Erich Hartmann
@erichhartmann
True story: I've made a LOT of commercials, and one thing the industry gossips about is which celebrities are jerks & which aren't. Eg., Everyone loves Tom Cruise. Directors/gaffers who've worked with him says he's super gung-ho and supportive.

Also…Trump! 👇

In the mid 2000's a good buddy of mine shot a spot with The Donald, and he raved about how nice and accommodating he was. It was surprising to me at the time, because in NYC he was known as a total bastard with business deals. And based on his Playboy personality, you might expect him to be a total douche IRL. Not so, said my friend.

Then, in 2009 I was on a long business trip w/ a different friend of mine, who had worked with Trump on a different ad campaign, and he said the exact same thing: that Trump was surprisingly cool. Again, I was a bit surprised. So I asked him to give me the deets.

And this is the story he told me:

His team was booked to film Trump for one spot in a larger national campaign, and they had arranged to go to Trump Tower for a very tight window of time to film. Trump had gotten the script beforehand, too but non-actor celebrities are notoriously bad at doing their homework. Although it wasn't a complicated production, the team was nervous.

So they all went to Trump tower, pre-set up all the cameras, lights and equipment. But Trump was a few minutes late! They were very worried that they wouldn't have enough time to properly film him. Eventually, about 20 minutes past start time there was a huge flurry of activity as Trump emerged from the elevator. But instead of being harried and curt, he was upset at himself, and extremely apologetic about being late. Of course the team said "Oh, it's okay" etc, but Trump was insistent. He explained he was at a big deal that had gone long (because of some other asshole), and that he understood how valuable everyone's time was for this. And he promised to make it up to them.

Everyone was pleasantly surprised by his demeanor, and he announced to his team that he would be taking "as much time as needed" to make things right, and he xnsrudted them to push everything else in his afternoon schedule. He then proceeded to NAIL the script (because, surprisingly, he had actually practiced it), and when the director and team told him "Thanks Mr. Trump, we think we got it!" he said "Nah, we can do better!" and proceeded to do several more takes over the next hour, with ad libs and wild lines. My buddy said he was absolutely hilarious, game for anything fun, and everyone had a blast.

Then, after they had gotten all the takes they could thank of, he starts walking around the room glad handing and talking with every single one of them, person-to-person, for minutes at a time. This was way before he was even considering running for president, so this wasn't political. It was just… him.

The last point my buddy made about this was that after Trump had met all the bigwig clients, important agency people, the director and the crew, he made a point to go over and talk to the craft service guy: the lowest dude on the production totem pole, sitting there with his basket of kind bars and various gums and mints. And Trump had a super long conversation with the guy about his life, his family, and his hopes and dreams. Trump gave the kid some life advice, and then thanked everyone, apologized for being late (again), and exited the room.

To a round of applause. //

@amuse @amuse
Trump nailed it…
10:10 PM · Oct 20, 2024
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21.5K
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https://x.com/amuse/status/1848185011012243744