Sebastian Stan reveals the toll playing Donald Trump had on him

What does it take to play Former President Donald Trump in a film?

That's a question Sebastian Stan has answered as he gave insight into his preparation to become Trump in a new biopic, and how this impacted him.

In the new film, called The Apprentice, Stan plays Trump in the late 70s and 80s, during the early years of his business career.

Apparently, the role caused sleepless nights for Stan who shared with Today just exactly how he prepared for the part. Additionally, to look the part Stan also revealed that he had to gain a stone in the space of two months.

“Well, [you] try to get sleep, which I didn’t. There’s a lot of research out there, there’s a lot of footage and documentaries," he told the TV show", Stan said.

“It’s pretty much been very well documented, his sort of rise into what we see today. And to me, it’s like playing an instrument. You sit at the piano, you get better at it with practice, and eventually you can just kinda do it in your sleep.”

Meanwhile, given that Trump has been in the spotlight for decades as a businessman, a TV star from The Apprentice (the reality show the film is named after) who later became a politician, and then US President from 2016 until 2020, there is plenty of Trump content out there.

Stan as Trump in the new film The ApprenticeYouTube/ONE Media

Stan also shared his creative process in a recent interview with Variety, saying: “I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone."

“And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods – from the ’70s all the way to today – so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him.”

He continued: “Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali [Abbasi, the director of The Apprentice] was going to take this.”

The Apprentice isn't even out until next month, but the Trump campaign has already taken issue with it. The campaign recently claimed it "doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store" after premiering at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

Meanwhile, former US President and Republican candidate Trump has blasted Jimmy Kimmel for his joke at the Oscars and called for Johnny Carson to return - who retired 30 years ago and died in 2005.

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