Inventing Anna doesn’t mean hanging out with her.
While crafting the hit Netflix series, Shonda Rhimes never met with Anna Delvey (a.k.a. Anna Sorokin), the con artist who inspired its titular character. And according to the creator and showrunner, that was by design.
“I purposely didn’t want to meet Anna because I knew two things from hearing everybody’s stories: Either people fell in love with her and lost all objectivity, or they hated her guts and just couldn’t cope,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “And I felt like I didn’t want to be stuck in a position where I had these feelings for this person that were going to color how I was going to tell the story.”
The 10-part Netflix limited series explores the story of Delvey (played by Julia Garner), who convinced New York’s elite she was a German heiress, while defrauding major financial institutions, banks, hotels, and acquaintances for a total amount upwards of $275,000 until her 2017 arrest.
