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‘A lot of makeup, a lot of hair’ … Maria Bakalova. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDbHer breakout role in the Borat sequel grabbed attention after a scene with Rudy Giuliani on a bed. Now she’s playing Trump’s ex-wife in a controversial biopic – but insists it’s not a political film
By Emine SanerMon 14 Oct 2024 00.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 14 Oct 2024 10.28 EDTShareThe week Maria Bakalova was asked to consider playing Ivana Trump for the new film The Apprentice, she was in New York filming something else. With the meeting scheduled for her one day off, she spent the evening before trying to channel Donald Trump’s first wife. The film is set in the 70s and 80s, so she spent hours wading through photos of Ivana in that era. “A lot of makeup, a lot of hair,” she says. Bakalova laughs as she remembers spending the evening experimenting with a mushroom-like hairstyle and “heavy eyeliner with a lot of powder, like inches”, although she didn’t have an Ivana-esque wardrobe – “Am I gen Z or a millennial?” asks the 28-year-old. Either way, “We wear a lot of baggy clothes”, so she chose her most skintight outfit.
She met the director Ali Abbasi in the middle of the day, feeling a little clownish in her Ivana cosplay. They spoke for a couple of hours, “about people growing up in post-communist countries – because [Ivana] was from Czechoslovakia, and I was born and raised in Bulgaria – which shapes your inner world, your thoughts. We talked a lot about the similarities of our stories.”
View image in fullscreenMaria Bakalova as Ivana Trump in The Apprentice. Photograph: Apprentice Productions/Profile Productions/Tailored FilmsIvana had been a competitive skier, with a place on the national junior team that allowed her to compete outside communist Czechoslovakia in the late 60s. By the mid-90s, when Bakalova was born, Bulgaria was no longer a socialist republic but, for most people, travel outside the country was still rare. As a child, Bakalova, a competitive singer, got to travel to competitions all around Europe. It opened her eyes and instilled a sense of independence.
This is Bakalova’s highest profile role since her big break in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2020 mockumentary sequel about the Kazakhstani reporter Borat Sagdiyev. She played Borat’s daughter, Tutar, in a performance so cringingly brilliant it got her an Oscar nomination. Despite this early success, Bakalova says her agents warned her not to get her hopes up about the role of Ivana – higher profile US actors were also in the running. “What I think is important is that [Abbasi] gave a chance to an eastern European to compete,” she says. “To have the opportunity, rather than just playing a prostitute or a crazy Russian scientist or a mobster or somebody that is just in the background with a few lines.”
It was six months before she found out that she’d got the role, followed by a tortuous journey to get the film made and released. In a Vanity Fair piece, the film’s screenwriter, Gabriel Sherman, detailed the various obstacles – actors who didn’t want to “humanise” Trump, Hollywood studios and streamers who wouldn’t finance it, Trump’s Muslim travel ban that made it difficult for Abbasi, who is Iranian and based in Denmark, to work in the US (as well as the actors’ strikes and a global pandemic). The Apprentice’s largest investor, a film-making son-in-law of a billionaire and prominent Trump donor, reportedly threatened to sink the film once he’d seen it, because of a scene in which the Trump character appears to rape his wife. Ivana alleged Trump raped her in her divorce deposition, but later retracted. Trump’s lawyers sent the film-makers cease-and-desist letters and the big American distributors wouldn’t touch it. “Hollywood fashions itself as a community of truth tellers,” wrote Sherman, “but here they were running from a movie to prepare for a Trump presidency.”
The Apprentice trailer“We’ve been facing a bit of difficulty to release it,” says Bakalova, with comic understatement.
In the film, Trump (played by a toupeed Sebastian Stan) is ambitious but slightly awkward and in the shadow of his father. He is then mentored and moulded by nefarious lawyer Roy Cohn (played, typically magnificently, by Succession’s Jeremy Strong), whom Bakalova describes as “one of the most vicious people of our century”.
