“If I’m into a script, I will dramaturge the crap out of it,” says Anna Chlumsky of her penchant for, upon reading a new script, going as deep as she can on the subject, picking details apart and asking all the questions. So, when it came to reading the script for Shondaland and Netflix’s Inventing Anna, a fictionalized version of the true story of infamous New York City grifter Anna Delvey, “I was super-intrigued,” says Chlumsky.
For many people, Chlumsky is perhaps best known for hilariously playing the vice president’s ambitious Chief of Staff Amy Brookheimer for all seven seasons of HBO’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus-starring Veep, for which Chlumsky nabbed six nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Or maybe you recognize Chlumsky as Vada from the 1990s classic My Girl and its sequel.
In any case, Chlumsky’s latest role, as journalist Vivian Kent in Inventing Anna, is one that could be considered a defining moment, both personally and professionally. Vivian is a fictionalized version of Jessica Pressler, the New York magazine journalist who broke the story in 2018 about Anna Delvey’s — aka Anna Sorokin — many fraudulent dealings in New York City in her attempt to rise to the highest ranks of high society. And while Delvey, played by Julia Garner, is indeed the star of the story and the reason we’re all here, it could be argued that the actual reason we’re all here is Kent and her voracious need to bring Anna’s story to light.
While Chlumsky has lived in New York for a while now, she hadn’t actually been aware of Anna Delvey, but as Veep came to a close, Chlumsky had been telling her agent that she really wanted to play a journalist. “I love the idea of that unbridled curiosity and the fearlessness to ask all the questions that you have,” she says. “I am so inspired by anybody who takes on that craft because I’m terrified to ask people things.”
And while Inventing Anna’s Vivian certainly is fearless, Chlumsky is maybe not giving herself enough credit for her own bravery: When she went into a general meeting with the show’s creator, Shonda Rhimes, executive producer Betsy Beers, and casting director Allison Estrin, Chlumsky, to circle back to her own phrasing, “dramaturged the crap out of it,” researching the story, interpreting the script to its minutest detail, asking dozens of questions, and expressing immense passion for the project.
“The fact that they received that well was a great encouragement,” laughs Chlumsky. “It was one of those meetings where you’re finishing each other’s sentences. And then it turned out they wanted me to play Vivian, so that was great!”
Vivian is a journalist haunted by her recent past and a story that went sour. She’s desperate to prove herself, so when she gleans information about Anna Delvey being held at Rikers Island jail in anticipation of her impending trial for multiple counts of grand larceny, Vivian knows deep down that she’s found the story that will dig her out of her professional hellhole. She also happens to be pregnant and very unprepared to bring a child into a world where she is not seen as “successful.” To help her unearth Anna’s story, Vivian is surrounded by a very supportive cast of characters, including her husband (Anders Holm) and her fellow journalists Lou (played by Shondaland alum Jeff Perry), Barry (Terry Kinney, who, along with Perry and Gary Sinise, founded the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago), and Maud (the legendary Anna Deavere Smith, who also starred in Shondaland’s For the People).
Vivian’s commitment to Anna’s story is palpable, but as she goes deeper down the Anna Delvey rabbit hole, lines begin to blur between reporting and infatuation, friendship and manipulation, and who, ultimately, is the real victim in the wake of Anna’s rise and fall.
Here, Shondaland goes in depth with Chlumsky about the whole story, becoming Vivian Kent, what she has in common with Anna Delvey, and how working with an intimacy consultant for the first time helped her come to some realizations about her early career.
VALENTINA VALENTINI: So, we must know: What were all your dramaturge thoughts on the script?
ANNA CHLUMSKY: Well, I had just finished listening to The Dropout, a podcast — which was done by a friend from college, actually, Becky [Rebecca] Jarvis — that’s now being turned into a show about Elizabeth Holmes. There was this huge question of what’s real and not real. Like, how much did the Silicon Valley, pre-revenue, bulls--t venture-capitalist habit that this entire society got addicted to contribute to people not knowing what’s real and not real? That was on the brain for me. And can we really blame these young people who never knew a world without venture capital and without Silicon Valley and without the concept of start-up culture? The elders who are getting swept up in that, how much are they really responsible for kind of quote-unquote creating these monsters? And then also, why are we so quick to call the females monsters, and why are we so quick to elect the male monsters?
VV: It sounds a bit like you’re siding with Anna Delvey — or maybe not siding with her but at least giving her the benefit of the doubt.
AC: I’m not in any way siding with people who do dishonest things. I’m not. I hate cons. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I’m very aware of how horrible dishonesty can be to someone, and in no way do I condone poor behavior like that. However, at the same time, we’re just so quick to point out the ills when a young female has done it. That’s the real concept, that burning-at-the-stake archetype. So, all I’m saying is these are questions that the show brought up for me; I’ve got zero answers. But that’s the beauty of a well-written screenplay. I hate an agenda — when I enter a project, I love to embark on the artistic endeavor of presenting stories that then can be jumping-off points for a long time. That’s what Inventing Anna did for me.
VV: Did you know about Anna Delvey before signing on to the show?
AC: I did not. I had read Jessica Pressler’s earlier articles, and I remember reading the one of hers that ended up becoming Hustlers and going, “This needs to be made into a movie.” So, I knew Jessica’s world in her name, but I hadn’t read the one about Anna Delvey. I knew nothing about her. Fast-forward to when I booked the role and I told my brother, who at the time was 24, about this pretend German heiress named Anna Delvey, and he gasped. Like, he’s so nonplussed about everything, but that reaction told me a lot about what the venture was going to be.
VV: How much interaction did you have with Jessica Pressler in preparing to play Vivian?
