‘Inventing Anna’: Julia Garner responds to real-life subject’s feelings about new Netflix show

"I respect whatever she wants to do"

Julia Garner has responded to con artist Anna Sorokin’s thoughts on her new show, which is based on Sorokin’s real-life story.

Inventing Anna sees Ozark star Garner playing fraudster Anna Delvey – whose real name is Anna Sorokin – in a new Netflix series about her life.

The show tells the true story of how Sorokin scammed banks, businesses and acquaintances out of money under the fake guise of her being a wealthy German heiress.

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In 2019, she was convicted of crimes including grand larceny, and sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. She was initially released in 2021, but was then taken back into custody for violating the terms of her visa.

Earlier this month Sorokin wrote an open letter about her feelings on the show, to which Garner has now responded.

In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Garner said: “I respect whatever Anna does in terms of whether she wants to watch the show or doesn’t want to watch the show.

“That’s her choice and that’s totally fine. She doesn’t have to watch the show.”

Yesterday (February 14), Rachel DeLoache Williams criticised the portrayal of her character in Inventing Anna.

Williams, who is a journalist played by Katie Lowes, makes an appearance in episode six of the series, as the show goes on to document a disastrous holiday that the real-life Williams went on with Sorokin in 2017.

The journalist wrote in detail about her trip to Marrakesh in a 2018 article for Vanity Fair titled ‘My Bright-Lights Misadventure With A Magician Of Manhattan‘ and in a 2019 book titled My Friend Anna.

She has since responded to her portrayal in the series in an article for Time Magazine in which she clarified that she “was not involved with the show”.

Williams explained that she “expected there would be times when the dramatisation of my experience would make me uncomfortable” and added she “understood that stepping into the spotlight came with certain risks”.

“I would only have so much control over how I was portrayed,” she wrote but added that “this Netflix description felt shocking”.

She went on to quote one section of her character’s description which states that “the woman she becomes because of Anna” and said that these “seven little words in one fell swoop stripped me of my agency, accomplishments, and truth”.

Williams added: “Were we meant to believe that the woman I had become was not on account of the parents who raised me, the love I shared with family and friends, my own efforts or personal growth, but because of Anna?”

In a review, NME awarded Inventing Anna two stars and said: “They say brevity is the soul of wit – and Netflix’s trashy drama hasn’t much of either.”

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