A cinephile, Bakalova was desperate to work with Abbasi – she was a huge fan of his work, including Holy Spider, the Iranian serial killer film. She wanted, she says, to be involved in his “dive into the underbelly of the American empire”. The more she researched Trump’s first wife – and the mother of three of his children – the more she found herself fascinated by how much Ivana achieved on her own. “She wanted to be Donald’s partner,” she says. Ivana is credited with promoting the couple’s 80s glitz, she was involved in running part of his businesses and managed New York’s Plaza hotel. “I think she was the reason he achieved so much early because she was very smart, very ambitious.”
In the film, the power balance between Ivana and Donald is in her favour at the start of their relationship; Ivana is horrified at the idea of a prenup, and the measly amount it would give her in the event of a separation, and negotiates a better deal. “I saw an interview with her after the divorce, saying she didn’t know anything about prenups, and why do you need to have them? But if you’re going to play this game that way, if that’s going to be the picture of our marriage, OK, I’m going to play the same way.”
How did she feel about the inclusion of the alleged rape in the film? Trump has always denied the allegations, since retracted by Ivana, who died in 2022. Bakalova says she trusted Sherman. “Do I think it’s important to have it out there?” she says. “Do I think it’s a crucial scene for both of the characters? It is, because we see somebody completely dismissing the person who built him in a lot of ways, who gave birth to his children. Not only physically, but verbally as well.”
She says she doesn’t think it matters if the film “humanises” Trump (reviews have said it lacks bite). “When you dive deeper into a human being, there’s always good and bad sides, and there are always decisions that you make based on circumstances, people you surround yourself with, that change your point of view … I think we should step away from the idea of demonising people or creating idols, because people are complex.”
View image in fullscreenBakalova and Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Photograph: Courtesy of Amazon Studios/APThe Borat sequel was released less than two weeks before the 2020 US election, with the words “now vote” flashed up at the end. The Apprentice is also coming out around election time. Is it intended to have any influence? No, says Bakalova – it’s been too long in the making for any kind of intentional timing. “This is not a political film, this is not a hit piece,” she says. Although there are clear echoes, deafening in parts, of who the Trump character will later become. “Will it change opinions? I don’t know. But I feel like the biggest privilege that we have living in a democracy is to share our voices and to have an opinion, one way or another.”
Bakalova grew up in Burgas, a city on the Black Sea coast. Her mother was a nurse, and her father a chemist; she is an only child. They were considered middle-class, she says, but she remembers as a child that nobody in Bulgaria had much.
“Because of communism and because of inflation, because of a lot of things. I remember back in the 90s, chewing gum going from 100 bucks to 10 bucks to one penny.” They were comfortable, financially, she says, “but it’s not so easy that you can allow yourself to just rest and wait for something to happen. You know that you have to do something if you’re going to succeed.”
Her love of the arts started with music. Her father would play the guitar at home, and she grew up listening to rock music and wanting to emulate those musicians. “Unfortunately, again, growing up in Bulgaria and in a place that still has some kind of patriarchy mindset, playing guitar is a little bit too masculine.” Instead, she became a flautist and was also singing in the choirs that would take her around Europe to various competitions.
When she was 12, she damaged her voice and stopped singing for several months to rest it. “I started reading a lot of books and imagining that I’m in different places, I want to be like these characters. How can you somehow escape real life and imagine that you’re somebody else? That was the starting point of me falling in love with acting.” Later, Bakalova would study at Sofia’s National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts.
She loves theatre and arthouse cinema, but she laughs and says “I’m not going to hide that I was always dreaming about Hollywood and America and cinema.” She remembers drawing the Hollywood sign in an exercise book at school, and writing that she was going to be “a great movie star someday. But of course, my last name finishes with ‘o-v-a’, and I didn’t see that in a lot of credits at the end of films.” One teacher told her that if she wanted to expand beyond Bulgarian film, she should try to get involved in the types of films shown on the European festival circuit.
