On the night time of Could 20, I stood in my tuxedo contained in the storied Auditorium Louis Lumière at Cannes and listened as greater than 2,000 folks in black tie gave an eight-minute standing ovation for the movie I wrote: The Apprentice. The film is a Frankenstein origin story about Donald Trump, performed by Marvel star Sebastian Stan in heavy prosthetics and a golden toupee. It follows Trump as he rises in Manhattan actual property in the course of the gritty Nineteen Seventies and gaudy ’80s below the tutelage of right-wing lawyer turned fixer Roy Cohn, performed with dead-eyed menace by Succession’s Jeremy Robust. The largest controversy centered on a scene—spoiler alert—that depicted Trump sexually assaulting his first spouse, Ivana. (There have been audible gasps within the room when it performed.) Different scenes confirmed Trump getting liposuction, present process scalp discount surgical procedure, and popping amphetamine weight loss supplements—particulars reported in Harry Damage III’s 1993 Trump biography, Misplaced Tycoon. (Trump denied the claims on the time.)
The premiere generated headlines worldwide. However in the course of the after-party with views of oligarch-owned yachts anchored within the harbor, I started getting information alerts on my cellphone: Trump introduced he deliberate to sue to dam the film’s launch. “We might be submitting a lawsuit to handle the blatantly false assertions from these fake filmmakers,” Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung stated. He referred to as the film “malicious defamation,” “election interference by Hollywood elites,” and stated it belonged “in a dumpster hearth.” I felt a pit in my abdomen as I scrolled the headlines. However I additionally felt unusually validated. Life was imitating artwork. Trump’s authorized risk adopted the primary rule Cohn elucidates within the film: Assault, assault, assault.
Roy Cohn (left) and Donald Trump attend the Trump Tower opening, October 1983 in New York Metropolis.Getty Photographs.
Two days later, Trump’s attorneys despatched the movie’s director Ali Abbasi and me cease-and-desist letters. The authorized doc gave the impression of an outtake from an unhinged Trump rally speech: “I demand that you just instantly stop and desist distribution and advertising and marketing in america of the foreign-funded and directed hit piece masquerading as a film.” It warned Hollywood firms towards distributing the film domestically: “Any particular person in america offering providers, together with advertising and marketing providers, publicity, authorized providers, and public distribution of the film, have to be aware of the restrictions of the International Brokers Registration Act.”
I hoped the controversy would translate right into a deal. Studios and streamers usually compete fiercely to amass the buzziest titles at Cannes. Two days after our premiere, Netflix reportedly paid roughly $12 million to amass Emilia Pérez, the genre-bending transgender drug-cartel musical that received the pageant’s Jury Prize.
However the specter of Trump’s lawsuit had a chilling impact on would-be patrons. By the point I flew residence per week later, no Hollywood firm had made a proposal to launch the film in america.
Within the spring of 2017, thousands and thousands of Individuals had been processing the upside-down actuality that Trump occupied the White Home. Some turned to remedy. Others booze. I coped by writing a screenplay. I had been considering and writing about Trump for 15 years. My first journalism job was reporting on Manhattan actual property for the weekly New York Observer. So you possibly can think about my shock years later when I discovered myself protecting Trump’s first presidential marketing campaign for New York journal. Longtime Trump associates like Roger Stone instructed me Trump was profitable as a result of he adopted his mentor Cohn’s three guidelines: Assault, assault, assault. Deny all the things, admit nothing. And at all times declare victory. The perception sparked the thought to jot down a fictional movie about Cohn molding his apprentice into the orange-tanned demagogue he’s as we speak.
I found their relationship had the weather of a Shakespearean drama. Determined to outshine his provincial father, Trump offered his soul to Cohn with a view to study Cohn’s darkish arts. Cohn’s mentorship fueled Trump’s rise to the head of New York society. However as an alternative of displaying gratitude, Trump just about deserted Cohn whereas Cohn was dying from AIDS within the mid-Eighties. (The closeted, self-hating lawyer insisted to the tip he had liver most cancers.) I felt chills once I learn a dying Cohn’s quote about Trump. “I can’t imagine he’s doing this to me. Donald pisses ice water,” Cohn reportedly stated. Cohn was broadly thought to be one of many worst folks of the twentieth century. If Trump might damage Cohn, what did that say about Trump?
The longer term president’s mentor was an odd and broken man, I realized in my analysis. Cohn’s mom compelled him to get a nostril job as a baby that left him disfigured. Cohn ate cream cheese and bacon for breakfast and favored to place Candy’n Low in his Champagne. He labored in a crumbling Higher East Aspect city home with a secret phone-recording room within the basement. Upstairs, he slept in a bed room embellished with frog dolls. Each morning, he did 200 sit-ups. Cohn insisted he was straight however overtly socialized with a coterie of blond boyfriends who bore a putting resemblance to younger Trump.
Within the fall of 2017, my agent offered the pitch to Amy Baer, a former prime studio govt who runs a small film-development firm. Baer believed within the concept for a similar motive I did: In our hyperpolarized tradition, during which Trump is both deified or demonized, portraying Trump as human was a radical act. I wrote him as a three-dimensional character with hopes, desires, fears, and (many) flaws.
Baer and I wished a non-American filmmaker to direct the film. We felt an outsider’s perspective on the final word American topic would yield one thing fascinating. Within the fall of 2018, we recruited Abbasi, an acclaimed Iranian Danish filmmaker, whose Swedish-language immigration thriller, Border, received the Jury Prize within the Un Sure Regard part at Cannes that spring. I knew Abbasi can be unafraid of Trump. He was additionally growing a movie in regards to the psychopathic Nazi physician Josef Mengele.
This was the purpose within the film’s lengthy journey that I realized Hollywood has very totally different targets from journalism. Reporters wish to maintain highly effective folks accountable; studio executives wish to attain the widest viewers, which regularly means offending as few folks as potential. No main Hollywood studio or streamer wished to finance the movie. “Name me if Trump loses,” one prime govt stated at a cocktail social gathering after he instructed me how a lot he cherished the script. However even after Trump misplaced, studios nonetheless handed. The January 6 Capitol riot made the topic appear too harmful.
That meant we must finance the film independently. The mannequin labored like this: Baer would increase many of the manufacturing funds by “preselling” rights to distribute the film in each territory besides america. An fairness investor would supply the remainder of the cash. We might shoot the film and present it at a serious pageant like Cannes, the place American distributors would bid to amass the distribution rights. Baer’s skill to presell to abroad patrons relied on casting stars with massive worldwide fan bases to play Trump and Cohn. I wasn’t ready for actors, lots of whom had been #Resistance members, to be reluctant in regards to the film. One turned down the function of Trump saying he didn’t wish to give his “humanity” to the president.
Stan was the exception. He learn my script within the fall of 2019 and was instantly intrigued by the function. He had beforehand performed Tonya Harding’s goon husband, Jeff Gillooly, in I, Tonya; a cannibal within the horror-comedy Recent; and hair steel legend Tommy Lee within the Hulu collection Pam & Tommy. With Stan on board, we went seeking Cohn, ultimately signing Emmy winner Jeremy Robust, who was in search of post-Succession roles. Bulgarian actor Maria Bakalova, finest identified for her totally dedicated work in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, signed on to play Ivana.
