Sebastian Stan Discussed Playing Donald Trump, Despite People Telling Him Not To

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Sebastian Stan shared his reasoning behind taking on the role of Donald Trump in the upcoming movie The Apprentice.

The biopic tracks a young Trump's relationship with lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn, planting the seeds for the convicted felon we know today. It's already proven controversial — the Trump campaign have already threatened to sue and the movie struggled to find a distributer.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sebastian shared his thoughts on taking on the part — especially as other actors had already passed, reportedly due to fears. He said, "My initial reaction is, 'Wow, how the hell am I going to do this?'"

"I had people tell me not to do it," he continued, noting that that included friends and family. "I had people tell me I don't look like him. I had people tell me that it's not safe for me to do it. I had people say that I shouldn't try to alienate half the country."

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"I have always felt there was something to the man that needed to be heard," he continued. "If you do the research, there's a lot that you can understand. I thought about what may have been a driving force in his life, separate from the gimmicks and the lips."

"I understood that drive to rise, to overcome at whatever cost, and to win. I understood that simply from my own very, very small, humble beginnings with the American dream," the 42-year-old explained. "We love a winner in this country. It's a fact that, to me, felt relatable in many ways."

"There's also a valid argument to be made in terms of, 'Well, I know what happened. I know what kind of guy he is. I see him all the time,'" the actor explained. "Still, I think there is value in normalizing people that we feel strongly about. And people feel very strongly about him in two different extremes: He's either God's son or he's Lucifer incarnate, and I think we need to bring him back down to earth."

"I think there's a Trump in all of us, to some extent," he said. "I know that might not be a popular thing to say, or people may not want to admit it. And if they have that strong of a reaction to it, they should actually question that reaction."

"It's important to explore the darker elements that live within all of us so that, by bringing them into the light, we can understand how to have a better relationship with them rather than pretending they're not there. We have to have a better, healthier relationship with the beast in all of us," Sebastian added.

You can read the full interview here.

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