Is Vivian Kent a Real Journalist? Anna Chlumsky on 'Compelling' 'Inventing Anna' Role

The story of one of New York's most famous con artists has finally made it to the small screen. Inventing Anna on Netflix tells the story of Anna Sorokin who, under the name Anna Delvey, posed as a German heiress with a trust fund of $60 million.

Between 2013 and 2017, Delvey was able to scam members of New York's elite out of thousands of dollars to help her build her failed arts foundation, The Anna Delvey Foundation.

Delvey's incredibly true story is told through the eyes of journalist Vivian Kent (played by Anna Chlumsky) who is reporting on the story, and via flashbacks to Delvey's glory days when she had New York in the palm of her hands.

Audiences want to know everything about the series, including what is fact and what is fiction. Is Vivian Kent a real journalist and why was she dropped by Bloomberg? Newsweek has everything you need to know.

Is Vivian Kent A Real Journalist?

No, Vivian Kent in Inventing Anna is not a real-life journalist. However, the character is loosely based on the very much real journalist, Jessica Pressler.

Working at New York magazine, Pressler fought to cover the story of Anna Delvey after spotting a tiny newspaper clipping of her upcoming trial. After weeks of research, including interviews with Delvey ahead of her 2019 trial, Pressler published the article "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People."

In her 45,000-word feature, Pressler included interviews with Delvey's former friends, business partners, and those closest to her. Scanning the article, readers would learn how Delvey was able to scam New York's elite and her friends out of thousands of dollars.

Pressler's article went on to serve as the foundation for Netflix's Inventing Anna, produced by Shondaland, and Pressler herself serves as a producer on the series.

Veep's Anna Chlumsky, who plays Vivian in Inventing Anna, revealed how she worked very closely with Pressler's written work to prepare for the role.

Speaking to Newsweek, Chlumsky said: "Jessica and I know each other, she's credited as a producer on our show, she's given her blessing to every single bit of our show. My character is a fictionalized version of that role and so I didn't have to match her exactly, so the first sort of decision to make was what to borrow and what not to and so what I would say is, I worked very, very closely with her written word, I worked very closely with her notes.

"I pored through them, I just drank them up. They were like, my vitamins, I read all of her articles, I felt like playing somebody who expresses themselves so well and so clearly in her own voice, that really the written word was giving me the most anchor that I needed. So that was my way in."

Chlumsky continued: "I enjoyed her brain, I really, really do. I love her curiosity, and how she won't let go of an idea. I love playing characters that think they have it all put together and based on what you see in the story [Inventing Anna]. They don't really know how they're coming across, they betray themselves and I really enjoyed that. Because I think that that's a very human experience."

She also shared what attracted her to the role of Vivian, describing Inventing Anna as a "compelling" tale.

Chlumsky said: "One of the things that I was super drawn to was I think we've all seen plenty of shows, and very, very good shows, where the journalist is our way of connecting to an audience, because they're learning the information as the audience is.

"I think there are a lot of shows that up till now kind of stop there, and they don't have to keep going, and that's fine but for us, we don't stop there, we actually look at what it is to develop a relationship with a subject when you're a journalist, and that relationship in and of itself. The querent and the questioner, you know, is something that I really hadn't seen teased out in the way that we've done it in this in this program. And I'm just, I'm fascinated by it.

"I think that when we explore relationships, only, like in a romantic way or only in the family way, I think that we ignore the fact that we are all in relationship with one another all the time. And so it's really compelling to explore, explore a sanctioned yet very intimate work relationship, in this case, and it's not just work, it's all the grey area and I thought that that was just a compelling attack."

Why Was Vivian Kent Dropped From Bloomberg?

In Inventing Anna, Vivian's pursuit of her Anna Delvey story is thrown off track when her past catches up with her.

In the early days of her career, Vivian wrote an article on "Reasons to Love New York," where she profiled a teenager named Donovan Lamb who reportedly earned over $70 million on the stock market. She also interviewed his friends and family to get the full story.

However, shortly after the article was published, Lamb revealed the story was fake and accused Vivian of pressuring him into telling a false story to make it newsworthy. As a result, Vivian's journalistic integrity has always been questioned and she always felt like she had something to prove. In Inventing Anna, Vivian tells Delvey's lawyer Todd (played by Arian Moayed) she lost a job at Bloomberg as a result.

To make matters worse for Vivian, Lamb was appearing on a fictional show called America Investigated, a series that explores questionable journalism. Vivian was encouraged by her editors to appear on the show to tell her side of the story but she declined.

Although Vivian is a fictional character, her story is based on true events. Pressler, who Vivian is based on, did write an article in 2014 for New York Magazine titled "Reasons to Love New York" and she really did profile a 17-year-old Stuyvesant High School senior named Mohammed Islam, who claimed to have a net worth of $72 million from trading on the stock market.

However after Pressler's article was published, Islam admitted to the New York Observer that the entire story was false, resulting in heavy criticism of Pressler.

Like Vivian in Inventing Anna, Pressler too was set to join the Bloomberg News' investigative unit but ended up staying at New York magazine after her article on Islam.

The original article now has an editor's note header containing an apology to readers. "As part of the research process, the magazine sent a fact-checker to Stuyvesant, where Islam produced a document that appeared to be a Chase bank statement attesting to an eight-figure bank account.

"After the story's publication, people questioned the $72 million figure in the headline, which was written by editors based on the rumored figure. The headline was amended. But in an interview with the New York Observer last night, Islam now says his entire story was made up. A source close to the Islam family told the Washington Post that the statements were falsified. We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. New York apologizes to our readers," the note read.

Things turned out OK for Pressler by staying at New York magazine. Her 2015 article "The Hustlers at Scores" was nominated for a National Magazine Award, and was later made into a feature film called Hustlers in 2019, starring Jennifer Lopez, Lil Reinhart, Constance Wu, and Cardi B.

And of course, her 2018 article "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" has gone on to become a huge Netflix series, also starring Julia Garner and Alexis Floyd.

Inventing Anna is streaming on Netflix now.