Stan Sebastian is garnering a lot of praise for his portrayal of US President-elect Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice. On THR Actors Roundtable, the actor revealed that the filmmaker initially wanted to cast a woman as Trump. (Also Read – The Apprentice director Ali Abbasi angry at film’s censorship issue in India: ‘We need a vaccine for it’)

What Stan Sebastian said

Stan talked about how he gained weight to play Trump in the film. He said, “There was not enough time to gain weight. The prosthetic test really failed badly. Not only that but the director Ali, two weeks out, says, ‘Originally, I was going to cast a woman to play Trump.’ And I am looking at him, ‘Why are you telling me two weeks before I’m gonna die!’

Stan added that he ate a lot of ramen and drank lots of Coca Cola to gain weight immediately for Trump’s role. “I was having panic attacks every night. I’m a hypochondriac. I get my blood taken every January or whatever. My LDL levels had gone up, the cholesterol,” Stan said.

He also narrated an incident in which he and Ali went to the Trump Tower to sneakily shoot for The Apprentice. Someone there recognised him, not as the actor who’s playing Trump, but “as that Marvel guy.” Stan played Bucky Rogers aka The Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Stan revealed that he gets the most recognised for his role in the musical miniseries Daisy Jones & the Six.

About The Apprentice

The Apprentic is set in the 1970s and 1980s, and explores Donald Trump’s past as a real estate tycoon in New York City. Written by Gabriel Sherman, The Apprentice also stars Jeremy Strong as attorney Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Trump’s late former wife Ivana Trump. While the film released in US cinemas in October, its India release was stalled by the Central Board of Film Certification, which demanded certain tweaks and removal of explicit scenes. Ali Abbasi expressed his frustration at the stalling and said that India’s censorship issues need a “vaccine.”