The newly inaugurated president will be represented at the 97th Academy Awards.
Sebastian Stan was among the Oscar nominees announced Thursday morning, earning recognition for his portrayal as Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.”
The movie, which shares the title with Trump’s former NBC reality TV series, follows Trump’s career as a New York City businessman in the 1970s and 1980s and his relationship with attorney Roy Cohn.
Trump lashed out on the movie in October after the movie’s theatrical premiere, calling the people behind it “human scum.”
“A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, ‘The Apprentice’ (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully ‘bomb,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
“So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us,” he continued.
Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s chief spokesperson, threatened legal action last May over the movie after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, but the film was released in the U.S. on Oct. 11.
Stan said he was shunned by some in Hollywood because of the movie. He was notably omitted from Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, which pairs actors in one-on-one discussions for awards season.
“They were too afraid to go and talk about this movie, so I couldn’t do it,” Stan said at a Los Angeles screening in November. “And it doesn’t matter, that’s OK. It’s not to point a finger at anybody — I’ve got to do a lot of great things.”
Along with Stan’s Best Actor nod, fellow “The Apprentice” star Jeremy Strong received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Cohn.
Stan has already taken home a Golden Globe this awards season — but for a different movie. The 42-year-old was named the Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy for his role in “A Different Man.”
He will find out if he’s earned another award at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2.
The director of the new Donald Trump-centric drama film “The Apprentice” is responding to the former president slamming the film.