Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn coaches Sebastian Stan’s Donald Trump in the first clip of Ali Abassi’s controversial new film.
Last week, it was reported that Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment has purchased Ali Abbasi’s upcoming controversial film The Apprentice, which details Donald Trump’s rise in the real-estate business. Briarcliff has scheduled the film to be released weeks before the U.S. Presidential Election on October 11. Additionally, the studio plans to give the movie an awards push. The upcoming Thunderbolts star, Sebastian Stan, will be taking on the task of playing Trump, and Succession‘s Jeremy Strong will portray Trump’s one-time consigliere, Roy Cohn.
Briarcliff Entertainment has now posted the first footage from The Apprentice on their official social media page with a new clip. In the clip, Jeremy Strong’s Cohn coaches Stan’s Trump on a phone call interview. The post, which features the clip, also has a caption that reads, “Fresh from turn away crowds and standing ovations at the Cannes and Telluride film festivals, THE APPRENTICE, starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump. #TheApprentice is exclusively in theaters October 11.”
The Apprentice‘s story will follow the era of Trump’s life from his twenties through his late thirties and will “examine his efforts to build his real estate business in New York over the course of the ’70s and ’80s, also digging into his relationship with infamous attorney Roy Cohn.” The film description also adds that the project is “billed as an exploration of power and ambition set in a world of corruption and deceit. It’s a mentor-protege story that charts the origins of an American dynasty.” Alongside Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, Borat 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s Maria Bakalova also signed on to play Ivana Trump.
The project was penned by long-time Vanity Fair Donald Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman, whose book The Loudest Voice in the Room inspired the Showtime series starring Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes. It is said that in the time before its wide release, the film is being planned to screen at some fall film festivals and it will be receiving a full-on awards campaign, which Ortenberg has been successful in with past projects like Crash and Spotlight.