A tense cat and mouse interrogation between federal agents and a federal contractor in Augusta, Ga., on June 3, 2017, is at the center of HBO Films’ new drama “Reality.” Those several hours of questioning that Reality Winner endured in her own home are nearly the entirety of what plays out on screen in Tina Satter’s directorial debut starring Sydney Sweeney.
“It just felt like this ready-made thriller,” Satter says of adapting the actual interrogation transcript. “There is a girl in jean shorts and yellow [sneakers], and she’s going head-to-head with armed men in her house.”
The noncustodial probing of the 25-year-old military veteran took place days after she anonymously mailed a classified document, discussing Russian military attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, to a news website.
Two days after the interrogation, the government announced Winner’s arrest, and she was ultimately sentenced to a record-setting 63 months under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Months following Winner’s arrest, Satter came across a written transcript of the interrogation. “That first viewing and read of that document got me totally kind of obsessed with that afternoon and who Reality was,” recalls Satter, who later adapted the interrogation as the verbatim dialogue for her 2021 play “Is This a Room.”
“What was so exciting to me about now turning this content into the film was actually not only being close with Reality and her slightly subjective day, but really getting to show the details of this young woman’s life, because it’s just so vulnerable that they do this questioning in her house. At times, in her actual bedroom,” says Satter, who co-wrote the film’s screenplay.
The film adaptation was an opportunity for the director to “find ways to bring in these edges that Reality is a real person.” And Sweeney says Satter’s adaptation “was truly just showing this coming-of-age moment in a woman’s life.”
The tension and uneasiness between Reality and the agents turns the film into a thriller. “Not only was Reality an unexpected person at the center of an interrogation, but how the interrogation was unfolding was so unexpected,” Satter says.
The interrogation mainly takes place in a small room in Winner’s house. “It was this really spare, white, not very big room,” she adds. “We really worked to re-create that room, because it had its own strangeness and luminosity.”
Satter collaborated with cinematographer Paul Yee on close-up shots and cutaways that were crucial to building the tension onscreen and that “were tied to emotional beats.” Close-ups on Sweeney captured her remarkable ability to telegraph the micro-emotions Winner experienced while simultaneously trying to stay calm.
Sweeney notes that filming in that room for so long also helped shape her performance. “It slowly started feeling smaller and smaller and smaller. The weight of the situation and the weight of what we were dealing with just felt heavier and heavier, and you started to feel suffocated,” she says.
As the cast did not have access to the audio recording of the interrogation, Sweeney spent time texting and video conferencing with Winner as part of her research process. “I got to know her as a person and observed how she spoke and how she moved,” Sweeney says. “How she had her different facial mannerisms and expressions and her eye contact. I tried to observe her as much as I possibly could because I wanted to embody her as much as I possibly could.”
Satter says though Sweeney and Winner are “very different people,” they are “both these singular young women who have worked really hard to carve out who they are in really unexpected ways, and with a lot of specific public attention on them.”
The director also credits actors Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, who portray special agents questioning Winner. “I’ve always just been so intrigued with who they were. All I have is their language that day,” Satter says of the two, whom she describes as having an “edge of menace” on interrogation day.
“Agent Taylor really builds some of that feeling of ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ very quietly with his body and eyes. Marchánt Davis was just so excellent at that,” Satter says. “Josh Hamilton was so interested in the language. He totally got what we saw as the really weird humor of Garrick, and so Josh was just a great, great choice.”
Sweeney says she was “challenged” by the film’s verbatim dialogue and thanks her scene partners for helping her with the execution. “On set, Josh and Marchánt and I would just be running the dialogue, making sure that we had all the mannerisms. Josh was so incredible. He would sneeze when it said that [his character] sneezed in the transcript. It was amazing to watch,” Sweeney recalls.
While Winner’s mother and sister have seen the movie, Satter says Winner has not and she very much understands how it is still too painful for Winner to relive that day. Both Satter and Sweeney expressed gratitude for Reality’s support as a collaborator.
“I hope that people take away that Reality is just a person,” Sweeney says. “That [Reality] went through this experience that you get to see for yourself and to be able to make your own thoughts around it, instead of allowing a headline or what other people say to persuade your opinion on somebody. That’s what was so beautiful about the film.”
Winner’s loved ones have told her how affecting the docudrama is, and Satter says, “I know now, Reality is hearing from a lot of strangers who are really moved by her story.”
“Reality” is currently available to stream exclusively on Max.
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