‘Winner’: Shannon Berry Joins Susanna Fogel’s Biopic About Reality Winner

EXCLUSIVE: The Wilds star Shannon Berry has joined the cast of Susanna Fogel’s Canadian feature Winner.

Berry is appearing opposite Emilia Jones, Zach Galifianakis, Kathryn Newton, Danny Ramirez and Connie Britton in the darkly comedic biopic. The casting reunites the emerging Australian actress with The Spy Who Dumped Me director Fogel, who directed her in the pilot of Prime Video drama series The Wilds.

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Winner is a biopic of Reality Winner (Jones), a brilliant misfit U.S. Air Force member and NSA consultant who in 2018 was given the longest prison sentence in American history for the unauthorized release of government information to the media — five years, three months — after leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

We first told you about the film last October, as the film went into principal photography. The feature is set to take on the traditional whistleblower thriller — a coming-of-age story about an idealistic young woman persecuted for standing by her principles. Production has nearly wrapped but Berry’s role hadn’t yet been revealed.

We hear she plays Reality’s close friend and fellow Air Force translator, KayLee Thompson.

The film is written by Kerry Howley and based on her 2017 New York Magazine feature story.

Berry is best known for her role as Dot Campbell in Amazon’s plan crash drama series The Wilds, which ran on Prime Video between 2020 and 2022. She also appeared in Gale Ann Hurd’s Prime Video series Hunters and has acted in two seasons of Australian drama Offspring, which is for Nine Network and Netflix, and was in Geoffrey Wright’s Romper Stomper TV reboot. There’s also been speculation she’ll play the pivotal character of Abby in The Last of Us Season 2, though that role hasn’t filled yet.

The film is co-financed by ShivHans Pictures and 1Community. Producers are Amanda Phillips and Fogel along with Shivani Rawat & Julie Goldstein of ShivHans, and Scott Budnick and Ameet Shukla of 1Community. Executive producers include Dani Melia, Peter Saraf, Daniel Bekerman, Connor Flanagan and Big Beach Films.

Berry is represented by Karli Doumanis at Zero Gravity Management, Stewart Talent and Creative Soul Management in Australia.

A separate feature about Winner, Reality, was in competition in Berlin. It stars Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria) as Winner in what’s been described as a breakout role. HBO acquired U.S. rights.

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