The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

Julia Garner hasn’t got to where she is as one of

Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses by half-heartedly

getting into character. Her portrayal of the money launderer

Ruth Langmore in Ozark, the drug cartels and hillbillies

Netflix series, shows she’s someone who dives in deep.

However, transforming into Anna Delvey, the real-life con

artist who swindled friends, bankers and hoteliers out of

$275,000 (£200,000), pushed her to the brink.

“I kept on having this feeling like I was going to get

caught all the time,” she recalls of the period filming

Inventing Anna, the hugely anticipated Netflix adaptation

of Delvey’s crime spree. “My anxiety was through the roof.

I didn’t know why at that moment, but it was really because

it was the character.”

Garner’s musician husband, Mark Foster, was alarmed

by her anxiety-ridden dreaming. “I’m a sleep-talker and

I woke him up apparently. I was saying [Garner adopts

Delvey’s accent], ‘I don’t want that bag, I want this one,’ and

then I kept saying, ‘I didn’t take it.’ ”

Let’s rewind on the fake heiress. This is the outrageous tale

of how Delvey — now 31 but then in her mid- twenties — cast

herself among Manhattan’s glitterati as a German trusta-

farian awaiting her $67 million inheritance. She had a killer

wardrobe, killer connections and — for the influencer crowd

— a lifestyle to die for, bouncing between countries,

superyachts and five-star hotels. In 2017, as she dished out

$100 tips and got $400 eyelash extensions, everyone from

celebrity hoteliers (André Balazs, owner of Chiltern Fire-

house, for example) to Wall Street suits were pulled into her

orbit as she plotted to open a $40 million private members’

club, the Anna Delvey Foundation, in the heart of Manhattan.

In reality Delvey was Anna Sorokin, the Russian daughter

of a former truck driver, who had no cash but limitless

chutzpah. By mid-2017 the lies crumbled after she was caught

dining and dashing in a New York restaurant. The bigger

frauds fell apart and — after going on the run to California —

the “heiress” was found guilty of eight charges, including

second-degree grand larceny (theft), during a celebrity-circus

This page Jumper,

£1,450, and arm

cuffs, £380 each,

Prada. Stud

earrings, worn

throughout, Julia’s

own. Opposite

Fleece bustier,

£823, fleece

trousers, £661,

and shoes, £624,

Balenciaga

The Sunday Times Style • 11