How The Apprentice's Sebastian Stan transformed into Donald Trump

Sebastian Stan is no stranger to playing real-life characters. The actor memorably brought rock star Tommy Lee to the small screen in Disney+'s Pam & Tommy, complete with fake tattoos and piercings. He also starred as entrepreneur Vlad Tenev in Wall Street dramedy Dumb Money, and as Tonya Harding's ex-husband in ice-skating biopic I, Tonya.

But his latest role is his most challenging yet: playing Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Stan underwent a dramatic transformation for Ali Abbasi's new film, which follows the story of Trump's career as a business mogul in the 1970s and 1980s.

Succession's Jeremy Strong appears as Roy Cohn, a lawyer who served as a mentor to a young Trump. Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova plays Trump's first wife Ivana, while Martin Donovan and Catherine McNally portray his parents.

The origin-story movie has attracted controversy since premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The former president's legal team unsuccessfully tried to block its release, calling it a "concoction of lies" that "repeatedly defames" him. Abbasi has contested these claims, saying: "It's not a hit piece, it's not a hatchet job, it's not propaganda."

As The Apprentice finally arrives in cinemas, less than a month before the US election, Stan has shared the secrets behind his portrayal of one of the world's most famous men.

Hair and make-up

Stan's uncanny transformation into a younger Trump was achieved with the help of make-up and wispy blonde wigs. The biopic takes place over a decade, so Stan's appearance subtly changes as the character ages, with both his make-up and hair getting darker.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor said: "I think the most important thing was tracking with Ali very specifically: How do we see what we see today slowly become more and more pronounced?

"He had very bushy eyebrows; he gained some weight; his hair was changing. So, there were changes to the prosthetics and the makeup, but not drastic. Just enough so you can understand the process."

Abbasi told USA Today that he became "unhealthily obsessed" with getting Trump's trademark hair right, as "all his power is in his hair" and "you can really see his character development" through it.

Michelle Cote, the head of the film's hair department, said: "When he's younger, his hair was golden because he was outside more and had some natural highlights. As he got older, he lost his highlights and [his hair] became darker."

Weight gain

Stan said he gained more than a stone over two months to play Trump. The actor drank "a lot" of Coca-Cola and ate peanut butter, jam sandwiches and ramen as part of his routine to transform into the character.

But he chose not to use alcohol to aid his weight gain, as the ex-president is teetotal.

Stan said: "I called a nutritionist who I worked with before, and I said, 'How do I quickly get bloating in my face?' He was like, 'Then what I need you to do is get ramen and put a bunch of soy sauce packets in the ramen and start having that, and you're going to get the salt in the face."

His weight transformation came as he was preparing for a very different film: Marvel's superhero team-up Thunderbolts. The actor, who plays Bucky Barnes in the MCU, joked to GQ: "I'm f*****g 41, I just worked pretty hard to get in shape here."

Prosthetics

Prosthetics experts Sean Sansom and Brandi Boulet made a padded suit with a fake abdomen to accentuate Stan's weight gain. "Any of the scenes where his shirt was off or his robe was open, we'd put the fake piece on him," Boulet told Variety.

Prosthetic "lift pieces" were used on Stan's face in the earlier scenes, in which the actor is playing a 20-something Trump. Boulet explained: "We pulled his cheeks and eyes up and tightened his face to make him look younger."

To age him up in the later scenes, the pair gave Stan "cheek plumpers", making the actor's jawline less pronounced. Sampson said: "He had an upper dental plate that didn't cover his teeth. They were lumps under his lips that pushed the [mouth] area out more so that it was flatter. And they were put into his lower lip to give him that Donald look from the nose down."

Research

Stan spent hours watching footage of Trump, including interviews, newsreels and documentaries, to nail his voice and mannerisms.

"I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone," he told Variety. "And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods – from the '70s all the way to today – so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him... I started to realise that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way."

Both he and Strong, a noted method actor, remained in character when on set. He said: "I never saw him out of costume, and he never saw me out of costume. We never really met or spoke outside of the scenes or when we were on set."

Abbasi initially considered casting a woman to play Trump because of the ex-president's "awkward" body language. But he deciding the idea was "too gimmicky" and would distract from the film.

The director told Stan to capture the essence of Trump, rather than delivering an impersonation. "The unique situation with Donald Trump is he's almost like a walking, living icon," he said. "So if you do a little bit more of that imitation or get too close, then you are in mockery or parody, like Saturday Night Live."

The Apprentice will be released in cinemas on 18 October