View image in fullscreenAmandla Stenberg, Bakalova, Chase Sui Wonders and Rachel Sennott in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Photograph: APBakalova discovered the Danish avant garde Dogme 95 movement and, during her final year of university, used some of her scholarship money to buy flights to Copenhagen for her and her parents. She had an ambitious plan to march into the offices of Lars von Trier’s production company, Zentropa. “I was, like, ‘I’m going there, and I’m going to say, ‘I am willing to work here for free, to study, to learn how you guys do all of these incredible movies.’” She laughs, remembering her and her mother in the rain, Googling the office address. (They were kind, but sent her away, saying she would have to be fluent in Danish, which she then vowed to study.)
Not long afterwards, Bakalova was shooting a Bulgarian French film, Women Do Cry, in which she played a young woman with HIV, when she heard through a friend about a project, which she would later find out was Borat, which required an eastern European actor. So secretive was the process that she feared she was being conned into human trafficking, but she was also tempted by the chance to audition in the UK – she thought she might get a chance, somehow, to meet the British director Andrea Arnold.
In Borat, her character Tutar dreams of becoming like “Princess Melania” and becomes the “gift” Borat is supposed to deliver to one of Trump’s men, first the vice-president Mike Pence, and then Rudy Giuliani, to strengthen relations between their countries. Bakalova was a revelation in the film, infusing her character with a life-changing feminist trajectory while also having to pull off some excruciating scenes with “real” people, including leading an anti-abortion campaigner at a clinic to believe she was pregnant with her father’s baby and describing, to a group of women at a Republican conference, having just masturbated for the first time in the loos.
“I don’t know how I did it,” she laughs. “I don’t know if I will I ever be able to do it again. It’s so strange, and I think that is why Sacha’s work is so brilliant. He challenges people, he does these movies that are like a social experiment of how far can you go?” It was “definitely difficult” she says. With only one shot, did it feel like a lot of pressure not to mess it up, or come out of character? “Sacha was so gracious, he was holding my hand every step of the way and guiding me, and I trusted him.”
View image in fullscreenBakalova and Sebastian Stan as Ivana and Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Photograph: Pief Weyman/APThere is a scene with Giuliani, which created a lot of attention. Tutar, by now a reporter for a rightwing news channel, is conducting a fawning interview with the former New York mayor and attorney to Trump in a hotel suite, before suggesting they go to the bedroom. Giuliani is filmed lying back on the bed with his hands down the front of his trousers (later, he claimed he was rearranging his clothes after removing a microphone). Was it the plan to get him in the bedroom? “You can only plan so much, but it’s about real people, real places, real situations. You can have goals that you want to achieve, but it depends on the moment. It was ideal to see how far things can get.” Was she nervous? “It was nerve-racking, because you don’t know how these things are going to turn. We worked with a great team of people. We had a great security team, we had a great stunt team. We had a lot of people that made sure we were all safe.”
It helps, she says, having female producers – Monica Levinson on Borat, and Amy Baer on The Apprentice. “It’s important to have a female perspective behind the scenes, [and] if you’re doing such challenging roles, both as Ivana or Tutar, having a female there looking after you, looking after the story.”
Bakalova has voiced a character in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (Cosmo the Spacedog), was in the dark comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies and has just finished shooting a family drama, Learning to Breathe Underwater – but in Borat and The Apprentice, her two standout films are about Trump. It is strange, she admits, but adds: “I think Borat is not about Trump. I do find a few similarities between the movies because they explore the American empire, and that land that we all have heard is the place you can feel freedom and opportunity. But both movies show there is always a dark side to it.”
The Apprentice is released in cinemas on 18 October.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org
This article was amended on 14 October 2024. The subject of Maria Bakalova’s quote “one of the most vicious people of our century” was Roy Cohn, not Donald Trump, as an earlier version said. The headline and text have been edited to reflect this.

