Strong: Totally. I mean, you know that you’re playing with fire—how could we not know that? But I don’t think that had any impact on how we approached it as artists. I think we related to it as a piece of work and as a film about these two guys and their relationship.
Malle: It had trouble getting distribution coming out of Cannes, and then Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue. Did you anticipate any of that?
Stan: Of course, it seems kind of predictable that way. But I didn’t anticipate how hard it was to get the financing.
Strong: Also, if I’m being honest, I think I expected the movie to get scooped up out of Cannes. But then everyone was frankly scared to touch it. I think they were afraid of litigation and repercussions and afraid of Trump, and so now it’s opening this Friday on 1,500 screens or something like that, and I do think that this is something that is imperative for people to see.
Antrim: What I resonated so much to is that the movie is not a piece of propaganda, or it doesn’t have a particularly straightforward message, to me. I mean, it was actually a quite discomfiting film to watch for that reason.
Strong: I like to believe that we all have instincts towards other human beings. And I think if you watch this film, it’s not just learning about Trump as it is about learning about ourselves through him.
Antrim: That was definitely my experience of it. [To Stan:] And I find it interesting that your character, Trump, is someone you empathize, if not sympathize, with in the beginning of the movie. I’m thinking about when he’s knocking on doors, collecting rent, that kind of thing.
Strong: A lot of people didn’t know that he did that.
Antrim: And then by the end of the movie, Jeremy, your character, Roy Cohn, is this incredibly tragic figure.
Strong: Yeah, in this case, the apprentice sort of eclipses the mentor, which is what happened historically. But I think, you know, what was exciting and challenging about this is to take these two monolithic people and say they’re not monoliths. They’re human beings with a history and a past, who made choices, and different things shaped them, and let’s examine what those things were.
