Few movies this year have made as many headlines as "The Apprentice."

Ali Abbasi's film about a young Donald Trump ( Sebastian Stan ) under the tutelage of cutthroat attorney Roy Cohn ( Jeremy Strong ) has caused a stir at the Cannes Film Festival, been threatened with legal action by the Trump campaign and seen its chances for release dwindle before a distributor, Briarcliff Entertainment, was willing to put it into theaters.

Before "The Apprentice" arrives in theaters this weekend, we spoke with Abbasi, Stan, Strong and screenwriter Gabe Sherman about how a very unlikely movie came together and how they hope it's received in the runup to the November election.

Assembling "The Apprentice"
Sherman: I was struck by something people who had worked for Trump since the '80s told me, that during the campaign he used a lot of the strategies that his mentor, Roy Cohn, taught him. The idea came to me a flash. That's the movie. Donald was Roy's apprentice. Let's do an origin story, a mentor-protege story about how this relationship set Donald on the path to becoming president.

Abbasi: With Donald and Ivana, they've never really been treated as human beings. They're either treated badly or extremely good — it's like this mythological thing. The only way if you want to break that myth is to deconstruct that myth. I think a humanistic view is the best way you can deconstruct that myth.

Stan: I went on the ride. And it was a ride, too, because it wasn't a movie that came together very easily. It's a movie I've known of for a while. I originally met Ali in 2019. It was one of those things I thought: If this isn't going to happen with me being involved, it's not going... Read More