Sebastian Stan Claims Other Actors “Were Too Afraid” To Discuss His Donald Trump Film ‘The Apprentice’ For Variety Interview Series

Sebastian Stan shocked attendees at a screening of his Donald Trump feature The Apprentice when he revealed he could not find another actor to discuss the film for Variety’s internet favorite “Actors on Actors” series, despite the positive reception the film has received since its premiere.

“I had an offer to do Variety ‘Actors on Actors’ this Friday, and I couldn’t find another actor to do it with me because they were too afraid to go and talk about this movie so I couldn’t do it,” Stan said during a post-screening Q&A with The Apprentice director Ali Abassi.

Stan noted that it wasn’t necessarily the actors who turned him down. “It’s not to point a finger at anybody… We couldn’t get past the publicists, the people representing them, because they were too afraid to talk about this movie,” he alleged.

The film chronicles Trump’s rise as a businessman under Roy Cohn’s (Jeremy Strong) mentorship. But it’s by no means a flattering depiction of the president-elect. The film reportedly shows Trump raping his first wife, undergoing cosmetic surgeries, and taking amphetamine pills.

Variety’s co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh confirmed Stan’s claims in a statement to Indiewire.

“What Sebastian said is accurate,” Setoodeh said in a statement. “We invited him to participate in ‘Actors on Actors,’ the biggest franchise of awards season, but other actors didn’t want to pair with him because they didn’t want to talk about Donald Trump.”

At the screening, Stan noted that many people in the industry privately praised the film to him, but this refusal to discuss Trump’s politics publicly felt indicative of a larger problem.

“That’s when I think we lose the situation because if it really becomes that fear or discomfort to talk about this then we’re really going to have a problem,” he said.

“You cannot keep casting this person aside, especially after they get the popular vote,” he added. “Should we not give this a closer look and try to understand what it is about this person that’s even driving that?”

Steven Cheung, the spokesperson for Trump’s presidential campaign spokesperson, threatened to take legal action against the film back in May, claiming The Apprentice featured “blatantly false assertions.”

“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Cheung said.

The Apprentice is now available on demand on Prime Video.