00:00Admit nothing. Deny everything.
00:05You think you can beat the US government?
00:08Rule three.
00:09No matter what happens, you claim victory and never admit defeat.
00:14I record everything in case I need it.
00:16Well, that's illegal.
00:17You have to be willing to do anything to anyone to win.
00:21Hi, I'm Alex from NME and today I'm joined by the stars of new film The Apprentice.
00:25It's Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan. How are we doing?
00:27Good, how are you?
00:29I'm going to list a couple of films and I want to see if you can work out what they have in common.
00:35The Last Temptation of Christ, A Clockwork Orange, Monty Python's Life of Brian and John Waters' Pink Flamingos.
00:42What do they have in common?
00:43Yeah. At some point they've all been banned in the United States of America.
00:48Oh, wow. Interesting.
00:49And of course your film wasn't banned, but at any point did you think that maybe people might not get to see it?
00:57Yeah, I mean it came very close to being blocked and not allowed to be shown in America, which was really unsettling and troubling.
01:08And even though we sort of narrowly escaped the jaws of censorship, it almost tipped the other way and I find that very dark.
01:19Is it possible though that more people might see the film now because of that controversy?
01:23I think so. I mean, an interesting thing about the opening weekend that we had in the US, which we learned about, was that actually the numbers from Friday to Sunday grew.
01:34Usually it's the other way around. You have a Friday spike and then Saturdays a little less than Sundays, but with ours it sort of grew.
01:41And I think thanks to Donald Trump yesterday, you know, more people will get to see it.
01:49Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Trump.
01:51You know, the thing about being censored, I guess I would say I do think more people will see it given the controversy.
01:59But I think people should see it not because of the controversy, but because I think it's essential if you care about this election or the United States or, for that matter, the world right now.
02:13I think there are things in this film that are essential to understanding who Donald Trump is and how he was made.
02:18And the fact that he felt compelled to call us human scum and denounce the film, to me, means there's something in it that he finds threatening.
02:30And that's all the more reason for everyone to see it.
02:32So do you think if he didn't find it threatening?
02:35I think he just would not comment on it. But something about the film has provoked him.
02:40Now, that's not what we set out to do. We're not trying to defame him or vilify him.
02:45We're trying to tell an accurate story of these historical figures.
02:52And it's based on historical record and written by a journalist.
02:56So, you know, I think it's a pretty responsible and even humanizing portrait of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn.
03:06One second, listen, because I'm rich, I'm handsome, I have a great family, I'm going to be the number one builder in New York.
03:13Listen to me. You're going to have a life you can't even dream of, Ivana, with me. I love you.
03:19Are you two the kind of actors who make playlists for your characters for a film?
03:24I had a lot of Donna Summer.
03:26Oh, really?
03:27I had the La Caja Fall original cast album, among other things.
03:33Yeah.
03:34Yeah, music is... I always listen to certain music around character.
03:42I play the Rocky theme quite often, weirdly.
03:46Oh, really?
03:47Which I can see him doing.
03:49That's great.
03:50It was just on repeat. It's just you're always in the arena, you know.
03:54But one question we ask everyone we interview is, what's an album you always go back to?
04:00I don't know. I like instrumental music. I feel like it's good. I like... But I can't think.
04:08I think the Boogie Nights soundtrack is pretty good, actually, if you think about an album.
04:15Astral Weeks.
04:17Van Morrison?
04:18Yeah, probably.
04:19Do you remember when you first heard that album? What did it do to you?
04:22A long time ago.
04:23You know, it's transportive and it's a pretty perfect album.
04:26Yeah.
04:27Nebraska. Springsteen's Nebraska.
04:29Yeah. Which is interesting as well, because there are rumours that you were maybe going to join that new biopic.
04:34Yeah, I am. But I'd always felt that way about that album.
04:37Why that album and not maybe one of the other albums?
04:40Something about Nebraska just always spoke to me. There's a melancholy to it. There's a narrative to it.
04:47It comes from a very deep place in him and you can feel that.
04:52Have either of you run across any of those artists that you really admire?
04:56I actually auditioned, never got it, for the Spider-Man musical that Bono wrote the music for.
05:06Yeah, I did a workshop and at one point they were workshopping it. It doesn't mean you have the part or whatever.
05:14And at one point they were like, oh, Bono's going to be watching it.
05:17So anyway, that was as close as I got, but he clearly didn't get that part.
05:23Thanks so much for chatting to me, guys. It's been an absolute pleasure.
05:27We have a brand new campaign slogan. Let's make America great again.
05:32Hmm. Well, I like the again part.
05:43Yeah.
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