A first look at the forthcoming film from director Ali Abbasi finds the actor settling into his role beside Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn
Director Ali Abbasi had Sebastian Stan undergo an ominous transformation for his forthcoming film The Apprentice, in which the actor will star a young Donald Trump. As proven by the first-look photos from the movie, set to premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the process was a success — Stan’s Trump looks exactly like the kind of person who would be sued by the Department of Justice for violating the Fair Housing Act.
The Apprentice positions Stan as Trump beside Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, the lawyer who represented the businessman when he countersued the Department of Justice in 1973, seeking $100 million in damages for defamation. The original case was brought against Fred and Donald Trump and their real estate company, alleging systemic racial discrimination. Trump and Cohn remained connected until the lawyer’s death in 1986.
“The Apprentice is a dive into the underbelly of the American empire,” a synopsis for the film reads. “The drama charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.”
The film features a screenplay from Gabriel Sherman and also stars Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump and Martin Donovan as Fred Trump. It will premiere at Cannes in May in competition for the Palme d’Or alongside Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, Andrea Arnold’s Bird, and more.
The Apprentice marks Abbasi’s first film release since 2022’s Holy Spider. This year, Stan also starred in A Different Man, a psychological thriller that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in January.
