Inventing Anna star Julia Garner opens up about prison visits with scammer Anna Delvey

Julia Garner, who portrays real-life scam artist Anna Delvey in the upcoming Netflix series Inventing Anna, says she got to know fraudster during a prison visit — and found her to be ‘really sweet’ and ‘charming,’ if seemingly unremorseful. 

The 27-year-old actress stars as Delvey, real name Anna Sorokin, in a 10-episode Shonda Rhimes-produced series set to premiere in February, and she opened up about her bizarre meeting with her at Albion Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York.

Speaking to Town & Country, which she covers this month, Garner said of Delvey: ‘She’s actually really sweet. She was extremely charming. She’s very gentle. But then her voice gets less soft-spoken when she wants something.’

She says she got to know the scammer (pictured at her April 2019 trial) during a prison visit

‘She’s actually really sweet. She was extremely charming. She’s very gentle. But then her voice gets less soft-spoken when she wants something,’ she said

Garner had plenty of material to work from in learning about her character. Delvey’s scams were documented in a widely-read 2018 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler, which detailed how she conned friends and New York businesses out of $275,000 in 2017.

Posing as a German heiress with a $67 million trust fund, she skipped out on exorbitant restaurant and hotel bills, and in one case, put a friend in an awkward possession of putting $62,000 — more than she made in a year — on her own credit card to cover her expenses. 

In April of 2019, Delvey was convicted of four counts of theft services, three counts of grand larceny, and one count of attempted grand larceny. She was sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison, but was out in February of 2021. 

In March, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 25 after she overstayed her visa. She faces deportation back to Germany but was still in ICE custody as of October.

While she was still behind bars, Garner visited to get to know her better. 

‘I wanted to see if she had any remorse about what happened, or time to reflect,’ she told Town & Country. But she says Delvey told her, ‘I don’t really have that much time to think.’ 

‘I wanted to see if she had any remorse about what happened, or time to reflect,’ she told Town & Country. But Delvey told her, ‘I don’t really have that much time to think’

Delvey was also interested to hear the accent that Garner had developed with a dialect coach to play her

Delvey was also interested to hear the accent that Garner had developed with a dialect coach to play her. Delvey was born in Russia, but grew up in Germany, learned British English, and tried to take on an American accent later in life. 

‘She’s like, “Please, let me hear it,”‘ Garner recalled. ‘It got very meta.’

When Garner asked her what she got up to in prison, Delvey said she took classes in tailoring and ‘stupid culinary arts.’

‘I kind of love that about her, in a sick way,’ Garner said. ‘She’s in a full jumpsuit saying, “I’m obviously not going to make myself food when I get out of jail.”‘ 

Though Garner described what Delvey did as ‘really bad,’ she also called the scammer a ‘big dreamer,’ something they have in common. 

She also got to understand her during the months that she played her. 

When Garner asked her what she got up to in prison, Delvey said she took classes in tailoring and ‘stupid culinary arts’

Garner said that she started to develop anxiety while playing Delvey, and at one point, her husband found her sleep-talking in her Anna Delvey accent

‘When I really know the character, I start feeling all their feelings,’ she said. ‘My anxiety was through the roof, and I realized it was because Anna had really bad anxiety.’

In fact, she said, her husband found her sleep-talking in her Anna Delvey accent.  

Garner — who covers Town & Country in a sequined jacket and polka-dot top by Louis Vuitton, accessorized with a $10,700 Bulgari ear cuff and $14,400 Bulgari ring — said that she hopes what people take away from the series is a better understanding of Delvey.

‘People don’t necessarily have to agree with what she did, but I want to help people try to understand why she did it. I’m curious what Anna’s going to think about me portraying her,’ she said.  

Delvey’s crimes captivated the country when they were uncovered. 

In 2013, she arrived in New York City as Anna Sorokin and pretended to be a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey.

Delvey (pictured on a 2019 trip to Morocco) came to New York City in 2013 and spent four years pretending to be a wealthy German heiress

She spent nearly four years living an exorbitantly expensive lifestyle in Manhattan, often on the borrowed dimes of newly-acquainted friends who believed she was incredibly cashed up.

Her lavish lifestyle came crashing down in 2017 after she took a friend, former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams, to Marrakesh with her, racked up thousands of charges at hotels, and then gave the photo editor the $62,000 bill, promising to pay her back.

Unrelated to the trip, Delvey was arrested in July 2017 for theft of services when she couldn’t pay bills. She reportedly took off to California and missed a court date.

Afterwards, Williams — realizing that Sorokin had conned her — went to the police and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and agreed to aid officials in a sting operation that resulted in her October 2017 arrest in Malibu, California.

After a Manhattan jury found her guilty of several charges, Delvey spent just over three years in prison for defrauding banks and hotels out of $275,000.

She was ultimately released from prison in February 2021, only to be detained by ICE about a month later.

Delvey (pictured during her trial at the New York State Supreme Court in April 2019) was arrested in 2017 on larceny charges in New York, for defrauding banks, hotels and people out of money while posing as a fake Russian born German heiress

In an interview shortly after, she said prison was a ‘pointless … waste of time’ and called the prosecution against her an ‘insult to her intelligence’ and boasted that guards treated her like a ‘celebrity.’

‘I think regret is just a useless feeling because I clearly cannot go back in time and change anything. I did what I did. I’m just trying to fix things and move on,’ she told Insider of her crimes.

‘They [prosecutors] presented me as being this thirsty and greedy. I just had this vision. And it didn’t work out.

‘I don’t really have a problem with myself as a person, because I know I was never planning on defrauding anyone.’

The former socialite gave her first TV interview since her release from prison for a 20/20 special that aired on October 1.

During the interview, Sorokin said she never pretended to be from money and she never meant to be deceptive. 

‘I never had a fraudulent intent — and I guess that’s what should really count,’ she claims.  

Delvey was spotted out and about in New York City in March of 2021 between getting out of prison and being detained by ICE 

‘I would like to show the world that I’m not this dumb, greedy person that they portrayed me to be,’ she added.

Her former defense attorney Todd Spodek, also featured in the 20/20 special, argued that Delvey did nothing wrong, but was instead ‘seduced by the glitz and glamour’ of New York City.

‘Anna had every intention of doing things the right way, but she couldn’t open those doors without doing something a little bit grey to open the door,’ he said. 

‘Everyone creates the version of themselves that they want the world to see… Everyone lies when it’s convenient to them… and Anna did the same thing. She couldn’t be 100 percent honest because no one would listen to her.’  

Williams — who testified against the fake heiress in court — told the interviewer that initially thought Sorokin was ‘slightly offbeat’ but never had reason to question her identity.

‘People have asked [me], were there red flags?’ Williams said. ‘I never questioned that she was who she said she was. I never had reason to and I wouldn’t have thought that way.’