The story begins with a burglary at a luxurious home in Pacific Palisades. A woman, who wishes to remain anonymous for safety reasons, shared her experience of the theft that occurred while she was in Europe in 2023. During her absence, the only item left in her home was a deep green Birkin bag, which she had only used once for a birthday celebration.

When two thieves scaled her wall and broke through the back door within just 15 minutes, they made off with a collection of high-end handbags from her closet, including the coveted Birkin. “They seemed like professional assassins,” she recalled, emphasizing how meticulously they searched her studio for receipts to prove the bags’ authenticity.

Initially, she thought her Birkin was lost forever, but a few months later, she found her bag listed for sale at a suspiciously low price on a comparison shopping site. Upon reporting this to the authorities, she learned that Hermès Birkin bags had become a new target for a sophisticated criminal syndicate.

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officials noted that these seasoned criminal groups hail from South America and have been committing numerous breaking-and-entering crimes across the United States in recent years. Like in her case, the syndicates often select high-value items to steal. Unlike typical immigrants, these criminals enter the U.S. specifically to commit thefts, returning home with substantial cash after a successful job.

Post-theft, the stolen items are often funneled to “fences” who launder the goods, turning illegitimate profits into legitimate earnings by reselling them on secondhand websites. Many items that initially retail for upwards of $60,000 can be found online for about $10,000, appealing to buyers who can’t afford retail prices.

In her case, court documents showed that her $37,000 Birkin was sold to a fence, who then placed it on the Redeluxe website for $25,950, accompanied by the tagline “It’s time to realize your Birkin dream!”

The LAPD later formed a task force that successfully identified four suspects from Chile. Initially, the police tracked an SUV they observed around luxury neighborhoods in Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach. Shortly after, the homeowners of those areas reported thefts totaling nearly $97,000, including handbags and jewelry.

Two days later, the suspects were seen driving their SUV again. The task force followed them to Orange County, where they observed further burglaries in Yorba Linda and Anaheim. It wasn’t until the task force coordinated with local police that three of the suspects were apprehended, while one managed to flee.

However, within 45 minutes, that individual returned to an apartment in Exposition Park and was arrested as well. The police discovered weapons, tools used for burglaries, and an array of stolen goods, including watches, brooches, cufflinks, sunglasses, wallets from Louis Vuitton and Gucci, and a Christian Dior handbag—though the Birkin was not among them.

Investigating further, police looked into the fourth suspect’s cellphone and learned that the Birkin had already changed hands, sold to a fence in Granada Hills. This fence, Karla Sunceri, presented an unexpected profile—an elegant 52-year-old with a freshly renovated home and a Lexus adorned with a frame reading “Jesus is Lord.” Notably, her 27-year-old son, Erick Palencia, was nearing graduation from the police academy.

After monitoring Sunceri’s activities and noting that various individuals were entering her home carrying trash bags and coming out empty-handed, they followed her to a Smart & Final store in North Hills. There, she was seen meeting multiple contacts to retrieve packages.

While the victim of the original burglary felt the LAPD was out of touch, mispronouncing “Hermès” as “荷梅枝,” the police were unfazed by language differences.

On November 1, 2023, at dawn, police executed a search warrant at Sunceri’s home, uncovering 46 designer bags, including 16 Hermès, alongside $121,031 in cash. Additionally, Sunceri’s storage unit contained another $197,100, along with her son’s LAPD uniform. Furthermore, a package Palencia had sent to an auction site was intercepted, recovering a Hermès bag and two Chanel wallets.

Sunceri has been charged with 53 counts of receiving stolen property, conspiracy, and money laundering. Palencia faces charges of conspiracy and receiving stolen goods, along with a felony count for transporting stolen property and profiting from it via his personal account. Just a month away from becoming a police officer, Palencia now finds himself at risk of losing that career path.

Both Sunceri and Palencia plead not guilty, with Sunceri claiming her income from cleaning is a mere $1,655 a month, while Palencia stated his earnings from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Griffith Observatory are only $2,500 monthly. Judge David Stuart expressed skepticism about their claims but ultimately allowed Sunceri to post bail at $300,000 and Palencia at $100,000.

Despite Sunceri’s arrest, the market for stolen luxury bags remains active. Earlier this year, numerous burglaries targeted upscale residences across Los Angeles, including homes in Beverly Crest, Pacific Palisades, and Bel-Air.

