Actor Jeremy Strong has said Donald Trump calling those involved with his new film The Apprentice “human scum” is “all the more reason” cinemagoers should go and see it.
Ahead of the UK release of the biopic which depicts the presidential candidate’s rise as a New York property developer back in the 1970s, Strong told Sky News: “We all knew we were playing with fire getting involved with [this], but it also felt just supremely important and meaningful to try and understand and tell the story about how Donald Trump became who he is now.”
While Marvel actor Sebastian Stan plays Mr Trump, the Succession star plays notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, a mentor of sorts to Mr Trump, whom it’s claimed taught him power plays like denying everything and to “attack, attack, attack”.
Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn
“As a film I think it stands on its own but there are also things in it that I think a lot of the American public certainly don’t know about and, because of the stakes right now, it would behove everyone to become informed about where this is all coming from and how we got here,” Strong insisted.
Co-written by Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman who has penned biographies on both Mr Trump and Mr Cohn, not only does the film show the former president having cosmetic surgery and popping diet pills – most controversially it depicts him raping his first wife Ivana.
An incident based on an assault that was detailed in her divorce deposition – a claim she recanted years later.
Mr Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Sebastian Stan as Mr Trump
After premiering at the Cannes Film Festival at the start of this year, lawyers for Mr Trump unsuccessfully filed a cease and desist notice to the team behind the film.
This week, in a 1am rant on his Truth Social app on Monday, Mr Trump called the film “FAKE and CLASSLESS”.
Referring to those involved as “human scum”, he hit out at the timing of the movie’s release, calling the film a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job” aimed at thwarting his re-election attempts.
“I feel very proud of being part of this film,” Strong said.
Jeremy Strong (left) as Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stan (right) as Donald Trump in the new film
“It’s also unsettling to be kind of, you know, at the sharp end of the spear and intersecting with history and politics in this moment… for Trump to call us ‘human scum’ is a heavy thing but also, to me, the fact that he felt compelled to do that is just all the more reason why I think it’s essential for people to see it.”
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Strong claims Mr Trump’s early morning post is exactly what his character Mr Cohn would advise, “always attack, deny everything and never admit defeat”.
Strong explained: “The veracity of the film, that he’s attacking us, once you start to see the playbook and you realise what these tactics are, you see that it permeates literally everything that [Mr Trump] does.”
The Apprentice is released in the UK & Ireland on 18 October.