The Untold Story Behind the Release of ‘The Apprentice’

The timely and improbably nuanced Donald Trump origins movie, The Apprentice, almost didn’t make it to cinemas in time for the U.S. presidential election. For much of the past year, in fact, the film appeared to be falling victim to the very same Trumpian tactics of ruthless media manipulation that it seeks to scrutinize. 

The Apprentice received rave reviews and an 8-minute standing ovation after its Cannes Film Festival premiere in May. Simultaneously, though, reports emerged that the film’s principal financier, Kinematics — founded by producer Mark Rapaport, son-in-law of the billionaire and known Trump donor Dan Snyder — had objections to a pivotal scene in the movie where a young Donald rapes his then-wife Ivana Trump. Days later, Trump’s real-life lawyers filed a cease and desist letter threatening to sue the producers and any future distributors of The Apprentice. 

Given the film’s content, the meta nature of the moment — art imitating life, imitating art — was lost on no one involved in the project. Written by veteran Vanity Fair reporter Gabriel Sherman and directed by rising Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice explores Donald Trump’s rise to power in 1980s New York under the influence of firebrand right-wing attorney Roy Cohn, who mentors him in the dark arts of winning constant media attention while weaponizing the U.S. legal system against any potential foe. 

The powerful work from the film’s key cast — Marvel star Sebastian Stan in a riveting and career-reorienting turn as the young Donald; Succession favorite Jeremy Strong bringing his full method-actor intensity to Cohn; and Borat 2 breakout Maria Bakalova as the vivacious young Ivana — inspired a wave of Oscars speculation on the ground in Cannes. But Trump’s threats and the media frenzy surrounding Snyder’s involvement nonetheless had their intended effect: Every major U.S. distributor and streamer subsequently passed on picking up The Apprentice, according to those close to the project. 

“With the stars we have and the reception we got in Cannes, it’s unheard of the way the industry has treated this film,” says Abbasi.  

The only domestic distributor to step in with an offer to release The Apprentice was Tom Ortenberg’s maverick indie outfit Briarcliff Entertainment. But Kinematics held the contractual right of approval over any distribution deal, and the company balked at Ortenberg’s offer, believing it was too low and didn’t offset their concerns over the likelihood of legal challenges tied to the rape scene. After months of paralysis, the dispute eventually headed to court, where the glacial pace of legal proceedings seemed likely to tie the film up until after the election. 

It was during a brief lull in these machinations that 36-year-old producer James Shani, one of the last of The Apprentice‘s 29 credited executive producers to get involved in the project, began negotiating with the Kinematics camp to buy out the company’s stake. After a stint as a talent manager at Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, Shani had launched his own indie marketing and distribution company, Rich Spirit, on the eve of Cannes, raising a pool of capital to acquire an initial three-film slate of buzzy international titles. But instead of spreading his bets, Shani speedily reached a deal to spend his entire sum to secure the rights to The Apprentice from Kinematics. With Kinematics out, the Briarcliff deal closed, paving the way for The Apprentice’s release on 1,500 to 2,000 screens on Oct. 11.

“It was a bold move — and the film hasn’t come out yet — but I think I’ll always be glad that I did it,” Shani says.

Crucially for the production, Shani’s agreement also gave Abbasi final cut over his movie. The director, an unmistakable talent who won Cannes’ prestigious Un Certain Regard prize with his 2018 breakout fantasy drama Border, has since revisited The Apprentice‘s full edit, adding and removing key moments from the version that premiered at Cannes, while finessing and strengthening other sequences, including the controversial rape scene. Industry figures who have seen both versions — including this writer — describe the director’s cut as palpably more refined and impactful.  

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Abbasi and Shani to discuss The Apprentice‘s counter-intuitive approach to the world’s most divisive real estate developer — and the behind-the-scenes story of how they raced against the clock to ensure the movie would be widely seen.

Ali, I’d like to ask why you wanted to make this movie in the first place. Back in 2018 when you boarded the project, you must have anticipated that doing a Donald Trump movie would be a bumpy ride...

Abbasi: My calculation was that the Americans didn’t have the balls to do this movie themselves — and I didn’t really turn out to be wrong. (Laughs) But irony aside, I came on board because of two things. A lot of the possible American filmmakers who would have been great for this did not want to risk their careers. You can go back to Elia Kazan, or look at less dramatic examples, but everyone in this industry knows it’s generally not helpful to your career to do a political film here. So, no one else wanted to do it, and I thought it was important that someone try.