As for the deep green Birkin that kicked off this series of events, it was sold to Redeluxe during the week it was stolen. The victim attempted to reclaim the bag but was offered only $19,000, which she declined—a decision she likely regrets now. While the owners of Redeluxe faced no criminal charges in connection with the incident, the bag is currently en route back to Los Angeles as evidence in the case.

Recent reports from China’s CCTV highlight an interesting shift in the country’s consumer market, driven by a government initiative aimed at updating appliances and boosting consumer spending, known as the “Two New” strategy. To incentivize this transition, the Chinese government has rolled out substantial financial benefits, which have resulted in a remarkable increase in home appliance sales and a significant rebound in passenger vehicle retail figures.

During the seven-day National Day holiday in 2024, around 2.52 million consumers participated in an exchange program that led to the purchase of 3.75 million units across various major appliance categories. This impressive sales total included refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, air conditioners, computers, water heaters, kitchen stoves, and range hoods, culminating in a revenue of 17.83 billion yuan. The leading categories were air conditioners, refrigerators, and computers, which recorded sales of 4.52 billion yuan, 3.80 billion yuan, and 2.62 billion yuan, respectively.

Since the old-for-new appliance policy was introduced, participation has exceeded 8.24 million consumers, leading to nearly 11.78 million units sold and generating over 55.79 billion yuan in sales revenue.

Meanwhile, in the automotive sector, as of midnight on October 7, the Ministry of Commerce reported more than 1.27 million applications for vehicle subsidies via its replacement platform, resulting in new car sales surpassing 160 billion yuan. Notably, a significant portion of these applications—over 60%—was for subsidies related to new energy vehicles.

The National Day holiday brought an unprecedented wave of appliance upgrades, fueled by enticing discounts and financial incentives. During my recent visit to an appliance store in Nanjing, I saw many eager shoppers, including Ms. Tu and her family, who were in the market for a high-performance washing machine.

In Jiangsu province, an enhanced exchange program was introduced, now including nine additional categories of energy-efficient appliances such as air purifiers, microwaves, induction cookers, and more. Purchases made under this initiative qualify for subsidies ranging from 15% to 20% of the transaction price, with a maximum grant of 2,000 yuan. These government subsidies, combined with retailer promotions, have driven impressive sales growth across appliance stores.

The influx of incentives has made even premium appliances more attainable. For instance, during the holiday, Sichuan province hosted an International Panda Consumption Festival, distributing consumer “red envelopes” valued at 400 million yuan. Promotional materials for the old-for-new exchange program were prominently displayed in appliance stores, enticing citizens to upgrade their outdated products.

Furthermore, the enthusiasm for appliance exchanges is invigorating the home renovation market. In Handan, Hebei, a home improvement store experienced a surge in participation in the exchange initiative. Local businesses are facilitating exchanges for elderly residents by bringing products to community squares, enabling seniors like Mr. Guo to trade in their old appliances with the support of community workers.

In Shanghai, 52 subsidy policies relating to home appliances and decor have been launched, covering over 60 categories of building materials and offering adaptable products for seniors, which also qualify for a 15% subsidy. The benefits of the old-for-new program are prompting quick purchasing decisions among consumers looking to renovate their homes.

The automotive sector, too, has seen a sustained boost in vehicle sales following the implementation of the exchange policy. Preliminary figures from the China Automobile Dealers Association show that retail sales of passenger vehicles reached 2.1 million in September, reflecting a 4% increase year-on-year and a 10% rise from the previous month.

In Yongzhou, Hunan province, a large-scale vehicle purchase event themed “Government Subsidies, Lower Prices, Old-for-New” drew many residents eager to explore the available incentives. Local resident Mr. Chen learned that trading in his old car could earn him up to 20,000 yuan in subsidies, alongside dealership discounts.

Additionally, the local government is not only providing substantial financial assistance but has also simplified the car buying process. Manufacturers are offering “one-stop” services, smoothing the transition from old car surrender to new car pickup.

With high subsidy standards and a user-friendly application process, residents in Zaozhuang, Shandong, can now manage vehicle trading and scrapping subsidies via mobile phones, with disbursements for vehicle upgrades already in motion.