INDIANAPOLIS — Is Reality Winner a hero or a traitor? It depends on who you ask.
Based on a true story, "Winner" follows a girl named Reality Winner (Emilia Jones), who is an Air Force veteran who works for the National Security Agency when she comes across government secrets regarding Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.
"It's really a coming-of-age story about a regular girl faced with this decision of what's the right thing to do? What's the patriotic thing to do? Is it an individual's responsibility to tell the truth or are they supposed to follow the leader, and what if that leader's corrupt?" said director Susanna Fogel ("The Spy Who Dumped Me," "Booksmart").
Winner was arrested in 2017 when she leaked the intelligence report to a news website.
"I knew her as a headline, a blip, something to scroll past, which is how we consume most of our news now and for the last few years," Fogel said. "Years later, I read this article in the New York magazine that Kerry Howley wrote, who also wrote the script, and that was really a longform, in-depth look at this woman and who she actually was."
And Winner was an integral part in helping make the 103-minute film. She also attended the world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
"I love her. We've become legitimate friends and so proud that she wants to be my friend because I think she's so cool," Fogel said. "Getting to know her was wonderful. She's a character. She's also so completely herself. She has no desire to see movies about herself. She wants people to know what happened to her. She wants people to think for themselves, take action, to be really socially engaged."
Fogel and Jones ("CODA," "Locke & Key") previously collaborated on the 2017 psychological thriller film, "Cat Person."
"Emilia is one of my favorite actresses and favorite people I've ever met in my life. She is such a unique person. She's such a hardworking, nerdy character actress who just wants to study and make a color-coded binder of every moment in a script and do research trips," Fogel said. "She plays an accessible, relatable, lovable person so well with groundedness and depth that you can push her to do all sorts of things that in other actor's hands would be considered unlikable."
Fogel said she wants audiences take away two main points after watching the film:
- "I hope people ask questions ... (and) take action instead of being passive."
- "People should be freaked out that what she did is a fraction of what was done by people who had no consequences."
As for Winner's take on the film? Don't expect to ever get an answer on that.
"She's basically like, 'Please, I hope this movie does big things for you and makes people think about the story and makes it worth it that I spent years and years in prison, but at the same time, sorry, but I'm never seeing y'all's movie.' That's what she said," Fogel said.
The dramedy biopic, also starring Connie Britton and Zach Galifianakis, is now in select theaters and available to buy or rent digitally.