The other thing is that I’m an outsider, so I have an inherently non-partial, non-partisan perspective, you know? I don’t support Democrats. I don’t support Republicans. I come from the Middle East, so a lot of this is like complete political theater to me. We’re used to getting the short end of the stick in the Middle East. When you’re living down under the palace, and the palace is leaking sewage into your village, it doesn’t really matter whether the guy who’s in the palace is an environmentally conscious king or a total asshole — that sewage smells just as bad, you know? So I think my outsider perspective allowed me to look at figures as polarizing and colorful as Mr. Trump and Roy Cohen with clarity to say: We need to deal with these guys.

Shani: When Ali and I first meaningfully connected about this movie, I was asking similar questions, and he kept saying, “We need to make movies political again,” which is what he told the crowd in Cannes at the premiere. It wasn’t until a bit later that I really understood what he meant by that. It’s not just about making films that tackle political topics, or present a political point of view. It’s more about exposing a deeper truth that sits in an uncomfortable gray area somewhere below our usual, automatic political positions.

I was there for the world premiere in Cannes and I watched the film again just yesterday. And I have to say — I liked it a lot more the second time. Going into the premiere, knowing that this was a Trump movie made by the director of Border, with Jeremy Strong from Succession and Maria Bakalova from Borat 2, I think I was expecting an aesthetically radical Trump takedown of some kind. And I was excited about that. But as the film got underway, I quickly realized that you had approached it on a much more humanistic level. The moviegoer side of me admired how impeccably well-made the film was, but the media-saturated political side of me — the side that tends to loathe Trump — chafed at some sections. Watching it a second time, though, I realized how deeply intentional that effect was — and that making a straight-ahead character study of these figures actually is the aesthetically radical choice in this moment. 

Abbasi: I’m really happy to hear that because the nuance keeps getting lost in all of the conversations around the movie. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me, “Do you think the movie will help Kamala Harris win?” Very few people actually engage with the point of view of the movie, other than whether it’s painting Trump in a good way or a bad way. The choice to move away from that dichotomy is, I think, the radical perspective of the film. Some people have interpreted that ambivalence — which I worked very hard to achieve — as complacency. For me, it certainly was not. I fought for months over just 10 to 20 seconds of this movie because I felt that it would tip the balance.

Shani: The nuance and the feelings it provokes are what make the film uncomfortable but also powerful. Ali asked a viewer at the Toronto Film Festival what their perception of the film was, and they responded, “Well, you didn’t tell me anything about Trump I didn’t already know, but I experienced something I hadn’t felt before.” 

Tell me about the process of finding aspects of Trump and Cohen to humanize.

Abbasi: I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but for me it’s very difficult to depict a character you absolutely hate. Some years ago, I got offered to do a project about the nazi doctor Josef Mengele. It was based on a nonfiction fiction book that was excellent, and I like to explore the darkness of humanity, so I got quite excited about it. But after some months, I went back to them and said, “I can’t do this movie.” As someone who is not Jewish, there are experiences here that would be strange for me to delve into. That’s when the outsiderness does not help. But more importantly, this was a person who was completely dark. There is nothing about him that I like. He is a mass murderer. He was an asshole to his only kid. I’ve looked, and I can’t find humanity anywhere. With Donald Trump and Roy, at certain periods in their lives, there are aspects of these characters that I like — and I don’t feel I should have to shy away from saying that. That doesn’t mean I like Donald Trump the presidential candidate or his policies. But that drive the young Donald had in the 1970s — of wanting to be someone and to build something — that was recognizable to me. And that’s when this project became interesting — because there’s complexity. I think it’s a crazy criticism to come to us and say, “Why are you humanizing these people?” Shouldn’t we be scared of doing the opposite with cinema — of dehumanizing? Humanizing someone does not exonerate them — quite the opposite, it implicates all of us. And we’re not the propaganda arm of the North Korean government. But I’m not naive. I did expect that nuance would get swallowed by the intense like and dislike for Donald Trump. I’m hoping that people will be able to recognize that this is a period movie and that the Donald Trump of the 1970s and early 1980s is a different character from the guy who is running for President today and talking shit about Haitians.

