Donald Trump’s most memorable appearances in TV and film: from Sex and the City, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Nanny, to Zoolander and Home Alone 2 – but which cameos won him Razzies for Worst Actor?

The internet is abuzz with the real-life drama surrounding The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic. According to its subject, the film paints him in an unfairly negative light, and Trump’s legal team have been quick to issue a cease and desist letter to try to block its US release. In less complicated times, Trump courted Hollywood producers and even impersonated his own publicist to get in front of the camera (more on that later). The former president has an impressive 32 acting credits on IMDB – so which cameos stand out? We survey the highlights … and lowlights. Late 80s beginnings Trump’s first acting credit is for the 1989 Bobby Brown music video “On Our Own” from the Ghostbusters II soundtrack. In a video stacked with New York celebrities, Trump is first to appear. Sauntering out of Trump Tower, he looks left and right before spotting a projection of Brown singing and dancing on the building’s facade. Trump was sitting pretty in the city of his birth at this point, five years after GQ published a profile titled Donald Trump Gets What He Wants, with the cover line “Men who take risks and make millions”. Keeping with the supernatural theme, the future president cameoed the same year in the fantasy romcom Ghosts Can’t Do It. Written and directed by John Derek, and starring his wife Bo Derek, Ghosts has an IMDB user rating of 2.2 out of 10 and was described by TV Guide as “the worst-ever movie from John and Bo Derek, which makes it one of the low points of what passes for civilisation in the 20th century”. "So I beat the situation, but not you?" Bo Derek to Donald Trump in her husband's waking nightmare of a movie Ghosts Can't Do It from 1989 https://t.co/RKL22LlUZN pic.twitter.com/Jx2ZyuaVPD — wrongtom (@TheWrongtom) January 9, 2021 In a line laden with foreshadowing, Bo Derek’s character says flirtatiously to Trump – who appears as himself – “I think you like to make mischief.” Discussing her “co-star” in an August 2021 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Derek recalled, “We got a call from a mutual friend saying, ‘Donald is looking to be in movies.’” She added that, with hindsight, she believed the call came from Trump himself. As reported in The Washington Post, the Donald made a habit during his early career of impersonating his own publicist. Trump’s turn in Ghosts Can’t Do It earned him a Golden Raspberry Award, or Razzie, for Worst Supporting Actor. He was also nominated in the category of Worst New Star. The 1990s Trump’s IMDB credits extend to 16 in the most prolific decade of his “acting” career. In 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, he gives directions to the film’s protagonist, played by a 12-year-old Macaulay Culkin. In 2019, Today reported that Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, had cut Trump’s cameo from reruns of the movie, sparking outrage from the president’s supporters. The CBC responded that the scene had been removed back in 2014 – before Trump was even a presidential candidate. Per Today, the editing was part of a time-saving cut needed to show the film on TV. Somewhat awkwardly, President Trump had bragged about this particular cameo just days earlier, in a Christmas Eve video conference call with US troops abroad. For the most part, Trump made one-off appearances in TV shows in the 90s, from All My Children in 1992 to Sex and the City in 1999. In the latter he is seen having lunch with a business contact while Samantha smirks over a Cosmopolitan at the bar. In a 1994 episode of the show that launched Will Smith’s career, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Trump guest stars alongside Marla Maples, his second wife and the mother of Tiffany Trump. The tycoon is seen showing an interest in buying the Banks’ mansion (something Will does his best to encourage) and spouts the perfectly on-brand line: “Everybody’s always blaming me for everything.” American actress Fran Drescher, whose breakout role was in 90s sitcom The Nanny, recalled how Trump’s assistant got involved in his 1996 cameo in that show. Drescher had delivered a line to the effect of “All you millionaires are alike” and later received a note that said, “Mr Trump is not a millionaire: he’s a billionaire – and we’d like you to change the script.” The wording was duly tweaked from “millionaires” to “zillionaires”. The 2000s and 2010s Trump kicked off the millennium with a four-second cameo in the 2001 Ben Stiller vehicle Zoolander, alongside his then girlfriend and future first lady Melania. In the 2002 romcom Two Weeks Notice, Trump mocks Hugh Grant’s character for getting dumped – and reminds us of the difference between a real actor and the kind who win Golden Raspberries. In 2018, Trump would win two more Razzies – for Worst Actor and Worst Screen Combo – for his appearances in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 and Dinesh D’Souza’s Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time? Both films are political documentaries. In 2007 the future president appeared in WrestleMania 23, in which he is seen appearing to tackle WWE co-founder Vince McMahon to the ground before mock-punching him in the head. Later, in the ring, he shaves a visibly “distressed” McMahon’s head. In the 2010s, Trump mostly stuck to voice acting – maybe partly because he got a little busy towards the middle of the decade – but in 2020 he starred in Stand-Up Trump: Making America Fun Again, a 40-minute “documentary” compilation. “President Trump is unlike any commander-in-chief in US history: he doesn’t just go off-script, sometimes he just goes off!” declares the DVD’s Amazon product description. “Trump has artfully, and sometimes crudely, used his gift of humour as a weapon against his adversaries,” the blurb continues. “The media is often the target squarely in his sights.”