When he’s not too busy pitching failed reality dating shows with former Apprentice contestant Omarosa or complaining about releasing his tax returns, Donald Trump occasionally cameos in movies and television. Not just minor films or throwaway sitcoms, but hugely popular (and sometimes critically acclaimed) properties made by the most famous filmmakers and starring the best performers. Like Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the 2010 sequel to the Oliver Stone-directed and Michael Douglas-starring Wall Street.
Stone famously cut a short scene from the film featuring Trump and Douglas’ Gordon Gekko getting haircuts at the same barbershop. Nothing pivotal to the plot happens, but as the Snowden director recalls in a new Hollywood Reporter interview, Trump wasn’t all that bad of an actor:
“He was good,” said Stone. “I have no complaint. There were a lot of demands. I mean, he had two pages of prerequisites: You couldn’t shoot him from this side, that side. But I talked to him, and he’s a charming man in person. As an actor, he was stunning. You know, we did take one with Michael [Douglas] and [Trump] talking in a barbershop. And he jumped up after the take and he said, ‘Wasn’t that great?'” In the end, Stone chose to cut the scene. “It was too late and too little for where we were, at that point in the movie. And I wasn’t thinking about his future presidency — I was just dealing with an editing issue. I should have left it in probably.”
What’s more, Stone claims Trump was the “most confident man” he’d ever met. So much so that it became a problem while filming, as Trump kept exclaiming how great he was at the end of each take:
“You know, he kept doing it. And we kept going because I was deepening the scene as we went. And he didn’t understand nine takes. He’d just done eight, nine takes, he’d never understand it. But every scene, he’d just jump up. He was the same way every time. He didn’t change.”
Look for Stone’s next film, The Donald, out in theaters sometime after this all blows over.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
