By Miranda Murray
CANNES, France (Reuters) – Donald Trump would likely be surprised by “The Apprentice,” director Ali Abbasi said on Tuesday of his biopic about Trump’s early years as a real estate mogul, adding he was open to meeting with the former U.S. president to discuss the film.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, receiving an eight-minute ovation and mixed reviews from critics.
Set to be released in mid-September ahead of a November U.S. election that Trump, 77, looks likely to win, “The Apprentice” shares the name of the reality TV series hosted and produced by Trump that made him a household name.
“I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie that (Trump) would dislike, I don’t necessarily think he would like it, I think that he would be surprised,” Abbasi, who was born in Iran, said at a news briefing.
Following the premiere, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign said it would be filing a lawsuit against the film over “blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”
“Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people, they don’t talk about his success rate though,” said Abbasi when asked about the threat of a lawsuit.
Trump’s team should watch the movie “before they start suing us, because I think once you’re inside that character, it feels different, and we’re inside that character,” he said.
The story focuses on Trump’s time under the tutelage of lawyer and prosecutor Roy Cohn, a political fixer who is portrayed in the TV drama “Succession” by Jeremy Strong.
Sebastian Stan, who made his name in the Captain America trilogy, plays Trump as he evolves from his early career years as an upstart working for his father’s business to a brazen, self-centred tycoon.
Stan described his preparation for the role as a 24/7 immersion process to understand Trump beyond his media personality.
“He is a human being like everybody else so I guess we all have certain codes and certain principles, it just depends on what they are. I guess it’s relative to everybody,” Stan said at the briefing.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
