When director Ali Abbasi started making the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” he knew he didn’t want to do it. “He’s the kind of character that if you get too close to reality, you become a caricature,” Abbasi told IndieWire. “It’s like trying to make a movie about Jesus Christ or Hitler. The face is an icon with almost a visual pattern. The human brain begins to recognize that visual pattern, and when it’s close to If you do too much, you won’t be able to accept that person as a human being.
Casting Sebastian Stan did much to allay Abbasi’s concerns. In keeping with his ability to radically transform into different characters, Stan perfectly blends into the role of Donald Trump with the help of top-notch hair, makeup, and prosthetics. According to Michel Côté, head of the hair department, the main concern has always been to make Stan forget about these external accessories. “I don’t want actors to be aware of what they’re wearing,” she says. “It needs to feel like it’s growing out of your head.”
For The Apprentice, Côté was tasked with creating the hair for a real-world character known for his unusual hairstyles, to say the least. Rather than go too far in a direction that would distract from the performance, she focused on a few key looks and subtly changed them from scene to scene. “There were three stages,” Côté said. “There’s a youthful look that’s more freestyle, longer and thicker and requires less hairspray. The second stage comes after Donald’s wedding, but that wig is sleeker, tighter and shorter. The visible parts of my skin are bald and I look a little refreshed.”
In the third and final stage, Côté created a voluminous wig with more exaggerated bangs, more akin to Trump’s, which became popular in the media in the late 1980s. All looks are based on archival research, as Côté consulted many historical images of Trump available online and worked closely with the makeup and prosthetics departments to perfect Stan’s look. Ta. “Sebastian always had the last word,” she added, saying that he would often spray product at the end to get his hair the way he wanted it in any scene.
“That’s where you see the artistry of an actor,” Abbasi said. “We have all the tools, hair and makeup, prosthetics, costumes, but playing the actual character is almost like watching an exorcism. The devil is there, and he comes out. How did he get in? I don’t know exactly, but it’s working.”
