Pief Weyman
After the interview was conducted, Business Insider reached out to Trump for comment on Abbasi’s statements below. A spokesperson for the former president slammed the movie.
“The filmmakers now readily admit they fabricated scenes and created fake stories to fit some deranged narrative about President Trump that is completely untrue,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said Friday. “This garbage is pure fiction, which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked.”
“As with the illegal Kamala witch-hunts,” the statement continued, referencing Trump’s presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, “this is election interference by Hollywood elites right before November, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day, and 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,” the statement concluded. “It belongs in a dumpster fire.”
You’ve been working on getting the movie made since 2018. I’m sure during that time, those close to you have wondered, “Why are you doing this?” So, what made you want to see this through?
This is not a project you get a lot of encouragement from your friends. Like, “Do it! Do a Donald Trump movie!” But frankly, my motivation was that it is not a Donald Trump movie. It is an excuse to talk about other interesting stuff. It’s an excuse to talk about the American power and legal system. The way you can find loopholes in it and how through this transformative relationship with Roy taught Donald to create his own reality and use the media.
And I feel it’s art imitating life in what unfolded for you. In the movie, we watch how relationships and side deals make Trump a real estate tycoon. In real life, after the movie was screened at Cannes, seemingly relationships and side deals made it difficult for the movie to initially find a streamer or mainstream distributor. That must have been wild to witness.
I would have said it’s hilarious. The only thing is it wasn’t hilarious for me. But from the outside looking in, it was a crazy situation. They were using a page from Roy Cohn’s playbook against us.
You show us in the movie that Cohn’s main weapon is to attack, attack, attack, and that may have been exactly what Trump did once the movie premiered.
And whoever his advisors are, they know a lot about how this industry works. The timing couldn’t have been better for him and worse for us. The cease-and-desist letter came out just at the moment when we were trying to signal to the industry that this is a regular movie. It may be political, but it’s not that.
We got a really good reception in Cannes. People were praising the movie. I remember some of the studios were coming with their legal teams and taking it very seriously to acquire the movie. And then that letter came. [Laughs.]
What was really interesting is the letter was sent to me and Gabe. Usually, those letters go to production or the production’s attorney. It was sent to me and Gabe personally. And we talked to our lawyers, and they said, “You don’t want controversy; we want this to be a low profile. Don’t talk about the letter.” So that’s what we did.
And then I got a call from a news outlet saying, “We obtained a copy of this letter.” I thought, how the fuck did you obtain a copy when nobody has it except for me and Gabe? So I felt if this is not orchestrated then I’m really paranoid. It was like they made sure it got in the news that they sent the letter.
Scythia Films
Give me an example of a curveball.
There was a moment with Donald and Ivana [are] on the escalator in Trump Tower. They were going down and talking and there was tension between them through the night.
At one point, I told Sebastian when you go down the escalator this time, you’re going to see this woman that Donald has been fucking, and you get worried that Ivana might see her. I never told Maria this. We did a few takes.
Then I went to Maria [and said] that Ivana just found out that this woman you’re going to see is having an affair with Donald. And I didn’t tell Sebastian this. We did a few takes of that.
Now, in the edit, you can decide which reaction to the woman works better in the scene: Donald’s or Ivana’s.
Exactly. The way I like to work, especially with this project, was seeing reality through different angles and perspectives. The movie came together for me in the editing. There were certainly things I asked the actors that might have sounded weird to them or not logical and I’m happy they were generous enough to roll with the punches.
Like asking Jeremy to put on a frog costume for a dream sequence?
Well, that was his own idea. There was this sequence in the script where Donald, after seeing Roy a few times, starts dreaming of him, and it has a slight homoerotic undertone.
For me, it was more about showing how big an effect Roy has on Donald. We’re shooting it in an interesting way with a curved mirror, and then Jeremy says, “How about I wear a frog costume and sing ‘I Am What I Am?'” And I said, “I think that might be too much,” but I didn’t want to kill his joy.
So we continued and I’m hoping he just forgets about the idea. Then I realized he sent someone from costume to get a fucking frog costume. So we ended up with Jeremy in a frog costume.
Will that scene ever see the light of day?
Well, anything is possible. [Laughs.]
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Do you admire Donald Trump after making this movie?
My feelings toward him as a human being haven’t changed, really. Some of my liberal friends hate him, but their point of view is he’s dumb, the way he talks is all over the place, and he’s greedy. And I’m like, you’re really underestimating the whole US political system.
This is the most complicated political system in the world. You don’t become president if you’re not extremely intelligent and extremely savvy, and whatever you think of the guy, you can’t say, “Oh, he’s dumb.”
I admire his relentlessness. That’s his biggest asset as a politician. I don’t think he’s a good businessman. If he stayed in real estate it wouldn’t have ended well. But you see, he has this ability to come with the one-liners and be in the moment. So, as a human being, that’s interesting.
Just because he’s such a good entertainer, sometimes you forget the seriousness and gravity of some of the stuff he’s saying and what some of his followers are doing. I think that’s dangerous.
Do you think he will accept the results of this election?
I saw, like everyone else, what happened on January 6th, which was horrific. And I have a feeling that a lot of people got away with insane stuff. Look at that footage.
When you see that, you think, why would they change their opinion about this election? Why would they magically accept this when they didn’t accept that?
But somehow, I’m an optimist. I was optimistic when people told me not to do this movie or when people said no one would buy this movie, so I really hope that everyone learned their lesson on January 6th. I hope to think that even though people may be tempted to do that again, they know what the consequences are, and they don’t do it.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.