San Diego Comic-Con launched yesterday, and among the day one festivities were a screening and panel discussion of the new big-screen vehicle for everybody’s favorite comic book hero, Edward Snowden. (Wait, what?) Snowden stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt – apparently now your go-to guy for biopics about people they’ve already made perfectly good documentaries about – as the NSA whistleblower, under the direction of Oliver Stone. And following the film’s screening at SDCC last night, Stone, Gordon-Levitt, and co-star Shailene Woodley were joined by a surprise guest: Snowden himself.
He didn’t show up in person, of course; the fugitive analyst is in hiding in Russia. But he was piped in via Google Hangout, aware that even that work-around is a sticky wicket. “The FBI actually gets a copy of this talk because we’re going through Google Hangouts,” he mused, according to Deadline. “The data is there for the taking.”
It’s the latest step in a process that’s been somewhat surreal for Snowden. “I don’t think anyone looks forward to having a movie made about themselves, especially someone who’s a privacy activist,” he noted. “But what I can say is some of my family members say, ‘He sounds just like you.’… If he can pass the family test, he’s doing all right.”
Snowden is out September 16th.