The Apprentice star and director on Trump’s criticism to film

The Independent

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00:00I'm really excited to talk to you about this film but I would like to start this off by reading a

00:03pretty scathing review that this got yesterday, if I may. A fake and classless movie called The

00:09Apprentice, in brackets. Do they even have the right to use that name without approval,

00:13closed brackets? It's a good question actually.

00:15It's a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job. Trump put it out on

00:19Truth Social. Why do you think Trump doesn't want people to see this film?

00:24The question is, doesn't he really want people to see this? Because then he wouldn't talk about it.

00:32This is Donald Trump from Mr. Cohn. Thank you so much.

00:35Donald who?

00:36We did a little sort of quick calculation and there are more people who have seen The

00:44Apprentice over this weekend alone than has been probably in his, you know, whole like rallies last

00:51month. Everywhere. I know it's about the crowd size, you know, that thing gets, you know,

00:58gets him agitated.

00:59Size matters for Trump.

01:00Size matters. No, but you know, like because everyone's talking about The Apprentice flopping,

01:06I mean like if we're flopping and we're getting like more people in than the whole

01:11like month-long Trump rally, then what does that say about Trump rally, you know?

01:15Maria, this isn't your first film that brushes with Donald Trump.

01:20Your Oscar nominated performance in Borat saw you in an infamous hotel room moment with Rudy

01:26Giuliani. How does it feel to you to be at the center of these politically charged moments and

01:31does it influence the roles that you choose?

01:33I just, you know, it's so strange but it just happened, again, it just happened organically.

01:38I just, I feel like I'm attracted to really challenging characters that are multi-layered

01:43and they-

01:44I'm so sure you're talking about Rudy right now, like characters that are multi-layered and happen

01:48organically.

01:49I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking about Tuta and Ivana Trump and yeah, both of the movies,

01:54I don't see any of them as political films, any of them, neither Borat nor The Apprentice,

02:00but at the same time they do have like an angle of dive into this American dream if you're a

02:07foreigner because Ivana is a foreigner, Tuta is a foreigner and like how people treat you as a

02:11foreigner. For me it's been about the girls, it's been about strong independent women, both Tuta

02:16and Ivana and women that can overcome a lot of difficulties.

02:20A hundred thousand, all right, go.

02:21Ivana, please, let's talk about this, come on, don't do this.

02:24Go find someone else, I'm not a traffic cop.

02:27There's a very visceral scene in the film that depicts Trump raping Ivana,

02:31I found it incredibly hard to watch. I just want to ask, how do you approach a scene like that?

02:36For me, the scene is important as a relationship scene between two people that I believe loved

02:42each other in the beginning. Maybe they had layers in their relationship as well because

02:47she wanted to marry somebody who is going to be a helpful provider, great husband,

02:52he wanted to be around somebody that is also strong, outspoken and that influenced him a lot.

02:57Yet at some point that relationship, that dynamic changes and we were watching this interview at

03:02Oprah that you can see that there's a bit of a tension between the two of them and it's been

03:07a navigating point of how things can shift towards somebody hurt you one way or another,

03:13like emotionally hurt you, physically hurt you.

03:16Women like her are going through situations like this, unfortunately, even right now.

03:20And they are survivors and if you have the opportunity to portray something like this,

03:26you should do it with respect and with depth.

03:30And of course, do as many conversations as possible.

03:34Have a great team behind you like stunt coordinators, intimacy coordinator,

03:38great partners like Sebastian, great leader like Ali.

03:40Yet at the same time, it's difficult. It's challenging to even imagine that for a scene,

03:45you have to go through something like this.

03:48Imagine that women are going through something like this in real life.

03:51The election is a month away, so you couldn't have picked a better release date for this film

03:55for promo. So what do you hope that people will take away from this film?

04:00And do you think it will actually change anyone's minds?

04:02It happened organically, like the timing happened organically. I don't know how.

04:06Was it a happy coincidence? Because obviously, you guys, there were so many challenges.

04:10Probably.

04:10This film.

04:11You could also see it as an unhappy coincidence because, you know, like it's a double edged sword,

04:17right? The same, you know, yeah, it's good with the awareness and promo, as you call it.

04:24But on the other hand, there's also like, OK, there's a Trump fatigue and people are like,

04:28OK, this is a really serious matter, which it is, you know, with the elections.

04:33We have a brand new campaign slogan. Let's make America great again.

04:39Oh, I like the again part.

04:40We were basically left with the options of releasing it later after the elections

04:47and risk losing at least some of the relevance, you know, although I don't think I don't think

04:55this is a Trump movie. So like if it came out a year later, it's not like, oh, no, no, it's

05:00whatever. We don't care anymore because he lost or whatever. I mean, are people really going to

05:05be affected by a movie they see? And who are who is that person that's going to be? I think as a

05:12filmmaker, I'm not naive or, you know, romantic about this. I don't think that we're going to

05:18change the world, you know, but if we can somehow get people to see that there are more ways of

05:26looking at the same thing. And in this case, I think that's sort of maybe what plays, you know,

05:33in our favour, which is this is someone people, everyone has an opinion about. And now we're

05:39coming and saying, hey, there's this also this way of looking at it, you know, so you have this sort

05:43of defamiliarising the familiar. Well, it's also not a political film, crucially, right? Because

05:49it's sort of it's a yes or no, you know, because it is a political movie in a way that it deals

05:55with the power structure. It looks at the power, the sort of the machine room of the power, a US

06:00politic legal system. But it's not party politics. It's not about who's Democrat, who's Republican,

06:07you know, you know, who's who's better at running the country or not, you know.

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