Hollywood, CA—When it came to bringing Donald Trump’s larger-than-life persona to the big screen, the team behind the upcoming film The Apprentice knew they had their work cut out for them. However, through meticulous attention to detail and a deep dive into the former president’s iconic look, they created a remarkable transformation.
The film, directed by Ali Abbasi, follows a young Trump (portrayed by Sebastian Stan) as he rises from a local real estate developer in the 1970s to a national celebrity in the 1980s under the mentorship of the ruthless political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).
At the heart of this transformation was the work of the film’s hair, makeup, and prosthetics teams, who were tasked with ensuring that Stan’s portrayal was as authentic as possible. And the challenges they faced were numerous, from recreating Trump’s ever-changing hairstyle to capturing the weight fluctuations that the former president experienced over the years.
“Any of the scenes where his shirt was off, or his robe was open, we’d put the fake piece on him,” explains Brandi Boulet, the prosthetics lead on the project. “We made a fake belly for Sebastian for part of his ‘Pills Donny’ look, which was my favorite one to do because he was all red, blotchy, always eating, sweaty, and a little disheveled.”
To achieve the perfect “Pills Donny” look, the team used a padded suit with a prosthetic belly, which they would apply to Stan whenever his character was required to be shirtless or in a robe. This attention to detail allowed them to fully capture the physical transformation that Trump went through as his weight fluctuated and his dependence on amphetamines grew.
But the team’s work didn’t stop there. They also had to tackle the challenge of Trump’s iconic hairstyle, the subject of countless jokes and parodies. For the hair transplant scene, Sean Sansom, the prosthetics lead, explains that they used “the top of a fake head with a scalp. Michelle [Cote, the hair department head] had a wig, and an area was cut away where the scalp would be removed. The hair was punched in one hair at a time, and the piece was rigged with a bloodline, and the scalpel had a bloodline on it too — and it was shot in one day.”
The team’s attention to detail was crucial in ensuring that Stan’s transformation into Trump was as seamless as possible. Boulet even used prosthetic lift pieces on Stan’s face to pull his cheeks and eyes up, tightening his features to make him look younger in the earlier scenes.
“We pulled his cheeks and eyes up and tightened his face to make him look younger,” Boulet explains. “For skin tone, we had him a bit lighter than the classic orange you see at the end.”
And as Trump’s look evolved over the years, the team had to adapt accordingly. Cote gave Stan a blonder wig with medium sideburns for the younger Trump, but as time passed, the hair became darker, and Boulet would lower the lift pieces to capture the aging process.
The result is a performance that is both uncanny and unsettling. Stan’s transformation is so complete that it’s easy to forget you’re watching an actor and not the real-life Trump. The team’s work has helped to create a cinematic experience that is both entertaining and thought-provoking, as it delves into the origins of one of the most polarizing figures in modern American politics.
“We were trying to recreate and reproduce some of the photos as best as we could,” Sansom says. “Sebastian had everything. His phone was full of research. He’d come in the morning and would be studying and watching videos.”
With its release just weeks before the 2024 presidential election, “The Apprentice” will spark a new wave of debate and discussion around Trump’s rise to power. But whether one sees the film as a cautionary tale or a fascinating character study, there’s no denying the skill and artistry that went into bringing this larger-than-life figure to life on the silver screen.