As the 77th Cannes Film Festival gets underway, there are plenty of obvious frontrunners for the coveted Palme d’Or. But don’t count out Ali Abbasi‘s “The Apprentice” as a dark horse pick to win the festival’s top prize. The latest film from the “Holy Spider” director (a film that won Best Actress at the 2022 fest) is quite the pivot for the Iranian-Danish filmmaker: a ’70s-set period piece about the professional relationship between a young Donald Trump and NYC lawyer Roy Cohn. And given the star power of the film’s cast, with Jeremy Strong as Cohn and Sebastian Stan as Trump, expect “The Apprentice” to make an election year splash, even if it doesn’t snag Abbasi more Cannes hardware.
In a new interview with THR, the cast of Abbasi’s new film discussed making “The Apprentice,” and how Abbasi brought an outsider’s perspective to two of modern NYC’s most notorious characters. “This movie at its core has a “Midnight Cowboy” arc to it,” Strong stated. “I think of it as a love story, really. It’s a chaste love story between a teacher and a pupil—these two men from the boroughs who aspired to Fifth Avenue.” John Schlesinger‘s 1969 film, which follows two hustlers in NYC, won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director at the 42nd Academy Awards. “The Apprentice” is an original screenplay, but maybe similar award wins are in its future?
If so, don’t be surprised if Strong gets several nods for his work as Roy Cohn. The actor, known for his intense method-acting process, described Cohn as “like a heart-of-darkness heart donor—and the heart got transplanted to Donald Trump.” It wasn’t an easy role for Strong to immerse himself in. “I’d go home by myself to the hotel room, and the real-world ramifications of the things that I was espousing and inculcating in Donald Trump really, really shook me,” Strong recalled. “It was a disturbing, upsetting place to be—that heart of darkness.”
Both Strong and Stan watched lots of footage of Cohn and Trump from the time period “The Apprentice” is set, but Abbasi also encouraged them to take risks with their respective portrayals. “We did a lot of improvising, which in this case had to be deeply informed,” Strong said. “We had a lot of latitude and freedom to play and take chances.” As for becoming a younger ex-President Trump, Stan said, ““It was a long, arduous process, and to be honest, I just didn’t know if I could do it. I just scoured the internet and everything I could find…all around the time period that the movie was taking place. I watched everything.” As for the film’s shoot, Strong described it as “pretty ride-or-die.” “It was fast,” the actor continued, “we didn’t have a lot of money. You can’t imagine a bigger limb to go out on for either of us. I think we both felt that.”
But as the saying goes, no risk, no reward. And Strong thinks his take on Cohn, much different than Al Pacino‘s in the 2003 miniseries “Angels In America,” successfully humanizes a despicable person. “I’ll say unequivocally that he’s the most fascinating person I’ve ever studied,” Strong said. “I found myself moved by the arc of the character when he got sick [Cohn passed in 1986 due to the HIV-AIDS virus]. Someone who has lived in denial of so much, suddenly facing the end, and the searing regret and primal pain of that for someone who’s done so much damage. I don’t think he particularly felt much remorse, but he was a person.”
Maria Bakalova, who plays Trump’s first wife Ivana in the “The Apprentice,” had similar things to say about her role. “I keep questioning myself: ‘How did she agree to that?’ But maybe she knew what she was stepping into,” Bakalova said. “It’s another side of her being intelligent—somebody that I can, of course, criticize in moments, and also empathize with.” But Bakalova also wanted to make sure she played Ivana as the gaudy, larger-than-life personality she was, just as Strong and Stan did with their respective roles. “I usually don’t really wear a lot of makeup,” she joked, recalling the long red fingernails she grew for the role. “This changed my personality!”
And that gaudiness, coupled with a trace of disease, is what Abbasi wants “The Apprentice” to tap into. “This is not a movie where people are supposed to look good,” the director explained. “These people are some of the most powerful people in New York society at the time,” but “Roy’s face looks strange, gray, brownish, his eyes are bloodshot, his forehead is shiny. Donald has strange teeth and looks unhealthy.” So will the Cannes crowd have the stomach for Abbasi’s depiction of Trump and Cohn? The film world finds out when “The Apprentice” has its world premiere on the Croisette early next week on May 20.