See Julia Garner as glam scammer Anna Delvey in a first look from Netflix

It’s been three years since it was first announced that notorious scammer Anna Delvey’s story would be turned into a suitably dramatic Netflix series – and now, we finally have an official look at Inventing Anna.

The streaming platform has shared four shots of Julia Garner as Delvey – each one less glamorous than the last. “This story is completely true,” Netflix wrote in the accompanying caption, “except for all of the parts that aren’t.”

In the first two photos, Garner (as Delvey) is living her glamorous fake heiress life, sipping champagne and wearing head-to-toe designer looks. In the next, she’s posing for a mugshot and having visitation time in prison.

The forthcoming series, created by Shonda Rhimes, is based on The Cut’s 2018 article, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People”. It will tell the story of how Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin) conned businesses and friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund her lavish lifestyle as a fake German heiress among Manhattan’s social elite.

When she returned from a supposed “all-expenses-paid” trip to Morocco in May 2017, Delvey’s scam started to unravel, and she was arrested in August of that year. In 2019, she was convicted of fraud – after serving a number of courtroom looks – before being released in February 2021. However, the following month she was back in jail for overstaying her US visa – Delvey was reportedly still being detained in September.

These new photos aren’t the first glimpse at Inventing Anna – in 2020, Garner was spotted filming on the set of the show. Speaking about the role the following month, Garner said that during her research she visited Delvey at Rikers Island prison. “The only thing that I didn’t expect is that Anna is really funny,” she revealed. “She’s actually hysterical. And she’s super soft-spoken and gentle. Going into any part, you can’t have too many negative thoughts because you don’t want to start with the character judging them.”

“You can’t dislike the person you’re playing for eight, nine months,” Garner continued. “That’s going to come across on the screen, and the performance isn’t going to be as good. She had her reasons why she did all the things she did.”

The 10-episode series is set to premiere next year, and will also star Anna Chlumsky as a journalist attempting to uncover the truth about Delvey (based on The Cut writer Jessica Pressler), Alexis Floyd as a hotel concierge who’s charmed by the scammer, Laverne Cox as her personal trainer, and Katie Lowes as her friend Rachel. 

The latter is based on Rachel DeLoache Williams, who was conned out of $62,000 by Delvey after their fraught trip to Marrakech. In 2019, DeLoache Williams published a book, titled My Friend Anna, about her friendship with the grifter. Speaking to Dazed at the time, she said Delvey was “Machiavellian”, adding: “She saw this life on social media that she wanted to emulate – she wanted to be a part of the world that, ironically, she was undermining. I don’t think she’s capable of feeling sincere remorse.”

See Julia Garner as Anna Delvey above, and read Rachel DeLoache Williams’ full interview with Dazed here.