But it’s also a monster movie to an extent. You play with Frankenstein tropes in a sly way during the cosmetic surgery scenes late in the movie, where Donald’s transformation is nearing completion. 

Abbasi: We can talk about how Donald is a kind of Frankenstein that Roy Cohn created in his own image, which is true to an extent. But then the question is: What else created him? How about the aggressive capitalism and social Darwinism of the United States? How about a deeply flawed justice system? How about this country’s strange WWE-style political system? All of these forces, and more, were just as important in the creation of the so-called Monster.

Yeah, you look at Trump today — the hair, the spray tan, the hand gestures, the rhetoric — and he’s such a living caricature. It’s totally natural to wonder, “How does a human being become that?” This film, to an extent, is an attempt to answer that question. But do you worry that some people will wish there was more mystery in your answer? The film is far from simplistic, but I’ll admit that one of my first reactions was, “Can it really be this simple?” 

Abbasi: I’ve really been hoping a U.S. journalist would ask me this question because that really is our thesis. You know, we’re not dumb. We weren’t just like, “This is a making-of-a-supervillain movie!” But it’s true that the more I researched, the more I thought that it’s actually quite simple. This is a guy who dumbed himself down in a very intelligent, instinctual way. If you listen to the way Donald spoke when he was 28 years old, he sounded like a Bloomberg analyst, or even a bit like Obama, believe it or not. He would speak in a pretty measured, collected way. By the time he’s in his fifties, he sounds like a guy who’s driving a cab and yelling at traffic.

It’s like the emergence of punk rock in that same period — he’s playing against an establishment and getting a reaction. Trump’s wisdom comes from intuition and opportunism. He learned this way to speak through decades of interacting with the media and New York society. This is what they wanted, even if they said they didn’t want it —  and he gave it to them. He found his audience and how to communicate with them. When he emerges into the 90s, he’s a completely changed person — his values, his gestures, even the way his face looks. And the guy is the world champion of the tabloids; he’s been doing every interview you could possibly do for 50 years. Even before he became a TV star and a politician, he’d been under all the fire, ridicule and media scrutiny you could imagine. So when he comes out the other side into the political spotlight, he’s like this metal alloy that’s completely impenetrable.

What sequence of the film do you personally find most unsettling? 

Abbasi: The complexity of the movie is that it’s fun being with these punk rock figures of the 1980s, but then there is also the political reality that they had, or will have, real power. For me, the moment in the movie where I still get goosebumps is when Roy takes Donald down into the basement and explains what he did to the Rosenbergs.  (Cohn, famously, was the lead prosecutor in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which resulted in the couple’s execution. Historians have alleged that the trial was marred by misconduct on Cohn’s part.) He tells Donald, “It doesn’t matter if she was innocent or not, she had to die. Because you have to set an example, and you have to be willing to do anything to anyone. Do you understand?” And then Donald thinks about it, and he says, “Yeah, America is the biggest client.” That gives me goosebumps because it’s the essence of what this whole thing is about. Connecting your own personal, petty benefits and interests to a grand ideology, where you’re willing to go after anyone who doesn’t give you money, tax breaks, votes — or even a parking spot. Whatever it is you feel that you need or are entitled to. That’s part of the character portraits of this movie, but it’s also ongoing in the street and on the campaign trail. I found it very tricky to both keep distance from it, but also comment on it within the context of the movie. 

The New York City of the 1970s and 80s is remembered as such an edgy, exciting time in the arts. Were you at all worried that in your portrayal of this world, whether through your musical selections or other creative choices, you might lend Donald Trump an aura of cool that isn’t his to claim? 

Abbasi: I don’t think you have a moral responsibility to make him look bad or sad. What I was really inspired by was the reality of the time. Because here we are talking about the 1980s as a glamorous decade, but if you look at real footage of the place outside the movie Wall Street or Cosmopolitan magazine shoots, the apocalyptic vibe of the 1970s was still there. People were sleeping on the streets. The city was on the verge of bankruptcy and the glamorous yuppie thing was a very small bubble. These characters were very well documented so we had a lot of fantastic images we could go to. Everyone’s hair looked amazing but totally strange at the same time. You see Roy Cohn showing up to a party and his clothes look great, but his eyes are totally bloodshot and his teeth are a mess. Trump looks dumb and cool at the same time. Ivana looks vulgar and sexy and the same time. So again, it was always about that complexity. Can we capture both? 

