Watch out, Oscars! Another Oscar-worthy film is coming through and we’re only saying it after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s documentary “Citzenfour” won the “Best Documentary Feature” award at the 87th Annual Academy Awards.
Titled “Snowden”, the Edward Snowden biopic will be helmed by the Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone. The project is currently in production with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role. It was reported that the director is helming the project based on both Luke Harding’s “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man” and “Time of the Octopus” by Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena.
Since production has already begun, Open Road Film decided to give us our first look at Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden during his time in the US Army in 2004.
Source: Open Road Films’ official Facebook page
Oliver Stone directed the film based on a script he co-wrote with “The Homesman” scribe Kieran Fitzgerald. Filming began on 16th February 2015 in Munich, Germany.
The film centres on Edward Snowden (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an American computer professional who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the mainstream media in June 2013. The film will follow his journey from Hawaii to Hong Kong, where he met documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (director of the Oscar-winning Citizenfour) and journalist Glenn Greenwald to hand over top-secret NSA documents, all before seeking asylum in Russia.
Source: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s official Facebook page
After Open Roads Films shared the first image of the film, Gordon-Levitt shared an official movie still on his official Facebook page too.
The statement from his Facebook post is as follows:
First day of shooting on Oliver Stone’s “SNOWDEN.”
I was surprised when I first learned this about Snowden–that he enlisted in the US Army in 2004. He wanted to go fight in Iraq, but during basic training at Fort Benning, he broke both of his legs and received an administrative discharge. After that, he was still determined to serve his country (love him or hate him, you gotta admit the guy’s strong-willed) and so he ended up getting a job at the CIA, which is where his career in Intelligence began.
Today’s scenes felt like a really good way to start this shoot. It was hard, but of course, nowhere near as hard as real basic training. And me, I’m just honored and excited to be doing a soldier sequence with Oliver. I keep saying to myself: “F***, this guy directed Platoon!
The newly married actor also shared a selfie he took with Oliver Stone on his Facebook page.
Source: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s official Facebook page
He said:
Oliver Stone’s first selfie.
This is gonna be Oliver’s twentieth film, and I feel so sincerely privileged that he asked me to play this part.
Slated for release on 25th December, “Snowden” also stars Shailene Woodley, Nicolas Cage, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, Joely Richardson, and Timothy Olyphant.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be seen next in Robert Zemeckis’ “The Walk” as Philippe Petit, a French artist who became a worldwide sensation for walking on a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers.