If at any point in the meteoric rise of Donald Trump in the Republican polls, you’ve found yourself thinking, “What this situation really needs is a mockumentary starring Johnny Depp,” we have some very good news.
Johnny Depp plays a spot-on Donald Trump in a surprise Funny or Die mockumentary
Libby Nelson was Vox’s editorial director, politics and policy, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.
Funny or Die greeted Trump’s victory in the New Hampshire primary with the surprise release of The Art of the Deal, a 50-minute streaming film starring Johnny Depp as a very convincing Donald Trump.
Opening with commentary from director Ron Howard playing himself, it purports to be a made-for-TV movie that was made by Trump himself but that never aired (as intended in 1988) and was recently rediscovered at a garage sale in Arizona.
That means we aren’t just treated to Depp as Donald Trump circa 1988, but the graphics and picture quality also feel like they’ve stepped out of a time machine, down to a theme song written by Kenny Loggins — though, as the fake documentary’s credits note, “Donald J. Trump would have performed it better.”
The Art of the Deal is streaming on Funny or Die’s website. It’s the strongest — nay, yuuugest — proof yet the 2016 campaign so far has been a gift to political comedy.