I felt like you really nailed that dynamic in the party scene at Roy Cohn’s house. That scene captures some of the transgressiveness of the late 70s that people in the arts look back on longingly. Andy Warhol pops up. But you present that scene as a slightly surrealistic nightmare for the young Trump — because he’s fundamentally kind of a prude and it freaks him out. 

Abassi: There is a historical accuracy that has nothing to do with whether that party happened on October 7 or November 12 in 1978. You just have to look at the way young Donald is standing very straight and really trying to find his place — and he just can’t. Imagine this character going to Studio 54 where everyone is fucking and taking drugs. It’s going to take more time for that ice to melt. 

What was the reaction within The Apprentice team when Trump threatened to sue the film just after it premiered? 

Shani:  I remember Gabe and Ali saying, almost right away, that it was almost comical because it was exactly what the movie is about. It’s so meta. He’s hitting us with the moves Roy taught him, just like in the movie. And the media is playing right into his hands and running with it, just like they always do —which is also in the movie.

A lot of people following this story, at least since it all blew up at Cannes, have probably been wondering how you and Kinematics came together in the first place.

Abbasi: I can tell you where that begins. It begins with the fucked up financing structure of indie movies in America. There is zero state financing for movies, which coming from Europe is mindboggling. It means that you have to either work with a big studio or streamer, or you have to go out and try to put together a big chunk of money from a bunch of different places. And the process takes you to a lot of strange situations. Then, you have to fight for final cut, which is another really strange battle for any director from outside the U.S. As if I have an interest in destroying my own movie and not having it be as good as it possibly can be. To their credit, Kinematics were the only ones who really stepped in and said, we’ve read the script, we’ve seen your other movies and we want to take this risk with you. It wasn’t at all a hostile situation from the beginning.

I think what has confused people is why neither side saw a potential dispute coming. Kinematics was financed by a Trump donor and you’re clearly not the kind of filmmaker who would do the sort of pseudo-propagandistic biopic that would delight Trump world. From a distance, it’s easy to assume that one side was naive about how this would play out… 

Abbasi: I can be pretty candid with you. I’ve never met Dan Snyder. Mark Rapaport, who’s running Kinematics, is his son-in-law, and the way I understand it is that Snyder basically gave his son-in-law a wedding gift by saying, here’s this amount of money that you can use for your own venture as an independent producer and financier. It wasn’t like he gave him a check to make a Trump movie; he helped him finance a slate. And Mark and his team liked the idea of risk-taking and they liked the project. Then, at some point, Dan Snyder saw an early cut of the movie and for whatever reason, he didn’t like it. Did he hate it? Was he offended by it? Was he worried that he’d get sued by Trump? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But from then on, our conversations were very different. Then we started discussing how to handle different scenes and whether they wanted to take out certain scenes. But we were totally transparent from the beginning. They read multiple drafts of the script, and the script went through a rigorous legal review. After those first stories broke in the trades around Cannes, everyone started framing it as “The Apprentice was financed by a Trump supporter” — but I’m not really sure it was ever that direct. I think it mainly comes down to the messed-up financing situation for indie movies in America. We needed money to make the movie — and how many billionaires do you think there are in this country who haven’t donated to the Republicans or the Democrats at some time or another, or both?

James, you were the one who executed the buyout. Can you share how that phase unfolded? 

Shani: There were two parts to the dispute between the production and Kinematics. It was about the distribution of the film and the rape scene. Because of the media narratives that came out of Cannes — whether it was the Dan Snyder stuff and their objections to that scene, or Trump’s cease and desist letter — no buyer or distributor would touch the movie except for Briarcliff. At the time, I didn’t know that I wanted to commit as much money as I ended up committing to the movie by becoming a co-distributor, so in that period it was just Tom at Briarcliff. To his credit, Tom was the only person who said, these are the resources I have and I will back this movie if and when you guys are ready. But him being the only buyer put the financiers, Kinematics, in a very tough position. I was sympathetic to their spot, which is why I was ultimately able to get the deal done. Their position was: First, we have creative differences with this movie. Second, we invested $5 million in this project when no one else would, and now because of all this press that we had nothing to do with, there’s only one buyer and he’s not able to offer us a reasonable minimum guarantee. So why would we sign this deal? And the production’s position was: This is our only offer and we need to release this movie this year before the election — so we have to take this deal. Kinematics’ response was: No, we don’t. Let’s wait for a better offer, even if it means releasing it next year. That was the dispute and it dragged on for months. 

