Inventing Anna, the Netflix series about scammer Anna Delvey (Sorokin), has been out for about a month. Anna’s been in the public consciousness for much longer due to the New York Magazine article upon which the series was based, media coverage of her trial, and updates from jail. After serving her time, Anna was picked up by ICE and is awaiting deportation back to Germany. (This surprised me because part of the scam was that she was pretending to be a German heiress while she’s actually Russian, but her family did move to Germany in her teens and she got citizenship at some point).
Obviously scams are bad, but the whole thing was somewhat fascinating. After watching the series I found myself searching for articles about the real people involved and wondering which elements were fictional and which were not. One thing that was real was Julia Garner’s very specific “Anna accent.” People who knew Anna say it sounded like her and it turns out Julia visited Anna in jail to get it right.
Anna Delvey has nothing but praise for her onscreen counterpart, Julia Garner.
Delvey — who is the subject of Netflix’s hit new series, Inventing Anna — appeared on the Friday episode of Forbidden Fruits, a podcast hosted by Julia Fox and Niki Takesh. Delvey is currently in ICE detention for overstaying her visa, and called into the podcast from Orange County Jail, where she opened up about her working relationship with Garner, 28.
“She was very nice,” Delvey — a.k.a. Anna Sorokin — said of Garner. “She came to see me … and she is a very sweet girl.”
Delvey, 31, stated she and Garner only had one meeting together, during which she asked the actress to try out her infamous accent.
“It’s just so weird, because the way you hear yourself — like your voice is just completely different when you hear yourself on TV,” she explained.
Fox, 32, chimed in to say that she would only rate Garner’s impression of Delvey as a six out of 10, telling her guest, “She did a little too much. Yours is a little more subtle. She really dove into the accent.”
But Delvey jumped into defend Garner, saying, “She was portraying me from like, 2015, 2016, 2017. So now I’ve spent the past four years just in the States. I was surrounded by Americans so maybe my accent was different.”
She continued, “I barely even speak German these days. All I speak is English. Back in the day, I would speak French, German, English on a daily basis.”
Delvey was released from prison about a year ago, but landed back in jail under ICE detention. She gained notoriety after posing as a wealthy German heiress while living in New York City between 2013 and 2017, during which she shared circles with celebrities and powerful members of New York society.
Yes, it’s that Julia Fox. I tried to listen to the podcast, but I could only get through a couple of minutes because the voices were too annoying and it wasn’t Anna’s accent that was the problem. Ugh, the vocal fry. Anyway, Julia Garner did a great job with the accent. I still hear it in my head when I read stuff about this show and listening to this podcast, it really was very close. Julia’s version was a bit more exaggerated, which makes sense for TV, but Anna’s explanation about the time period also makes sense. Allegedly Anna only heard the accent when she met Julia Garner in person because she said she wouldn’t be watching the show. But I don’t really believe that; I feel like curiosity will win out if it hasn’t already. I would definitely watch if my life got the glam Shondaland Netflix treatment! Anna wasn’t even the villain in the series, which one of the scammed parties has taken issue with. She’ll probably want to parlay this into her next steps.
The series was good although some parts were a little slow and some characters were unnecessarily prominent/overacted. The series did put a face on the other players in a way the article wasn’t able to, like Anna’s boyfriend “the futurist” and “the trainer.” (I could go on about the series possibly swapping Anna’s boyfriend’s race and Shondaland’s general hypocrisy about colorblind casting and treatment of Asian-American characters, but that’s a conversation for another day.)
This is Anna Delvey out in NYC in February, 2021.
Photos credit: Backgrid, Getty and Aaron Epstein/Netflix
What’s that saying? The actor/actress has done a great job if you hate the character and that blurs your perception of the person playing a part? The actress who played Rachel Williams was perfect. And hate is a strong word but perhaps really unlikeable is a better term.
I loved this show. It was really exciting and I sort of hated Anna but found myself rooting for her somehow
I find her story so intriguing. Didn’t love the series though, it was just okay.
Anna Chumlsky (sp?) was atrocious as the journalist, I had no idea she was such a terrible actor.
Agreed. The journalist character was badly written & the acting made it even worse. I thought Julia Garner was good.
It felt like everyone involved in the story long term were all a variation of opportunistic trash.
The journalist seemed to be the worst and yet tried to hold herself up as being above the rest.
It’s really fascinating to watch people justify or divorce themselves from their own motives simply because someone else in the picture was worse or more naked about their manipulation or opportunism.
I have not watched the show but read a rather in depth article about her (perhaps the one the show was based on). I found her con to be so incredibly fascinating specifically because of how little of a plan she seemed to have. It was the most basic parts that shocked me. For example, the idea that she just went to a fancy hotel and lived there for quite some time, racking up room service and room charges so far beyond what she could ever afford, and it worked. To be clear, I am not *impressed* by her crimes. Moreso I just have no idea how a person has the fortitude to even attempt that. If that were me, I would spent every minute terrified. So just the act in and of itself is hard for me to wrap my head around, but then it is compounded by how long she got away with it. I have never gone to a hotel and NOT given a valid credit card. Yet they let her stay and rack up ALL those fees? It’s crazy.
A mentally sound person wouldn’t have the nerve to pull the con this woman did. She’s a compulsive liar and a narcissist. In her mind she was so convinced that she would have these things and in fact she was entitled to have these things that she had no compunction about lying and stealing to get them.
@MSIAM excellent point, I also could not wrap my brain around how comfortable she was, wracking up obscene charges without the resources to pay,
I’d be riddled with anxiety….but I’m not a con artist. Lol
MsIam- Very good point. I was not thinking of that aspect. I was trying to apply logic to someone who was operating from a less than logical state.
I couldn’t believe how comfortable she was stealing for someone she was living with rent free and then wearing the results of that theft around that person like it wasn’t a thing.
It’s so funny you bring up vocal fry because over the weekend my youngest took his girlfriend shopping and came home complaining of vocal fry with almost every girl/woman they encountered. I’ve been hearing it mimicked for DAYS.