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Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong are finally premiering their new movie about Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Oct. 8, Stan, 42, and Strong, 45, joined costar Maria Bakalova and director Ali Abbasi for the New York City premiere of The Apprentice, in which Stan portrays a young Trump in the 1980s. Strong portrays the lawyer Roy Cohn, while Bakalova, 28, plays Trump’s first wife Ivana Trump.
Stan looked dapper in a black pin stripped suit, while Strong opted for a stylist pink blazer and black dress pants.
While speaking with reporters on the red carpet, Stan shared that the timing of the film is “fortuitous.”
John Nacion/Getty
“I mean, you know, like we’re here on a red carpet and all the hoopla, but like kidding aside, it feels like the highest stakes moment in the history of this country,” adds Strong.
“We happen to be, we happen to have been part of a film that tells the story of Donald Trump’s apprenticeship with Roy Cohn, which in real life has sort of led to incalculable arm and destruction,” he says, before adding, “I think this movie has something to say” about the future.
“I think it’s essential for people in this country to see it and then make their own decisions about what kind of men these are.”
While speaking exclusively to PEOPLE, Strong says he and Stan got to know each other after they did the movie.
APPRENTICE PRODUCTIONS ONTARIO INC. / PROFILE PRODUCTIONS 2 APS / TAILORED FILMS LTD. 2023
“We met after we did the movie, basically,” he says. “We didn’t really get to know each other. We got to know each other as Donald and Roy.”
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According to an official synopsis, “a young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today.”
“Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé — someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win,” it continues.
The Apprentice‘s title mirrors that of the reality show Trump starred on for NBC, which ran for 15 seasons from 2004 to 2017. Following its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the movie attracted significant attention for its searing portrayal of a younger Trump in the ’70s amidst the former president’s 2024 re-election campaign, including one scene which features Stan’s Trump character raping then-wife Ivana, who died in 2022.
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The Apprentice opens in theaters Oct. 11.
