Sebastian Stan on his intense transformation into Donald Trump for The Apprentice

Actor Sebastian Stan is set to portray Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi's upcoming film, The Apprentice. The film will delve into Trump's early business years, for which Stan has undergone a major transformation for the role.

In Short

• Sebastian Stan will next be seen in The Apprentice
• He will play former President Donald Trump in the film
• In a recent interview, the actor talked about transformation into Trump

Captain America Winter Soldier actor Sebastian Stan opened up about his dedicated transformation into Donald Trump for his role in The Apprentice, detailing the lengths he went to in order to capture Trump’s unique physicality and speech patterns.

“I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone,” Stan revealed in a conversation with Variety. “And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods — from the ’70s all the way to today — so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him,” he said.

Stan explained that he deeply immersed himself in the character, often improvising entire scenes at the direction of filmmaker Ali Abbasi.

Drawing on the wealth of footage and interviews he studied, Stan was able to react in the moment, embodying Trump’s persona with precision. “Ali could come in on the second take and say, ‘Why don’t you talk a little bit about the taxes and how you don’t want to pay?’ So I had to know what charities they were going to in 1983,” Stan said, emphasising the depth of his preparation. He added, “Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali was going to take this.”

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Stan even had to change the way he spoke, adapting his mouth movements to mimic Trump’s distinctive speech. “I started to realise that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way,” he explained.

Stan said, “A lot of that came from the consonants. If I’m talking, I’m moving forward.” He noted that on-screen, his mouth naturally puckered as he tried to emphasise consonants, but he stopped short of parody. “The consonants naturally forced your lips forward,” he added.

Trump’s growing size is also central to the film’s plot, symbolising his ego of sorts. As the production deadline loomed, Abbasi asked Stan how much weight he could gain in a short time. “You’d be surprised,” Stan shared. “You can gain a lot of weight in two months.” Stan put on 15 pounds for the role.

The Apprentice marks one of two physically demanding roles for Stan this year. In A Different Man, Stan will portray a character with a severe tumour disorder, requiring a different kind of physical transformation. His performance in A Different Man also earned him the top acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival.