“The Apprentice”
The director can joke about Trump lawsuits
© action press/SIPA USA/USA TODAY Network
Is Donald Trump taking action against “The Apprentice”? Director Ali Abbasi doesn’t seem to be too afraid of a lawsuit.
In Cannes, Ali Abbasi (43) reacted to the threat of a lawsuit from Donald Trump’s (77) legal team with words that were not exactly intimidated. He could even joke that legal action would be taken against his film “The Apprentice.” “Everyone talks about him suing a lot of people – but they don’t talk about his success rate,” the director said at a press conference The industry magazine “The Hollywood Reporter” reported.
“Oh, that crazy Iranian guy”
Marvel star Sebastian Stan (41) plays the young Trump in “The Apprentice,” which received an eight-minute standing ovation at the film festival when it premiered on Monday. Abbasi could therefore imagine what assumptions the former President of the USA might have. If he were Trump, he’d be thinking, “Oh, this crazy Iranian guy and some liberal Foxxxx at Cannes got together and made this movie and it’s fucked up.”
But Abbasi doesn’t think it’s a film that Trump would particularly like or dislike if he saw it. He would be willing to show his work to the ex-president and discuss it with him. According to the magazine, the film has been described, among other things, as a “surprisingly humanistic portrait”, but it also contains extremely unflattering and even disturbing scenes.
Just “garbage” and “pure fiction”?
Steven Cheung, spokesman for Trump’s presidential campaign, said after the premiere, according to US media reports: “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false claims made by these alleged filmmakers.” This “garbage” is “pure fiction that sensationalizes lies that have been demonstrably refuted.” Since Trump believes “The Apprentice” is a libel, the film should “never see the light of day.”
There is still no fixed date for a theatrical release, not even in the USA. Abbasi jokes that he sees the upcoming election in the United States, in which Trump wants to be re-elected president, as a promotional event for the film.