Two years after his Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” premiered at Cannes, Sebastian Stan reflected on the role during the press conference for his new movie “Fjord,” saying America is “in a really, really bad place.”
When the actor was asked his thoughts on “The Apprentice” — which premiered just before the 2024 election — now that Trump has been in office again for over a year, journalists in the room erupted into nervous laughter. But Stan responded: “It’s just not a laughing matter, to be honest. It isn’t.”
He continued, “I think we’re in a really, really bad place. I really do. And to be honest with you, when you’re looking at what’s happening, right — if we’re talking about the consolidation of the media, censorship, threats, the supposed lawsuits that seemingly never end but don’t actually go anywhere. You know, the writing was on the wall. We encountered all that with the movie.”
Trump attempted to halt the Ali Abbasi-directed “Apprentice” ahead of its Cannes premiere in 2024, threatening a lawsuit and calling the film “garbage” and “pure fiction.”
“Three days before the festival, [we were] unsure if the movie was going to play the festival,” Stan said. “So maybe people are paying attention more to that film, I think it will stand the test of time for that. But we went through all of it, right before Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert and so on. So, I wish it wasn’t like that.”
Stan’s latest movie, “Fjord,” rocked Cannes on Monday night with a 10-minute standing ovation. Directed by Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, the heart-wrenching family drama stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as the parents of a Romanian family with strict religious beliefs who move to a small village in Norway. When bruises are noticed on their daughter’s body at school, their five children are taken away from them and a legal saga ensues.
The combination of Mungiu, Stan and Reinsve could be enough to earn “Fjord” the Palme d’Or. The director has already won the prestigious award once for 2007’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and Reinsve was awarded the best actress prize for her performance in “The Worst Person in the World.” She was also at the festival last year with “Sentimental Value,” which won the grand prix and went on to score the best international feature Oscar.