How did you make a breakthrough? 

Ultimately, it went the legal route, as often happens in this country. Kinematics had the contractual right to sign off on any distribution deal, but the production thought they had a good chance of getting a court to issue a quick decision saying they had the reasonable right to release the movie with Briarcliff, given that there were no other offers. In that small window, while we were waiting for that court decision, I basically went rogue — which didn’t feel great — and I started talking directly with Mark and Manny (Kinematics’ president Emanuel Nuñez) to try to buy Kinematics out of the movie. I only told Ali that I was trying to do this and he gave me his blessing. When Manny and I were nearing the finish line, I finally told our lead producers, Amy [Baer] and Dan [Bekerman], so they could prepare to wind down the litigation, but things were so intense they didn’t believe it would ever happen. Jeremy, Sebastian and Maria would check in daily wondering what was going on and we couldn’t share updates with them either. Fortunately, Manny and I were able to very efficiently reach an agreement, because we signed the deal on the eve of the court decision — which actually ruled somewhat in favor of Kinematics. The court set a trial date to decide the actual case in October — which would have meant the movie couldn’t come out until next year, way after the election. It would have killed the movie. But we were free.

So why did Kinematics accept the agreement in the end?

Shani: Because they got a fair deal. 

Can you share the number? 

Shani: I can’t, but I’ll say it was a generous buyout. What’s that expression? You know it’s a good deal when both sides walk away feeling like it wasn’t? 

When I first saw the film in Cannes, I really thought Netflix would snatch it up. In terms of potential engagement, it seems perfect for them.

Abbasi: I’ll tell you why they haven’t bought it — because they have millions of MAGA subscribers in the U.S., which is by far their biggest market. On a business level, I totally understand that. If you’re in the toilet paper business, you don’t want to alienate half the ass-wiping public. You want to sell toilet paper to everyone. I also understand that they might be worried about angering Trump himself. What happens if he wins the election and then decides to come after them — with the FCC or whatever government power he can use? I totally get their logic. The potential risk is not worth the reward. But here’s my answer: We’re in the business of content. We’re not selling KitKats. With content, sometimes you thrill and delight people, and other times you provoke or make them uncomfortable. That’s the nature of the content business. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Has the industry response to the movie started to change now that more people are getting to actually see it? 

Shani: For sure. We’ve been holding some private screenings at the San Vicente Bungalows recently, and we’ve had great people come out — Chuck Roven, Jason Blum and a bunch of other execs. Spielberg has watched the movie now. Everyone’s been saying how much they admire it. And then they come up to me and they’re like, “How did you manage to get this movie?” And I’m like, “Well, aside from our lone cowboy Tom Ortenberg, I was literally the only one who was willing to buy it.” And they’re like, “How is that possible? Why didn’t you come to us for help?” We’re polite, of course, but we’re also like, come on… we went out to everybody. I can’t tell you how many people, legitimate executives, were convinced Trump would prevent the film from getting released — as if First Amendment rights wouldn’t hold up for a fictionalized movie.

Abbasi: I also have to acknowledge that the position I’m in is completely different from my collaborators. I live in Europe. If Trump wins the election and somehow I’m not allowed back into this country, that would be really sad, but my life will go on. Our writer, producers and cast — Sebastian, who plays Donald! — they’ve taken the real risk here. People have started telling me how I’m so brave, and I’m like, Really? I don’t own property in this country.

James, have you felt there were real risks? 

Shani: Well, when Tom and I were finishing the [co-distribution] deal, at some point he said to me, “James, you realize that in doing this, I had to tell my wife that we may need to relocate for a certain period of time.”

I would hope that Trump has bigger things to worry about right now, but is there any lingering worry that his camp might reemerge to target the film again? 

Shani: I think that he and his camp are actually very smart. If they do come after us again, I think they will do so for a very strategic reason. If they decide not to, they’ll have a reason for that, too. 

So, fingers crossed?

Shani: They haven’t come around yet. Ali had this fun idea yesterday. He texted me and was like, “Hey, I want to book a hotel room at Trump Tower to do the rest of my interviews from there.” (Laughs) I actually think it’s a good idea, but I’m going to look into getting him 24/7 security before we do that.

