In 2017, Winner was arrested by FBI officers who showed up at her home to investigate her part in the mishandling of classified information. Sweeney portrays thein HBO’s new film; the movie’s dialogue is taken directly from the transcript of Winner’s tense conversation with the FBI on the day of her arrest.
“Once I met with Reality and I got to know her, she really truly speaks her mind,” Sweeney says of playing Winner. “So everything she was saying in the transcript, she was feeling and thinking. I was able to just find all the different layers underneath it. I truly enjoyed it.” At first, writer and director Tina Satter introduced Sweeney to Winner and the pair began texting and, eventually, video chatting. “We Zoomed for a couple hours. She was kind enough to just let me ask a bunch of life questions and get to know her, get to know her relationships and family and her experience with the FBI interrogation,” Sweeney says. “She has quite a sense of humor! Once I got to know her, and I went back and reread the script, I was like, ‘Oh, I see the humor here.