“The Apprentice” stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong say biopic does not attempt to 'vilify' Donald Trump

"Hopefully, this movie leads people towards a reconnection with their own humanity," Stan tells EW.

Donald Trump has already threatened to sue the filmmakers behind The Apprentice, the upcoming movie about his rise to power, calling it a "concoction of lies that repeatedly defames." However, the film's stars insist they're not trying to vilify the ex-president or his former mentor, Roy Cohn, whose relationship with Trump forms the backbone of the film.

"This is a movie about two human beings, not about two villains or monsters," Jeremy Strong, who plays Cohn, tells Entertainment Weekly for our latest cover. "I don't think the movie attempts to vilify these people. I think it attempts to understand where they came from and how they became who they are."

"In some ways, it's sort of a love story," adds Sebastian Stan, who plays Trump. "One of my favorite things was what [Jeremy] said at the very beginning, which was, 'I'm playing a guy named Roy, and you're playing a guy named Donald.'"

Related: The Apprentice is a riveting if familiar account of Donald Trump's years spent at Roy Cohn's knee

Directed by visionary Iranian Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi (The Border, Holy Spider), The Apprentice — in theaters Oct. 11 — follows Trump's evolution in the '80s from a wannabe power player to a living embodiment of wealth and success under the tutelage of his lawyer and mentor, Roy Cohn.

"Our director talked about this: All great movies are a movie about a relationship," Strong notes. "So this is not a political movie. It's a movie about the relationship between these two outsiders who became the ultimate insiders, and these two people striving to understand and command the levers of power using Roy Cohn's playbook of always attack, deny everything, and never admit defeat."

Related: Sebastian Stan eerily embodies young Donald Trump in trailer for The Apprentice

While Abbasi has been trying to get it made since 2018, thanks to delays caused by COVID and the writers' strike, the film is now coming out just weeks before the U.S. election. Still, the actors say they're not out to change anyone's politics.

"It's not telling you how to vote," Strong says. "If you liked Barbie, this movie is for you. If you didn't like Barbie, this movie is for you. If you are pro-Trump, if you're anti-Trump, I think it's a movie about the birth of his worldview and his moral, philosophical, and ethical framework. And I think that affects all of us."

Stan also believes that by better understanding Trump, audiences have an opportunity to learn something about themselves. "Hopefully, this movie leads people towards a reconnection with their own humanity," he says. "I think we have to nurture empathy, and that's at stake now more than ever, it feels like. And the only way to do that is, sometimes, to confront it with its opposite. We have to be aware of the things in the dark as much as we are of the things in the light."

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.