When the first assassination attempt happened, among many other thoughts, I remember putting my trade reporter hat on and pondering how the event would impact the fate of this movie. At the time, I assumed the movie was probably dead. Biden was flailing, Trump was triumphant and naturally receiving a wave of sympathy. I just couldn’t see where the appetite for this movie would come from in that moment. But then everything changed all over again… 

Abbasi: Well, let’s go back a little bit further in history. Do you know the Ernst Lubitsch movie To Be or Not to Be from 1942? Lubitsch was a master of screwball comedy and the movie follows this theater troupe in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland who get caught up in a spy plot. The least charismatic actor in the troupe looks like Hitler and there’s this whole meta-farce involving him impersonating Hitler. It’s an amazing movie. But the significance here is that this satirical comedy was made while the real atrocities were happening in Warsaw — in real-time. Imagine the kind of moral questions you’re dealing with when you’re prepping your high-brow comedy, while reading at the same time that 200,000 people have been rounded up and sent to the camps. Imagine that.

My point is that there are two ways of looking at this. One is to say, okay, it’s way too soon. It’s morally questionable to be making entertainment in a moment like this — which might be right. The other view is to say, actually, this has to be done — exactly because of the acuteness, complexity and importance of the moment. We shouldn’t be changing our ideas about truth, morality and what’s acceptable to explore depending on what’s happening in the moment. So, I got quite sad when Trump was nearly assassinated. Political violence is always sad. And he’s a human being. I also got very worried thinking about the potential hell that could have broken loose if had he been killed. But it didn’t change my thoughts about the movie. 

So what would be the dream outcome at this point? Oscar nominations? And if Trump loses — or CEOs stop living in fear — a second life on a major streamer? 

Shani: I think it’s going to be a slow-burn movie that will prove to be both incredibly timely and timeless. I really think it’s going to become one of those movies that speaks to a moment in time — like Taxi Driver or Scarface.

For now, we really just want it to be seen and discussed by as many people as possible. We had a fun marketing idea last week. We all have someone in our circles — whether it’s a family member at our dinner table, or a friend or a colleague — who likes Trump more than we do. That was the phrase we came up with: “Bring someone to The Apprentice who likes Trump more than you do.” Watch the movie together and then just have a conversation about it. We’ve been discussing how we can incentivize people to do that. That would be the dream to me. 

Ali, how did the film change once you regained final cut? 

Well, our editing process had become pretty contentious towards the end [with Kinematics]. There were disagreements over choices and legal issues — about what we could and couldn’t do to avoid getting sued. It wasn’t until after Cannes that I had time to really rethink and revisit whether we were making choices that were right for the character’s journey. Finally, I had the headspace to think about what’s best for the actual movie. 

One example was the rape scene. We had sort of tried to find a way to not be too sensationalist or expressive — to try to be on the safe side, legally. And when I looked at it again after Cannes, I was like, “This scene is not doing what it should do. I don’t care what the lawyers say. It just doesn’t work.” It shouldn’t just be about hitting him with some dark thing from his past. This isn’t part of the presidential campaign. It’s a character scene. It’s about this big turning point in his life where he loses the love of his life. That’s why it should be there, and that’s why it’s important. And I wasn’t getting that vibe looking at it. I was getting the vibe of someone trying to show an assault but then sort of censoring the worst part. So I went back to it with the thought that this shouldn’t be controversial, it should be heartbreaking. It’s a tragedy. He’s throwing away the last piece of his humanity. 

James, I remember hearing that you were bringing Hollywood power attorney Marty Singer on board to defend the film against the potential legal threats from Trump.

Shani: Marty and I had two or three conversations about defamation related to Trump, because Marty had some experience with Trump tied to a similar case back in the day. But for now, he’s waiting in the shadows.

How do you feel on the eve of the U.S. theatrical release at last? 

Abbasi: I was willing to stay up all night working on this film, for many nights, because I felt that history would judge us for this one. I bet Ernst Lubitsch was kept up with similar thoughts. Decades from now, I hope that people will look at this movie and say, that was a crazy time and there were so many things that could go wrong — but at least you engaged with it. At least you tried to stay free from all of those outside agendas. I’m happy to report we made the best movie we could make under some pretty tough circumstances.