Sebastian Stan Recalls ‘Star Trek’, ‘Green Lantern’ Roles He “Desperately Wanted”

Although Sebastian Stan has taken on the role of a lifetime with The Apprentice, he still holds a light for some of the roles he didn’t get.

The Golden Globe nominee, who portrays Donald Trump in the Ali Abbasi-helmed film, recently revealed that he was up for starring roles in Star Trek (2009) and Green Lantern (2011) years before playing the twice-impeached president.

“There were a couple of things I didn’t get that I really desperately wanted,” he said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “But Captain Kirk for J.J. Abrams; that was one of the first I got very close to. I remember I was really, really close, and I remember I had a screen test with [Abrams] at Paramount, and my manager had me do a separate photo shoot where I would try and replicate all these William Shatner pictures just to send to him, see how much I looked like him, but I didn’t get it.”

Chris Pine ultimately beat out Stan to play Captain Kirk in Abrams’ reboot of the franchise, as well as the sequels Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016). Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds landed the leading role of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern.

“Green Lantern was another that I screen tested for,” recalled Stan. “I remember getting there, and it was like me, Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto, Ryan Reynolds and maybe one other person, and I’m looking at these guys going, ‘I’m f—ed! There’s no way this is happening!’

“But you come close, and it wouldn’t happen, and in a way, I gotta tell you, looking back, I’m almost glad it didn’t. Because I don’t know if I could have handled that level of attention like some of those guys,” he admitted, also noting he auditioned for a Russell Crowe movie.

Following appearances on Gossip Girl and Once Upon a Time, Stan rose to fame with roles in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), I, Tonya (2017) and Hulu’s Pam & Tommy (2022), the latter earning him his first Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

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 (Jeremy Strong). Now playing in theaters, the movie also stars Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump and Martin Donovan as Fred Trump Sr.