Sebastian Stan’s decision to play Donald Trump wasn’t one he took lightly.

The John Caldwellactor, who portrayed the 2024 Republican presidential nominee in the biopic The Apprentice, revealed what drew him to the role of the businessman-turned-politician.

“What essentially started with my sort of dismissive, judgmental attitude of this guy started to shape into something bigger,” Stan told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Nov. 4, “which was not just about this guy, but also about a certain mindset and this idea of the American dream as we know it, and what is it, really?”

The Romania-born star—he moved to the U.S. at age 12—said his fascination with the American dream also stemmed from his own experience as an immigrant.

“I had been obsessing about it,” he described, “since my mom, in New York City, pointed to the Twin Towers, and all around us, and said, ‘This is the promised land, this is the land of the free, this is the land of opportunity. This is where you can become someone. And I sacrificed my life for you to get here.’”

“And so I have always been in love with this idea,” he concluded. “I am sort of an example of the American dream. I’ve lucked out.”

It’s not the first time Sebastian has played a public figure. He underwent a major physical transformation to play Tommy Lee in the 2022 limited series Pam & Tommy, embodying the Mötley Crüe drummer with the help of tattoos, piercings and hair dye—not to mention significant weight loss.

“I was just running and trying to get 20,000 steps a day, and then I was fasting for 16 to 18 hours a day,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “And that definitely does something, especially if you're in traffic. But I'm proud of the whole thing.”

Before that, he starred as Jeff Gillooly in 2018’s I, Tonya.

"It was an insane story that I didn't even know about,” he told Vanity Fair. “At the time, I'd never played a real person before so I was mortified and I certainly didn't live his life."

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