Netflix’s con-artist saga Inventing Anna can’t make fiction stranger than the truth
There are two main characters in producer Shonda Rhimes’ new Netflix miniseries Inventing Anna, both based on real people. The first is Anna Delvey (played by Julia Garner): a cunning and stubbornly mysterious con artist who a few years back duped several well-connected rich folks and multiple high-end New York City institutions into believing she was an aristocratic European heiress and fundraiser. Born in Russia as Anna Sorokin, she spent time in Germany, London, and Paris before visiting New York and finding it strangely easy to slip into the social circles of the obscenely wealthy. She then became a minor celebrity after her story was told by the reporter Jessica Pressler in a lengthy 2018 New York Magazine profile.