Ali Abbasi is moving to UTA. The filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated, young Donald Trump feature The Apprentice has signed with the agency, after departing CAA last month. His latest feature, which centers on the 1980s rise of Trump, earned a best actor nomination and a Golden Globe nom for Sebastian Stan’s work as young Trump, and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Jeremy Strong’s performance as Trump mentor Roy Cohn.
The film earned strong reviews after debuting at Cannes last May, and the Iranian-born Abbasi landed an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his work on the project.
Abbasi’s agency move comes after he apologized last month for an incident at CAA’s Golden Globes party, but he said the incident had nothing to do with his departure from CAA. “I made an over-familiar gesture — a slap on the rear — which I intended as playful and not in any sexual way whatsoever,” he wrote on X of an incident with a man at the party. “I believe in taking accountability for my actions; I made a mistake, I apologized and have learned a valuable life lesson.”
The filmmaker is based in Denmark, and is a Cannes regular. His feature Border premiered at the fest in 2018 and won the Un Certain Regard Award, while 2022’s Holy Spider landed star Zar Amir-Ebrahimi a best actress award at the fest.
On the small screen, he directed the final two episodes of season one of The Last of Us, the prestige videogame adapation for HBO. In additoin to UTA, he is also repped by LARK in the U.K.
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