Maria Bakalova Wanted To Portray Ivana Trump As “Not Just A Trophy Wife” In ‘The Apprentice’

For her first nonfiction role, Maria Bakalova had quite the undertaking.

The Apprentice actress recently opened up about portraying the late Ivana Trump in the Ali Abbasi-helmed film about former president Donald Trump‘s early ’80s rise, which is now playing in theaters.

“I was nervous. I was actually very nervous, mostly because I’ve never played a real person before,” Bakalova told Collider. “I knew that Sebastian [Stan] and Jeremy [Strong] have both played real people before, and they did a great job. I just wanted to be on their level. I wanted to not disappoint them. I was trying my best to listen to as many recordings of her, watch as many videos of her, and know as much about her story as possible so I could deliver what they deserve.”

Donald’s first wife from 1977 to 1990, Ivana was the mother of his children Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, and she served as president and CEO of Trump’s Castle casino resort. Ivana died at age 73 when she fell down the stairs in her Manhattan home in 2022.

“I honestly didn’t know a lot about her,” admitted Bakalova. “I knew that she’d been a model. I knew that she had a fashion line, an interior design line — any kind of a line that had her name. And I knew that she was the first wife of Donald Trump, the former president of America, but nothing apart from that. I knew that she was from somewhere around my region of the world, but not that she’s been competitive, not that she’s been a hard-working woman, not that she built both of their lives in a lot of ways because she’s been the brain behind everything in the beginning.”

She continued, “I found myself really fascinated by her achievements and the fact that she’s been so outspoken. It’s still challenging to demand your position and your equality, even though we’re living in 2024. That’s been happening since the ’70s, [her] standing up for herself and demanding to be treated equally, to be his equal — not just a trophy wife sitting at home, but work hand-in-hand with him. It’s been a really remarkable achievement.”

Written by Gabe Sherman, The Apprentice charts a young Donald Trump’s (Stan) ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn (Strong). The movie also stars Martin Donovan as Fred Trump Sr.

“It’s such a great film. I honestly think it’s a great film,” said Bakalova. “The relationship between these two people, I get a sense of why, for example, Ivana and Roy have hated each other so much. Because it’s like competition for the same guy in a way. It’s like a relationship. It’s like a throuple. You have one human being at home, and you have another one that you’re dealing with as a work relationship, a semi-work relationship. But still, it is a relationship. It’s like three people in this relationship.”