![[Trending News] Presidential portrayals: Actors who earned Academy Award nominations for playing real-life U.S. presidents](https://i2.wp.com/img.asmedia.epimg.net/resizer/v2/OTE2PHSU55FVEMXUDSVXCVGZXA.jpg?auth=5bf7d4a56e86972f4139e622c6e2b6558dc705e6fe4aa137efa4f4b46968b26d&width=1472&height=828&smart=true&w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1 "[Trending News] Presidential portrayals: Actors who earned Academy Award nominations for playing real-life U.S. presidents")
Sebastian Stan can this weekend become only the second man in Hollywood history to win an Oscar for portraying a real-life president of the United States.
Stan is among the nominees for Best Actor at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, for his performance as a young Donald Trump in Ali Abassi’s controversial biopic The Apprentice. Since the film awards were first held in 1929, Stan is the ninth actor to be nominated for an Oscar for playing an actual U.S. president.
What is The Apprentice about? How has Trump reacted to it?
A film that has also earned a Best Supporting Actor nod for Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice chronicles the early years of Trump’s real-estate careerwith a particular focus on his relationship with prosecutor Roy Cohn (Strong), the future commander-in-chief’s one-time attorney and mentor.
Offering a damning depiction of Trump – including a scene in which he appears to sexually assaulting his then-wife, Ivana – The Apprentice has been dismissed by the U.S. president as a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job”. Last May, Trump’s team threatened The Apprentice’s makers with legal action, describing it as a film that “belongs in a dumpster fire”.
Stan has defended his portrayal of Trump, telling NPR’s “Fresh Air” podcast last month that the president’s reaction to the film “might be because the truth hurts”. In an interview with The Wrap in September, Abassi insisted: “This movie is very much fact-based and fact-checked. There’s rigorous journalistic work around it.”
Who else has been Oscar-nominated for playing a real U.S. president?
Stan is the first man to receive a Best Actor nod for playing an actual U.S. president since Daniel Day-Lewis, for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 historical drama Lincoln. Day-Lewis took home the golden statuette at the 85th Academy Awards – making him the only presidential Oscar nominee to win his category.
Alongside Stan and Day-Lewis, five other men have been Best Actor contenders for their portrayals of real-life U.S. presidents. They include Anthony Hopkins, who is the only two-time Academy Awards nominee for roles as a commander-in-chief.
Two years after his 1996 Best Actor nod for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone’s biopic Nixon, Hopkins also went up for Best Supporting Actorfor playing John Quincy Adams in the Spielberg drama Amistad.
Before Stan, Sam Rockwell was the most recent actor to secure an Academy Awards nomination for a big-screen presidential role. Rockwell was a Best Supporting Actor candidate in 2019, for his depiction of George W. Bush in Adam McKay’s black comedy Vice.
The full list: every Oscar nomination for playing an actual U.S. president
Best Actor
1941: Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois
[1945:Alexander Knox as Woodrow Wilson in Wilson
1976: James Whitmore as Harry S. Truman in Give ‘em Hell, Harry!
1996: Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon in Nixon
2009: Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon
2013: Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln – WON
2025: Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in The Apprentice
Best Supporting Actor
1998: Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams in Amistad
2019: Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush in Vice
Who are the Best Actor nominees at the 2025 Oscars?
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Who is the favorite to win Best Actor 2025?
Stan is viewed as an outsider for the Best Actor award. The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody and A Complete Unknown’s Timothée Chalamet are leading the bettingwith most critics – such as experts at RogerEbert.com, The Hollywood Reporter and The Guardian – appearing to anticipate a victory for Brody.
If the 51-year-old is triumphant, it will be the second Best Actor win of his careerafter he received the award for The Pianist in 2003.
Watch the trailer for The Apprentice:
When are the 2025 Academy Awards?
Held at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre, the 2025 Oscars are to take place at 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT on Sunday, March 2. The event is to be broadcast live in the U.S. by ABC and Hulu. Viewers in the States have the option of streaming ABC on fubo, which offers a free trial.
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