Ali Abbasi considered getting a woman to play Donald Trump in The Apprentice

Ali Abbasi thought about casting a woman as Donald Trump in 'The Apprentice'.

The 43-year-old filmmaker has helmed the new movie about the early years of the former US president's business career in New York during the 1970s and 1980s and explained how he gave serious consideration to getting a female to play the lead because of Trump's "awkward" body language before settling on Sebastian Stan.

Ali told DailyMail.com: "There was a time before I started talking to Sebastian I thought that maybe it should be an actress playing Trump.

"Because I thought there was something awkward and off about his body language and I wanted to have that. I wanted to sort of play with that. And we tried it."

Ali did not disclose which actresses he talked to about starring in the film but did admit that he contacted Cate Blanchett for advice after she did a "great job" with her portrayal of Bob Dylan in the 2007 flick 'I'm Not There'.

He said: "I did talk to a few people about that and I was serious about it.

"I did also overlays of a young Donald's face and different actresses that I was considering. I talked to my prosthetics person and tried to figure out how we could solve it if someone had the good proportions or not."

Abbasi even went as far as conducting a voice test using a woman but ultimately scrapped the idea as he felt it was "too gimmicky".

The filmmaker said: "In the end, I think, I just felt like the whole thing became too gimmicky.

"It would go contrary to my goal, which was humanising and, you know, capturing complexity. And it would become a movie about how you did that stunt."