MCU roles. Last year, Stan had a major hit on the small screen portraying infamous rock drummer Tommy Lee in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy miniseries; he also scored points in the cult-horror genre with the Hulu thriller Fresh, showcasing a decidedly different (read: creepy) side of the actor’s range. 

Already the Internet is at work putting up side-by-side photo comparisons of Sebastian Stan and a younger Donald Trump, it’s not hard to see how – with the right makeup and hair – Sebastian Stan could pull off the look, demeanor, and spirit of a young Trump with uncanny accuracy. 

Other actors who have played Donald Trump (outside of Saturday Night Live parodies) include Portuguese actor Louis Ferreira (Breaking Bad) who starred in the 2005 ABC TV movie Trump Unauthorized. Oscar-nominated actor Brendan Gleeson (Gangs of New York, The Banshees of Inisherin) portrayed “President Trump” in Showtime’s 2020 miniseries The Comey Rule. The Apprentice sounds like it will be the first project to be laser-focused on a specific period of Trump’s younger life and a specific aspect of that time in his life. 

Roy Cohn was an infamous lawyer and prosecutor from the 1950s-1980s, best known for being Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the McCarthy Hearings of the ’50s. By the 1970s, Cohn was known to be one of the most prominent “fixers” in NYC. He was known to be a mentor and legal counsel to Donald Trump early on in his career, helping him become one of the biggest real estate developers in the city. Cohn referred to Trump as his “best friend” and claimed they would speak on the phone over a dozen times a day at the height of their friendship. At the same time, Cohn was a controversial figure at the center of business, politics, sports, and the underworld, representing prominent mafia figures like John Gotti, Carmine Galante, and Fat Tony Salerno. Those latter associations have raised a lot of questions about how Trump allegedly secured his real estate and construction deals – and it will be interesting to see how The Apprentice delves into all that. 

The Apprentice is in development.