Sebastian Stan says the US is in a “really bad place” under Donald Trump
Sebastian Stan has condemned President Donald Trump and the current state of US politics, which he has described as “not a laughing matter”.
The actor is linked to Trump after giving an unforgiving portrayal of him in the 2024 film The Apprentice, which was released during the presidential campaign.
However, when discussing his latest film Fjord at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18th, Stan was confronted by questions about the US president once again, and said the country was “in a really, really bad place”.
According to Variety, the subject of The Apprentice was raised to Stan, to which the rest of the room began to laugh. However, the actor then tempered this outburst by saying: “It’s just not a laughing matter, to be honest. It isn’t.”
He went on to add: “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 — if we’re talking about the consolidation of the media, censorship, threats, the supposed lawsuits that seemingly never end but don’t actually go anywhere.”
Stan said the current conditions were things he and the wider production team who worked on The Apprentice experienced at the time, noting, “You know, the writing was on the wall. We encountered all that with the movie.”
At the time when the movie was set for release two years ago, Trump customarily threatened to sue the film ahead of its premiere at Cannes, although this ultimately never materialised. He did, however, say it was “garbage” and “pure fiction”.
To this end, Stan said: “Three days before the festival, [we were] unsure if the movie was going to play the festival,” before adding, “So maybe people are paying attention more to that film, I think it will stand the test of time for that. But we went through all of it, right before Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert and so on. So, I wish it wasn’t like that.”
Ultimately, the film went on to garner widespread attention during awards season, with Stan being nominated for his performance in the ‘Best Actor’ category at the 2025 Oscars, as well as Jeremy Strong getting a nod for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in his role as Roy Cohn.
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