Sydney Sweeney on ‘Reality’ and Humanizing the Person Behind the Headlines

From director/co-writer Tina Satter and based on her play “Is This a Room,” the HBO Original film Reality tells the story of what happened when 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney, who delivers a truly exceptional performance) had FBI agents show up at her home to question her. Once there, they spent June 3, 2017 trying to get to the bottom of the extent of her role in mishandling classified information about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. And more than just being based on true events, the film’s dialogue is directly from the transcript of their conversations, which adds a level of intensity that is both fascinating and gripping.

During this interview with Collider, Sweeney and Satter talked about tackling the challenges of this project, embodying a living and breathing human being, riding the emotional trajectory of the story, making smart acting choices, and humanizing the person behind the headlines.

Collider: Sydney, I want to commend you for making what I think are really smart choices in the work that you’re doing, especially since Euphoria. Cassie is such a specific character that it’s been really great to see you take on such a variety of projects that show all these different sides of you. What made you most nervous about playing Reality Winner and how did you conquer those nerves, in order to deliver this performance?

SYDNEY SWEENEY: First, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I definitely was very intimidated by the script itself because it was the transcript and because I usually am very free with the dialogue of my characters. I wanted to make sure the dialogue was as exact as possible, and that was a new challenge for myself. I would beat myself up, trying to make sure that I got it perfectly. That was its own challenge. And also, just playing a real person and wanting to make sure that I embodied this living, breathing human being to the best that my ability could do.

Tina, as the director of this, what were the biggest challenges in making an hour and 20 minutes of back-and-forth conversation compelling? I was riveted the entire time, but it feels like, on paper, that might not have seemed possible.

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SATTER: I’m really glad to hear that you found that because I had belief in this content. For me, it was compelling to read it, and then to begin to envision it. Because Reality felt like such a strong character and was real, there was something in that. But of course, it’s inherently challenging. And then, it’s about finding actors and the other amazing collaborators that it takes to make a movie, to really plan out and think, “How do we ride the emotional trajectory of this and how do we detonate close-ups and tension?” There’s a natural cycle within that transcript. It repeats itself a lot, in terms of its rhythms, so we had to stay creative on how to cut that. It also offers its own unexpected twists and turns, literally in what they often talk about next. So, just instinctually, we had to figure out where to serve that and how to let it do its work, and stick to the rigor of keeping it where it was, which felt like, if we could pull it off, could be really exciting. This is what she lived through, so it stayed here in this space for her. We really were all up for that challenge of seeing if that could hold, and keeping the tension that she obviously felt, and the emotional ride that she obviously went through that day, in actuality.

About 50 minutes into this, there are some close-ups that are just so emotionally compelling to watch, when Reality is talking about folding the papers and taking them out in her pantyhose. How did you figure that out and work that out? Sydney, were you just going with your gut, as far as what you wanted to express, since you really just had your eyes to convey so much? What were those conversations like, between the two of you, to figure that out?

SATTER: Syd is so smart at that emotional stuff. I actually learned so much working with her through that. It really was this conversation. It’s essentially an emotional close-up throughout the whole movie, let alone at 50 minutes. And Sydney was always really smart about being like, “I think here is where I can give some. Here’s maybe where I can hold off.” We would always communicate, and make sure we got some options and takes. We talked a lot about those particular moments, and how nuanced and delicate those emotional reveals had to be, knowing there was still stuff to come, or what had come before it. That was a little bit of a dance, within what Sydney had to do within the Reality portrayal, especially in those particular moments, around 50 minutes.

SWEENEY: It was definitely a push-and-pull of, “How much do you give in this moment?,” because there still were places to go afterwards.

How did you guys feel about Reality Winner going into all of this? And then, having dug into her and this story, having made this, having lived in her shoes, having put all this together, did that change how you feel about her, at all?

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SWEENEY: I didn’t know Reality’s story, going into it. I was able to approach it and learn about Reality, as a human being. That’s how I’ve approached the entire process, and that’s what I love about the movie so much. It humanizes this moment in time that so many people have just read headlines about.

SATTER: I have a similar thing with it. I hadn’t known a ton about this until I stumbled upon the transcript. I had vaguely heard of her, and then on June 3, 2017, I came upon this article and the transcript, and I just got really intrigued with this complicated, amazing human that I was learning more about and who was coming out in my reading of the transcript. And I have to say, it hasn’t really changed, it’s only deepened that the things I felt upon first coming upon this document, which were that this person is super smart, super funny, and there’s a lot we don’t know about her. She made some really complicated choices, and the sense of that has only deepened and gotten more interesting, frankly, in getting to know her. Really, she totally is that person that you see in the transcript, and that Sydney so beautifully portrays. She’s just really human. It sounds a little cliche. She’s done things that hold so many different feelings, good and bad, but they were very human choices. It continues to be an honor to get to see a human being, having spent so much time thinking about her and working to make this portrayal of her.

I thought it was so brilliantly handled because we don’t get time to see a backstory for her, or to see her with her family, or anything like that, before we really just jump into this. So, showing those moments of how much she cares for her pets and keeps checking on them says so much about who she is. It really humanizes her in a way that there isn’t time to do through backstory, but still allows the audience the opportunity to care about her.

SWEENEY: That’s what she actually was worried about.

SATTER: Totally. That’s right.

Reality airs on HBO on May 29th and is available to stream at Max.