Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan know the risks with ‘The Apprentice’

NEW YORK (AP) — Even in an election year, most seem to agree on one aspect of Ali Abbasi’s much-discussed Donald Trump film “The Apprentice”: Sebastian Stan makes a remarkably good Trump and Jeremy Strong is chillingly compelling as the New Yorker power broker Roy Cohn.

A reviewer recently wrote that Strong’s portrayal of Cohn is “uncanny in its accuracy.” The critic? Roger Stone, former Trump advisor.

Since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May, after which the Trump campaign promised legal action, ‘The Apprentice’ has been dogged by controversy. The creators have had to fight to secure a theatrical release, which when it opens Thursday comes just weeks before the election. The Trump campaign has called it “election interference by Hollywood elites.”

“We’re right on the edge,” Strong says.

The film, about Cohn’s mentorship of a young Trump in the Greed Is Good 1980s, is a dramatic election-year provocation. It’s an origin story for the Republican nominee, starting with Cohn, the ruthless lawyer whose deny-deny-deny tactics made him a sought-after fixer for the mob, lead lawyer for Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt and a guru for Trump when he was trying to make a name for himself in New York real estate.

“His resistance to reality and his denial of reality are, to me, the defining components of what he instilled in his star student,” Strong says, noting that Cohn’s boat was named Defiance. “It is a legacy of mendacity and lies and denial and the aggressive pursuit of winning as the only moral standard.”

“The Apprentice,” directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Abbasi and written by Gabriel Sherman, focuses on the Cohn-Trump relationship, giving Strong and Stan two of the best roles of their careers. Strong calls Cohn “probably the most fascinating person I have ever studied, interrogated, and tried to inhabit.”

For two much-vilified figures, the performances are unusually humanistic. Cohn has a rich tradition of performances, including Al Pacino in Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America’. But Strong’s Cohn is uniquely authentic and camp-free. Trump, of course, has mainly been played with a “Saturday Night Live”-style parody. But Stan’s Trump is an undisputed fighter, eager to be shaped by Cohn. Abbasi says: “I still don’t know exactly how he did it.”

Most of the actors wanted nothing to do with playing Trump. But Stan signed up and stayed with the production for several years.

“I came along,” Stan says. “It’s very easy to just keep doing things you think you’ve gotten good at. Then something comes along and it feels like such a crazy mountain to climb.”

That could go doubly true for “The Apprentice,” a film that raised financing and struggled to find distribution before Briarcliff Entertainment stepped forward this fall. Sherman first started writing it in 2017. He had been covering the 2016 Trump campaign for New York magazine and noticed a Trump aide commenting on Trump’s adoption of Cohn’s strategies.

Trump, who first met Cohn in 1973 and remained close friends until Cohn’s death in 1986, has spoken of his admiration for him. “Roy was cruel, but he was a very loyal man,” Trump told author Tim O’Brien. “He acted cruelly to you.” Politico’s Michael Kruse described the relationship in 2016, writing, “Cohn’s philosophy shaped the worldview of the real estate mogul and the combative public persona evident in Trump’s presidential campaign.”

Strong was first drawn to playing Cohn several years ago for a project that ultimately fell through. But it got Strong thinking about Cohn’s intriguing paradoxes. If finding a character means finding the heartbeat, Strong says, “in this case it’s a kind of reptilian pulse.”

“In terms of a sociological, anthropological study, I find him to be a completely fascinating character,” says Strong. “My own judgments must be left at the door. But it was like peering into the heart of darkness.”

For the two actors, “The Apprentice” posed a particular challenge in balancing judgment and empathy. The film has provoked a spectrum of reactions. Abbasi has claimed that Trump may not like the film and invited him to see it. Others have criticized the film for creating any degree of sympathy for the main characters.

“The only way we can learn is through empathy,” says Stan. “We must protect and continue to nourish empathy. And I think one way to nurture empathy is to show what the exact opposite can be.

“(Cohn) didn’t believe in showing vulnerability,” Strong said. “He was only interested in radiating strength, and I find that very tragic.”

Ultimately, the creators of ‘The Apprentice’ argue that all the tools of drama play a crucial role in bringing a deeper understanding to even the most polarizing political figures.

Strong and Stan find themselves in the unlikely position of being scorned by the potential future president for a film that had to resort to raising money through Kickstarter. (The campaign has raised more than $400,000.) As far off as they may be, they both appear to be in the running for their first Academy Award nominations.

“Do I think it will change people’s minds? I’m not sure,” Strong said. “Do I think it will help anyone who sees this film to understand the origins of where we are today? Yes, I do. And do I think it can move the needle indefinitely in a direction that I hope we’re going in? I do.”

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press