Marvel Star Playing Trump In ‘Apprentice’ Film Says Trump ‘A Human Being’ After Snarky Question From Reporter

Marvel Cinematic Universe star Sebastian Stan didn’t take the bait when a reporter asked a snarky question about ex-President Donald Trump at a press conference for the film The Apprentice.

The Apprentice stars Stan as a young Trump in a film directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Gabe Sherman that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to an eleven-minute standing ovation.

The film’s stars and creators took questions at a press conference in Cannes, during which Stan avoided slamming Trump, and told one reporter who snarked about Trump’s lack of “honor” that Trump is “:

RODRIGO FONSECA: I would like to hear you about the preparation for the role. And the second question. I don’t know if you could use the word honor in related to Trump, but do you believe that he has a code of honor? What is called– is this code.

SEBASTIAN STAN: Preparation. Right? Well, it’s it was sort of a 24 over seven kind of immersion process of basically, I guess living with him to some extent, in my headphones and on my phone and YouTube and everywhere I was going and walking, whatever I was doing, if I was in the bathroom, I was listening to him.

So, it — I don’t know how else to do it, you know, except, 100%. And that’s what I tried to do in the limited time that we had.

And, you know, he he is, a human being like everybody else. So, I guess we all have certain codes and certain principles. It just depends on what they are. I guess it’s relative to everybody.

Later in the presser, Stan talked about what he learned from playing Trump, and kept his answer very general and focused on allowing the audience to decide for itself:

JADA YUAN: Hi, I’m Jada Yuan. I write for the Washington Post. And this question is for Sebastian and Ollie. What did you learn about Donald Trump, while making this movie that you think we can relate to the Trump that we know today?

And can you also talk about the release schedule during the election and sort of what hope you have for the impact development have?

ALI ABBASI: What did we learn?

SEBASTIAN STAN: What did we. What? What did you learn?

So I think that’s up to you guys, you know, to see the movie. I think that’s the. The hope we have is that people watch the film. Because I always feel like there is always something to learn.

And I think for me, you know, as an actor and standing next to this brave artist that I respect and I will follow wherever he goes, with all these people that had enough balls to do this project. You know, that’s what we have to do.

We have to kind of take take on things that are risky and perhaps uncomfortable to talk about. But, you know, I think it’s important that we do, because like Ali said last night, it’s in our face every day.

And, and I think we need to have a perspective, or we need to just at least confront one another, hopefully in a peaceful way about, you know, what what is happening and what we’re seeing. And, I think there’s a lot to learn from the film.

In response to the second part of that question, Abbasi joked that the U.S. Election will be a good “promotional event” for the film:

ALI ABBASI: Yeah. And we have a, promotional event coming up called U.S. Election, is going to help us with the movie. So we’re very hoping very much that it can come out.

You know, if I’m remembering right, the second debate’s going to be in September 15th, something like that. So that’s a good release date for us. I would say.

Watch above via Festival de Cannes.

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