GATHERING INTELLIGENCE
Actor met Snowden to inform role
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has to be convincing as Edward Snowden for the Oliver Stone biopic to connect with audiences.
That’s why Stone and GordonLevitt have gone out of their way to bring realism to the role.
“When (Stone) first offered me the job, I was enormously flattered,” Gordon-Levitt says. “The next thought I had is, ‘ Do I really know who Edward Snowden is?’
“We have all heard of him. But so much in the media is shallow, you never get a sense of what is what. I had a lot of learning to do.”
The film depicts the former National Security Agency contractor as a reluctant whistleblower, not an anti-American traitor responsible for one of the biggest intelligence breaches in U.S. history
Currently, Snowden faces two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property while he’s in temporary asy- lum at a secret Russian location.
Structured like a spy thriller with time-shifting flashbacks, the movie recalls a decade of Snowden’s life leading up to his present status.
The film opens with Snowden meeting with journalists (Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson) and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) at a Hong Kong hotel room, preparing to reveal the NSA’s mass surveillance digital operations.
Included in the narrative mix at intervals is Snowden’s U.S. Special Forces training, his undercover CIA stint and his freelance efforts as an NSA cyber expert.
Just as pivotal throughout the film is his relationship with girlfriend Lindsay Mills, played by Shailene Woodley.
Always changing things up, Gordon-Levitt, 35, has dabbled in the superhero genre in The Dark Knight Rises. He co-starred in the 2012 historical drama Lincoln and will soon team up with Channing Tatum in an untitled musical comedy. Snowden showcases his usual all-in commitment and includes an extra amount of purpose.
Stone had met with Snowden multiple times to set up the movie, so he arranged a Moscow get-together with the actor, Snowden and Mills a few months before filming.
“We all talked for about four hours,” Gordon-Levitt says.
And while they chatted, he understood the irony of the situation.
“He’s always trying to take attention off himself and put the attention on the issues,” Gordon-Levitt says. “But I’m an actor, so I’m focusing on him personally, and I want to get a sense of who he is as just a guy.” He did just that. His assessment is positive. Gordon-Levitt says Snowden’s smart, extremely polite and very measured.
He also happens to be a fan of the actor’s work.
“He brought up Looper, which was really cool,” he says. (Looper is a 2012 sci-fi thriller that stars Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.)
It was during their session that he made a mental note of Snowden’s speech patterns and decided to incorporate that into his performance.
“I think it would be weird if I didn’t talk like him,” he says.
He also pored over the books and articles — pro and con — expounding on the events surrounding Snowden’s actions.
Gordon-Levitt says it’s clear to him that Snowden is a patriot, not a traitor: “I think the most patriotic thing an American can do,” he says. “is to ask questions.”
“We are all a bit more mindful of this technology,” the actor says.
“Before Edward Snowden, we weren’t asking those questions.”