‘Reality’ Star Sydney Sweeney & Writer-Director Tina Satter Give Voice To Unsettling Case Of Reality Winner – Deadline FYC House + HBO Max
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Editor’s note: The following interviews were done outside of the FYC event series, as there was no panel or screening.
Between the time when playwright-director Tina Satter’s revelatory and innovative account of real-life whistleblower Reality Winner went from a Broadway stage to the screen, the title changed from the vaguely surreal Is This a Room to the more documentary-like — though no less evocative — Reality.
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The title change was just one of the topics discussed when Deadline spoke recently with Satter and Reality star Sydney Sweeney as part of the Deadline FYC House + HBO Max event series.
The change, in a way, is telling. The HBO film Reality, which debuted on May 29, uses the exact same words as the play — and both use the exact same words of the actual Reality Winner: The dialogue for the screenplay, co-written by Satter and James Paul Dallas also is taken directly from the transcript of the first conversation-slash-interrogation between FBI agents and an unsuspecting, at least initially, Winner.
What begins as an almost casual encounter on the afternoon of June 3, 2017 — an encounter marked by determinedly friendly if awkward chitchat — Winner arrives at her small Georgia home to find FBI agents waiting, for what she’s not quite sure. And before their tense conversation is over, the Air Force veteran and federal contractor/translator would be arrested and later charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Ac for leaking documents regarding Russian military attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for an unauthorized release of government information to the media.
Deadline spoke to Satter and Sweeney, the Euphoria and The White Lotus actor who becomes Reality Winner before our eyes. While the stage play seemed to highlight the what’s-happening-here surrealism of that frontyard encounter — the title, Is This a Room, is muttered, rather bizarrely, by one of the agents as he searches Winner’s house — Satter chose to go with the more straightforward Reality for the HBO film, a choice that plays off Winner’s name and the seriousness of the all-too-real situation in which she finds herself. Indeed, a reality she very much created.
“What was such a cool thing in making the movie, and with Syd re-creating Reality, was getting to actually show it so realistically,” Satter tells Deadline. “In the play, I made a really purposeful choice that I just wanted to hear the language; the costumes were the one realistic nod. But [with the film] we were going to get to see her weird car and her bumper stickers and her house and get so close to her face. We knew that we could make it real.”
Through its use of the actual words spoken by Winner and the three armed FBI agents, Reality makes for an utterly compelling history lesson that requires no over-explaining or setup, even for those who only vaguely recollect the actual headline-making event.
“I did not see the play,” Sweeney says, “and I didn’t even know Reality’s story until the script was sent to me. I never read anything ever quite like it before. It was a real moment in someone’s life, and I was completely intrigued. I literally called my team and I said: ‘This cannot be someone’s actual experience. How did this happen?’ It completely blew me away. and I started doing research. I was like, ‘Who is this person?'”
Both Satter and Sweeney were in contact with Winner, who was released from prison for good behavior on June 14, 2021, but remains under probation. Sweeney communicated with Winner via Zoom calls and was able to observe her speech patters, her gestures, her facial expressions — all of which went into a completely convincing screen performance.
Aside from a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood as Manson family member Dianne “Snake” Lake, Sweeney never had portrayed a real-life person, and she took the responsibility with the seriousness it called for. “I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders,” she says. “Reality of course is still with us, and she has every access to see what I do. I wanted to make sure that I portrayed who she was and that I portrayed this experience as realistically as possible. I didn’t want to put different people’s opinions on top of it. I really wanted to get inside Reality’s mind and her mannerisms and bring her story to life.”
The project, both for Satter and Sweeney, has been a learning process, as both women have come to have growing appreciation and understanding of the film’s subject.
Satter says that when she first read news accounts of Winner’s arrest, her response was mixed. “I saw that she had taken this idealistic stance, but the ‘good girl’ part of me was, ‘Yeah but she broke the law.’ That’s what really drew me to the story, because I didn’t have a clear answer myself [about Winner’s actions].”
The director/co-writer adds: “My feelings toward Reality just continue to grow in admiration, just who she is as a human … who took this incredibly and deeply complicated action. Now that I know her more and witness her humor and grace and the challenges she goes through just to be a human after what she went through, I just have a huge warmth and respect for her.”
Says Sweeney: “Reality didn’t really fit into a model or a box for anyone to claim, and that’s what made her an interesting character. She is complex, and there are things that might be contradictory to what people think about her. And I thought that was just such a fascinating thing to explore. I don’t believe that anybody is just one thing, and I love that Reality kind of stretched people’s minds.
“I looked at it as a coming-of-age story for her character,” she adds. “When people watch this film, it shows that she is a person, a human being, and not a left-right headline. She is a human being who went through a very difficult moment.”
Satter and Sweeney say that some of Winner’s family members have seen the movie but that Winner herself has not been able to bring herself to watch.
“Reality has not watched the movie,” Satter says. “It’s too hard for her still, too traumatic, and I really, really understand that.”
Adds Sweeney, “I couldn’t imagine having to relive a moment like that, knowing what that day has meant for her life.”
HBO Films’ Reality is airing on HBO and is available to stream on Max. Written by Tina Satter and James Paul Dallasand, based on Satter’s 2019 play Is This a Room, is directed by Satter and stars Sydney Sweeney (HBO’s Euphoria and The White Lotus) and debuted at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. The cast includes Josh Hamilton, and Marchánt Davis.
To watch more videos from the Deadline FYC House + HBO Max event series, click here.
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