AC: This is the question I am most sensitive about answering because, honestly, it was minimal contact. Not because she wasn’t accessible to me. She made it very clear that I could ask her anything. I knew the door was open, and I was so grateful for that. But we’re fictionalizing her. I’m not playing “Jessica Pressler.” I joke that I have the easy job on the show because so many actors have to match somebody to the real person, and I don’t have to. I’m inspired, but I didn’t want to, nor did I have to, ape her. I would have been discouraged to try and imitate her. The best gift was seeing all the material — the unlocking for Vivian was just how much she cares about the information and the line of inquiry. I read all of Jessica’s articles and notes and research so that I could get into the concept of what it is to write the way that she writes. Because really what we’re telling is a story inside a story.
VV: What about any research outside of that? Did you follow a journalist for a day?
AC: That’s exactly what I didn’t do. I did grab from everybody I’ve met, though. Like, whether this is a good or a bad thing can be discussed, but I’ve been interviewed by people since I was 10 years old. So, I took a lot from those experiences. And at Jessica’s suggestion, I read The Journalist and the Murderer [by Janet Malcolm], which was a great one for me because it deals with that concept of where you draw the line with subjects.
VV: It’s easy to say that Anna Delvey is guilty because there was a trial that said so. But do you, or does Vivian, have a clear-cut judgment about her?
AC: I think Vivian goes back and forth. I think everybody does. That’s what is fascinating about all the ways in which we’re exploring this type of behavior these days: We know that certain things are illegal, and we know that certain things are wrong, but often we discover that they don’t intersect as much as we’d like them to. That’s why our constitution is a living document. That’s why we get to continue to try and make better laws and a better justice system. I do think that Anna gets to be in the category of an example, an emblem, whereas all the people who helped her are fine. They lost their banks tons of money but whatever, totally fine.
VV: Is there anything you see in yourself that you see in Vivian?
AC: You sort of have to do that as an actor, right? You have to find the stuff that you can draw from your own life that can coincide with their experience in the scene. You’ll see that this isn’t completely surprising given some of the other roles I’ve played, but I definitely have that Cassandra [the Trojan princess in Greek mythology who is cursed with the gift of prophecy but never believed] thing going on, where I’m like, “There are Greeks in the house! Why does no one see this?!” I have that part of me, that drive to make somebody see the world the way I see it. That can be a really great thing because it makes me confident in my ability to put information together, but also it can be a very dangerous thing. Sometimes if you’re being too pushy with somebody who’s not ready to see the world the way you do, you have to be careful of the dogmatism and getting ahead of yourself. Vivian has the ability to process quickly, and people have said that I do too, but it can get you carried away. I can run downhill a little bit fast where my brain is going faster than I can even grasp it. She and I share that.
VV: And what about Anna Delvey? I wonder if you can relate to the type of person she is at all.
AC: I don’t know if these things truly were Anna’s or were written into the show, but we weirdly share a lot of the same tastes. Like when she chooses a painting to compliment, I’m like, “Yes! That is a great painting.” And some of the restaurants that she goes to — I’ve definitely eaten there on my own in New York, and I never consider myself part of any kind of a scene; I’m the squarest person in the world.
VV: What are some of your favorite memories from the set? How about, as they call it in the series, Scriberia, your little writer pod with Jeff, Terry, and Anna? Tell us about that.
AC: It is an embarrassment of riches to be able to have Anna Deavere Smith, Jeff Perry, and Terry Kinney all within three feet of you. I honestly think the crew started to kind of not like the days that we were shooting together because we would f--k around so much [laughs]. Not Anna [Deavere Smith], though. She was like, “Come on. Can we not f--k around?” But Terry and Jeff, they founded Steppenwolf together, so they’ve known each other since college. We had far too much fun. To this day, I will go to bed and start falling asleep and will think about something that Terry said, and I’ll just start laughing, like on my own, just laughing. Those days were pure joy.
VV: And how was the collaboration with Shonda Rhimes?
AC: She was so available. [Pauses.] I start to censor myself when I gush because I’m sensitive to how people can forget that she’s not just a symbol of all the things we want in life, and yet she is. She is the most incredible boss and collaborator. She’s extremely wise. When I would ask her a question — and when you’ve been in this business long enough, you expect to ask somebody a question, and they answer with “Just say the thing. Don’t worry about it.” Or they just wouldn’t know how to answer it. But she always had a really thoughtful thing to say about what I would maybe think was a trivial point. I respond so well to that. And I think we’re all craving a workplace and a work environment in which we can support one another and support one another’s private lives and families. She does that, from the top down, and we follow her example. When I say I loved this job, I really mean it. And that is a testament to her.
VV: You’ve been at this acting thing for a really long time already. Is there much that surprises you anymore?
AC: I’m at midlife, so everything’s a surprise, basically! Everything old is new again. But in terms of the industry? Well, this is the first time I ever worked with the very new and very necessary position called an intimacy consultant. You might ask why I did for this role, but they cut some scenes that had required it for playing Vivian. I had a slew of surprises working with the intimacy consultant because there were things that, growing up in this business as a female, I was actually never taught, and never knew, and probably reinforced a ton of really strange things that happen in our business just because you’re never told the right thing, never told you can have a voice. But I love being in a career where I can continually learn.
Valentina Valentini is a London-based entertainment, travel, and food writer and also a Senior Contributor for Shondaland. Elsewhere she has written for Vanity Fair, Vulture, Variety, Thrillist, Heated, and The Washington Post. Her personal essays can be read in the Los Angeles Times, Longreads, and her tangents and general complaints can be seen on Twitter at @ByValentinaV.
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