Sebastian Stan on playing Donald Trump in ‘The Apprentice’ and a disfigured actor in ‘A Different Man’: ‘The margin of error for me was very small’

Sebastian Stan is receiving major awards buzz for two films this year. In Ali Abbasi‘s “The Apprentice,” he plays a young Donald Trump as he starts his real-estate business in 1970s and ’80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy M. Cohn (Jeremy Strong). In Aaron Schimberg‘s dark comedy “A Different Man,” Stan plays a disfigured aspiring actor who undergoes a radical medical procedure to transform his appearance. Stan chats with Gold Derby about both roles in the video interview above.

The actor says “fear” and his “lack of actual knowledge about this person” inspired him to take on the role of Trump. “Like everybody else, I’ve been inundated with a constant influx of information online, ‘SNL’ impressions, headlines, horrific soundbites of his, and I had maybe had my own ideas about the guy,” he explains. “I actually feel like I really didn’t know who he was, or how did he become what he became?”

“As an actor, you’re hoping to find projects that challenge you, but also truly ask very important, uncomfortable questions,” Stan says. “We’re talking about someone who has affected all of our lives. I felt there was a responsibility to really try to hold a mirror up to nature.” Stan likens his preparation for the role to “learning an instrument.” He had to master Trump’s mannerisms and speech, which were drastically different in the 1970s.

Stan reveals, “You study footage and listen to audio for hours on end. Basically it takes over your life. It takes a long time, and then eventually you can just do it in your sleep and not think about it. You want it to feel organic, and you want it to feel earned so it’s not something you’re conscious of. The caricature, the cartoon, the ‘SNL’ impression were always going to be a mountain to climb. Everyone’s got some back pocket impression of him…The margin of error for me was very small.”

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The actor plays the real estate mogul and then-future president in the 1970s and 80s, and Stan explains how much Trump has changed since then. “He didn’t start out to be this character,” he says. “He’s actually been inventing himself every 10 years, arguably. It’s quite fascinating because people change, but we don’t all change that much or that drastically. He’s had very different points in his life that led him to this. The building of Trump Tower, Atlantic City was another point for him, and then really ‘The Apprentice,’ which is the version we’ve been living with. This character he’s learned pretty well and shaped in that show. For our purposes, when you go back in time, there was a guy that was really not that sure of himself.”

Stan plays another man with deep insecurities in “A Different Man.” His character, Edward, suffers from neurofibromatosis, a condition that causes tumors to grow on his face. “It was such a unique, different film,” he says. “Not just in terms of how unbelievably unpredictable the movie is. It’s funny, it’s tragic. It’s exciting for an actor and you actually feel surprised by the material.”

“There’s this underlying message of about identity and self-truth,” he continues. “Not just how it pertains to disability and disfigurement, and how we don’t really have a relationship with that at all. We are curious, but afraid to rely on our curiosity, and therefore we manage to walk away without any education or awareness about someone’s experience in those shoes. It really is about something we’re all facing now, which is, who am I? And who am I separately from how I look to other people?”

Stan stars with Adam Pearson, an actor who actually has neurofibromatosis. “It was a very tricky line to walk,” Stan says. “The prosthetics by Mike Marino were so great, that at times, people don’t even know if it’s me or him. It’s so cleverly and expertly woven together by Aaron, and it’s about what happens to this person that has denied himself for so long, and then when he thinks he gets this life he’s always wanted, he finds out that the cost he paid was his true self.”