Based on a true story about a “total fake.”
The Emmy-winning actress will play Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin)who posed as a wealthy German heiress. Delvey captivated some of New York City’s highest fliers, stealing their hearts and then their money (hundreds of dollars worth).
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In an attempt to answer that question herself, Garner visited the real Anna Sorokin in prison – but found her secretive and vague.
“Anna doesn’t even know herself, and it’s really hard to play someone who doesn’t know themselves,” Garner toldRolling Stonein an interview. “My roles just get harder and harder the older I get …If I hear that a part’s going to be hard, I’m like, ‘That sounds terrifying, that sounds terrible.’ And then I’m like, ‘I’m doing it.'”
The recently released trailer displays a first look atInventing Anna, and marks the first show Rhimes has created sinceScandalpremiered in 2012.
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Read on for everything we know aboutInventing Anna: When the series premieres, who’s in the cast, and everything in between.
When doesInventing Annapremiere?
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Who’s in theInventing Annacast?
Garner, who plays Delvey, stars alongsideVeep’sChlumsky, who’s cast as the journalist Vivian. Her character is loosely based on the 2018New York Magazinereporter Pressler who “collects other people’s tales of who Anna is,” Rhimes toldVariety. “Vivian is the person who journeys us through the whole thing.”
Additional cast members include Arian Moayed (Succession), Katie Lowes (Scandal), Alexis Floyd (The Bold Type), Anders Holm (Workaholics), Anna Deavere Smith (The West Wing), Jeff Perry (Scandal), Terry Kinney (The Little Things), and Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black).
Where’s the real Anna Delvey now?
Inventing Annais based on a true story surrounding Anna Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin. After being convicted of grand larceny and theft of services in 2019,she was sentenced to four to 12 yearsin prison, which she initially served in Riker’s Island. She was released in Feb. 2021 for good behavior, but her Instagram caught the attention of ICE, who claimed she overstayed her visa.According toInsider,she remains in custody while she awaits deportation to Germany.
So what led to her conviction? In the mid-2010s, Sorokin cultivated a group of friends in New York’s nightlife scene,telling them she was an heiress worth $60 million.Through fraudulent loans and scams like using bad debit cards so her friends would be on the hook for her spending, she ended up scamming more than $200,000 — but she was able to pay her restitution with some of the money fromthe $320,000 that Netflix paid herfor the rights to her story.
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“She stole from banks,” prosecutor Kaegan Mays-Williams told the jury, according to theNew York Times. “She stole from hotels. She stole from friends. She tried to steal from a hedge fund.” At the time of her conviction,Delvey told the outlet, “The thing is, I’m not sorry. I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything.”
Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/getty
Did Shonda Rhimes meet Anna Delvey before filmingInventing Anna?
Unlike Garner, who visited Sorokin, Rhimes decided not to meet the real Delvey. “I purposely did not meet her because A, she was in prison [and there was a] pandemic at the time,” Rhimes toldVariety. “But B, I didn’t meet her because I didn’t want to be influenced. Anna, as anybody can tell you, has a wildly charismatic personality, and I didn’t want to meet her and fall madly in love with her, and then be completely on her side.
Rhimes also added: “And I didn’t want to meet her and dislike her intensely and then be against her… I wanted to stick with the eyes of the reporter [character].”
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When did production begin forInventing Anna?
Filming in N.Y.C. forInventing Annabegan in fall 2019, but due to the pandemic, they had to finish a whole year later. Typically, all Netflix shows must be written in full prior to filming, but Rhimes resisted that process due to her belief in “the power of performance.”
Rhimes toldVariety, “It allows for no jazz, you know what I mean? No improvisation, no nothing,” she says. “It’s efficient, but it’s a hard way of looking at things. And so for me, I really needed the space to be able to let the actors play — and then discover stuff from what they were doing.”
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source: people.com
