Sydney Sweeney On The “Honor” Of Speaking To Real Whistleblower For ‘Reality’ Role — Berlin Film Festival
Sydney Sweeney Passed through the Berlin Film Festival Saturday evening with Tina Satter (playwright, director) to premiere their new feature Reality.
The film tells the story of Reality Winner, an ex-intelligence officer who leaked a report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. She was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for unauthorized disclosure of classified material to media.
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The Euphoria actor portrays Winner in the film, and she told press corps in Berlin that she studied many clips of Winner’s past interviews to nail her mannerisms.
“When I was auditioning, I went and found as many interviews as I could of Reality so that I could watch how she speaks, moves, and her different mannerisms,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney stated that she had done all of her visual research to help her audition. This helped her land her part. She said that the best preparation for the role was what she was able do with Winner in private conversations.
“I had the honor and the privilege of being able to communicate with Reality,” Sweeney said. “I was able to Zoom with her. Tina connected us, and I would text her throughout the process.”
She added: “When Tina connected us, I was like, ‘Omg, this is a dream for an actor because I’m actually getting to speak with the real person and dive into their mind and what she’s gone through in her life.”
The film begins on a Saturday afternoon, June 2017, when Winner, 25, was confronted by FBI agents at her Georgia home. The film follows the cryptic conversation between Winner, the FBI agents.
The film is an adaptation of Satter’s own play This is a room. Satter co-wrote the screenplay with James Paul Dallas. She told Berlin press that the process was fraught with difficulties because of the mystery surrounding Reality Winner.
“There were so many factors that made it hard to make her legible,” Satter said.
“This blonde woman named Reality Winner comes onto the news, and no one can really understand what she actually did; they don’t even understand how it went down and how she was captured. So there’s always this weird enigmatic thing about her.”
Reality Today’s Berlin Panorama section debuts. International sales are being handled by the Paris-based mk2 movies.
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