Can’t Trump this.
Ben Stiller, who directed and starred in the hit 2001 comedy film “Zoolander” — which features a brief cameo from Donald Trump — said this week he won’t cut the president from the movie, despite critics’ calls for Stiller to erase him.
Stiller portrays male supermodel Derek Zoolander in the nearly 20-year-old flick — and said on the Daily Beast podcast “The New Abnormal” that when an opportunity arose for The Donald to be part of the production, he jumped on it.
“We were shooting at the now defunct VH1 Fashion Awards … and as people were coming up the red carpet, we pulled them aside and asked them to talk about Derek Zoolander, and so Trump and Melania did that,” Stiller said on the podcast.
Years later, of course, Trump became president. And recently, his vocal opponents told Stiller he should nix Trump’s appearance entirely. But the “Escape at Dannemora” director is not having it.
“I’ve had people reach out to me and say, ‘You should edit Donald Trump out of “Zoolander,” ‘ but at the end of the day, that was a time when that exists and that happened,” said Stiller of refusing to alter his film.
“Zoolander” is far from the president’s only silver-screen appearance. He can be spotted in the 1992 classic “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” and “Two Weeks Notice,” a 2002 film starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. On television, he appeared in “Sex and the City,” “Suddenly Susan,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and others.
“There were so many movies [back then] that had a silly cameo from Donald Trump,” Stiller said. “He represented a certain thing.”