Role for Newcastle-born actor in controversial Trump film
Opening in cinemas pretty much everywhere today (Oct 18) is The Apprentice, a Donald Trump biopic which has divided critics.
Donald Trump is not a fan, calling it “a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job”.
He also called it “fake and classless” and hoped it would “bomb”.
With that kind of endorsement, it will probably enjoy a profitable opening weekend.
The North East interest, apart from a natural concern about the character of a US presidential candidate, is that there’s a role in director Ali Abbasi’s film for Newcastle-born actor Charlie Carrick.
Charlie had his first acting experience as a pupil at Newcastle Royal Grammar School, playing Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
With his interest piqued, he opted against university and instead moved to Canada, where he had family ties, to break into the film industry which he has done successfully.
In The Apprentice he is cast as Donald’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr., whose decision to become an airline pilot put Donald in pole position to take over their father’s burgeoning property empire.
Fred Jr. became an alcoholic and died in 1981 at the age of 42, leaving Donald to, well… much of that we know.
The film, focusing on the former US President’s early rise, has Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, Jeremy Strong as influential lawyer Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Trump’s first wife, Ivana, who died in 2022.
On Tyneside the opening weekend screenings are assured of at least one customer – Charlie’s mum, Avril Deane, who lives in Jesmond and is former women’s editor on North East regional paper, The Journal.