Inventing Anna: Julia Garner explains process behind her strange Anna Delvey accent

Star of the Netflix mini-series has attracted attention after fans observed the mix of accents used to portray the real-life fraudster

Julia Garner has explained the story behind her accent in forthcoming Netflix drama Inventing Anna.

Garner stars in the project as Anna Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – the convicted fraudster who scammed thousands of dollars from banks and hotels around New York by posting as a German heiress.

It is based on Jessica Pressler’s 2019 New York Magazine article, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People”, the rights to which were landed by Shonda Rhimes after a major bidding war.

In a new behind-the-scenes clip released by Netflix, Garner discusses how she began with a German accent, before incorporating Russian elements (Delvey was born in Russia), along with European and American accents depending on who Sorokin is speaking to.

“If I didn’t have the accent down, then I wouldn’t have a lot of the character down,” she said.

“You don’t have to love my character,” she continued. “You can actually hate my character. But you have to at least want to understand Anna.”

While Garner met with Sorokin in preparation for her performance, an essay written by Sorokin from her jail cell in upstate New York condemned the Netflix show, which premieres on 11 February..

In the essay, Sorokin said she felt “like an afterthought” and that she was not interested in watching the series “even if I were to pull some strings to make it happen”.

“It doesn’t look like I’ll be watching Inventing Anna anytime soon,” she wrote in the essay.

(AFP via Getty Images)

“Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalised version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.”

Sorokin, however, said she was “curious” to see how the research and materials she provided helped in the interpretation of her character in the series.

“While I’m curious to see how they interpreted all the research and materials provided, I can’t help but feel like an afterthought, the sombre irony of being confined to a cell at yet another horrid correctional facility lost between the lines, the history repeating itself.”

Sorokin was arrested in 2017 and spent around two years in jail on Rikers Island before her jury conviction.

She served another two years at the Albion Correctional Facility in upstate New York until her release in February last year.

Six weeks later, however, she was arrested again by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for overstaying her visa.

She wrote in the essay that she “was hoping that by the time ‘Inventing Anna’ came out, I would’ve moved on with my life. I imagined for the show to be a conclusion of sorts summing up and closing of a long chapter that had come to an end”.