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Netflix’s new series Inventing Anna follows the rise of “pretend heiress” Anna Delvey, a.k.a. Anna Sorokin, as she cons her strategy to the highest of New York Metropolis society. However whereas Anna is unquestionably actual, some elements of her story aren’t.
The present’s trailer states that Inventing Anna is a real story… “aside from the elements which can be completely made up.” And, that leaves a number of inquiries to be answered. Like, did she really know Billy McFarland, the thoughts behind the failed Fyre Competition? Or what about her boyfriend, Chase Sorokin (was he real?).
Then, there’s the Manhattan Journal journalist who tracked Anna down behind her boss’ again: Vivian Kent. Did she really catch on to Anna? This is every part to learn about Vivian, together with the place she is at present.
Vivian Kent is predicated on Jessica Pressler, an actual journalist.
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Vivian Kent, performed by actress Anna Chlumsky, is predicated on a journalist named Jessica Pressler.
Pressler labored as a contributing editor at New York Journal for 13 years, from 2007 to 2020, in line with her LinkedIn. And she or he actually did examine Anna Sorokin. Pressler’s 2018 article exposing Anna and her lengthy con was the inspiration behind the Netflix sequence.
And, a few of Vivian’s adventures within the present are based mostly on Pressler’s life. Each Vivian and Pressler have been pregnant whereas monitoring Anna down—”I used to be tremendous pregnant whereas reporting that story and completed two weeks or so earlier than I had a child,” Pressler instructed Vulture.
Within the present, after the story about Anna is revealed, Vivian travels to Germany in an try to search out Anna’s mother and father. That is additionally (principally) true, Pressler defined: “I used to be listening to so many various tales about Anna, and it stored rising,” she mentioned. However in contrast to Vivian, Pressler “positively didn’t attempt to break into anybody’s house.”
Even the scenes the place Vivian helps discover Anna garments to put on to her trial are actual. “The primary week of the trial, there was some snafu and the garments didn’t get there, and it actually held up the trial,” Pressler mentioned. “This wasn’t all due to Anna’s self-importance—defendants have to put on civilian garments at trial as a result of in the event that they put on a jail jumpsuit it would prejudice the jury. The court docket has garments they’ll lend, however I feel that first day they didn’t for some motive.”
Lastly, “when both [Anna’s lawyer Todd] Spodek or his paralegal was like, ‘Are you able to simply go to H&M?’ I used to be like sure, for God’s sake, let’s transfer this factor alongside. In any other case everybody’s time was going to be endlessly wasted with this wardrobe shit.”
So though Vivian was written as a fictional character, she’s positively based mostly on Pressler. “There’s an emotional fact to all of it, although the small print are completely different,” Pressler mentioned in regards to the present.
This is not her solely story that made it to Hollywood.
Earlier than she discovered Anna, Pressler revealed one other scheme. Her 2015 article, “The Hustlers at Scores,” uncovered a hoop of strippers who conned strip membership patrons out of hundreds of {dollars}. Sound acquainted? Pressler’s article was the idea for the 2019 film Hustlers, starring Julia Stiles and Jennifer Lopez.
Pressler at present?
Since leaving New York Journal in 2020, Pressler went on to grow to be a particular correspondent for Vainness Truthful. Now, she’s a producer on Inventing Anna.
Lately, Pressler revealed that after her article was revealed, she obtained dozens of requests to take the story to the display screen. “I’d completed the story weeks away from having a child, and it was simply this avalanche of telephone calls from all people I’ve ever admired within the leisure trade. You’ll suppose that that might be fantastic and a dream, however it was additionally a nightmare as a result of I needed to say no to all these individuals aside from one particular person,” she mentioned, per Shondaland.
As for changing into a producer on the sequence, Pressler mentioned she did not see it coming. “I don’t even suppose that was my thought, to be completely trustworthy. I feel my agent introduced it up. It didn’t imply very a lot to me,” she defined.
“However I do suppose it’s essential for a author to be hooked up to and part of one thing that’s based mostly on their work, even when you’re not part of the inventive course of. And I wasn’t concerned within the day-to-day of constructing Inventing Anna both, however it was a revolving and open door.”
Now, she enjoys Tweeting about Inventing Anna and sharing behind-the-scenes information with followers of the present.
“As a result of that is shaping as much as be the Quantity #1 query: Sure, that’s *precisely* what she appears like, and Julia Garner is a genius,” Pressler wrote, Retweeting a video of Julia Garner explaining how she developed Anna’s accent for the present. (It is fairly spectacular, TBH.)
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