Sebastian Stan went to Cannes this year to promote and premiere his latest film, Fjord. Incidentally, Fjord looks very interesting and awards-baity, and it would not surprise me if it came out of the festival with early Oscar buzz. The last time Stan was in Cannes, it was for the premiere of The Apprentice, where he played a young Donald Trump. That seems like a lifetime ago, but it was literally just 2024. During his Fjord press conference, Sebastian was asked about that experience two years ago and what Trump’s second term is like.
Two years after his Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” premiered at Cannes, Sebastian Stan reflected on the role during the press conference for his new movie “Fjord,” saying America is “in a really, really bad place.”
When the actor was asked his thoughts on “The Apprentice” — which premiered just before the 2024 election — now that Trump has been in office again for over a year, journalists in the room erupted into nervous laughter. But Stan responded: “It’s just not a laughing matter, to be honest. It isn’t.”
“I think we’re in a really, really bad place, I really do,” the actor continued.
“To be honest when you’re looking at what’s happening, if you look at the consolidation of media, censorships, the threats, the supposed lawsuits that never end but don’t go anywhere, the writing was on the wall. We encountered that with the movie [‘The Apprentice’] to the point that we were, three days before the festival, unsure if the movie was going to play the festival. Maybe people are paying more attention to that film. We went through all of that before Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert and so on. So, I wish it wasn’t like that.”
Trump swore to sue the film production over a scene in the movie depicting the tycoon raping then wife Ivana Trump. He also sent a cease and desist letter to the producers to prevent the movie from being seen in America. The Apprentice opened in early October 2024 and grossed $4M in North America. Stan received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing a young Trump who rises to be a real estate baron in 1980s New York City, learning unscrupulous ways from his mentor, Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong, who also received a Supporting Actor Oscar nod).
Earlier in the press conference, when Apprentice was broached briefly, Stan responded, “still purging from that.”
Again, Sebastian is an immigrant who became a naturalized American. In my experience, the immigrants and the first-gen Americans, they’re the ones freaking out the most because they can clearly see how so much of what has happened is irreversible, how Trump and his stupid f–king supporters have altered the United States forever. I’m tired of Hollywood types and rich people gaslighting people about how bad it is too – I’m glad that there are a handful of people with a platform saying “actually, this sh-t is a huge catastrophe.”
Sebastian Stan says what’s happening in America under Donald Trump is “not a laughing matter.”
“I think we’re in a really, really bad place. I really do. And to be honest with you, when you’re looking at what’s happening, right now — if we’re talking about the consolidation of… pic.twitter.com/xQJnDaWBUF
— Variety (@Variety) May 19, 2026
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
