He's best known for his roles in Marvel's Captain America franchise, but actor Sebastian Stan's next role might become his most famous of all—and a lot of fans are not having it.
Stan, who plays Bucky Barnes in Marvel's films and nabbed an Emmy nomination for playing rocker Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy, will next be playing none other than America's favorite accused felon, Donald Trump.
Stan is set to star in a forthcoming film about Trump's early years in the 1970s and '80s using his daddy's millions to get into real estate and lay the groundwork for promoting himself as a self-made gazillionaire whose pioneering business strategy is going bankrupt while committing crimes.
The film is evocatively called The Apprentice, but it is not about the infamous reality TV competition of the same name that is largely responsible for Trump becoming a politician in the first place.
Rather, the film, by Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi, focuses heavily on Trump's relationship with his mentor, sleazy attorney Roy Cohn, who played a pivotal role in the McCarthy hearings.
It also digs into his relationship with his late former wife Ivana Trump and his father Fred Trump. No word as yet on if the film covers Ivana's burial on Trump's New Jersey property for some reason, allegedly as a tax break, or Fred Trump's involvement with the KKK.
Anyway, Cohn is set to be played by Succession's Jeremy Strong and Ivana Trump by Maria Bakalova, of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, in what Deadline calls a study of "the moral and human cost of a culture defined by winners and losers."
There's certainly lots to talk about there, and in the hands of this filmmaker and these actors it's sure to be one heck of a cinematic ride.
But many fans online are seeming to struggle with separating Stan the actor from Trump the...whatever he is—and the news hasn't gone over very well on social media.
People seem to have forgotten that one can play a person in a movie without liking or respecting them in any way shape or form, and a movie about a person can be just as easily be a seething take-down of said person as a glorification of them.
But whatever, we'll just have to see how it goes.
Let's just hope we don't have to watch Stan remake the infamous pee tape. At least don't put us through that!
@WhiteHouse/X
