There's something fascinating about any scammer – like, where did they get the audacity from? – but Anna Sorokin could be the most fascinating of all. In case you've forgotten, she's the Russian-born 30-year-old who posed as a fake German heiress called Anna Delvey in order to defraud banks, luxury hotels and wealthy friends out of tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services.
In 2019, she was convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, larceny in the 2nd degree, and theft of services in relation to these offences.
It's an enthralling story that has the making of a great true-crime series, especially in the hands of Bridgerton and Grey's Anatomy mastermind Shonda Rhimes. Based on Jessica Pressler's New York magazine article "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People", the upcoming series is titled Inventing Anna and set to premiere on Netflix on 11th February.
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The first trailer for the series is here and it gives us a glimpse of Ozark's Julia Garner as Anna Sorokin/Delvey and Veep's Anna Chlumsky as a journalist seeking to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Orange Is the New Black's Laverne Cox and Scandal's Katie Lowes appear as two members of "Anna Delvey"'s New York social circle.
We also see the fake heiress holidaying in Morocco, hatching a plan to open her own super-high-end members' club and insulting Chlumsky's journalist by telling her she looks "poor". It's a reminder that this scammer's story is a wild ride that's truly stranger than fiction.
"People are painting a public picture of me as some criminal," Garner's Sorokin says firmly at one point. "That’s not my story." Inventing Anna already looks like one of 2022's must-see Netflix series, and we absolutely cannot wait.