Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rachel Handshaw in Snowden. The KCET Cinema Series continued its fall season on Tuesday, September 6, with a screening of Snowden at the historic Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The audience had the unusual opportunity to see the Oliver Stone-directed biopic of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden before its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden, Shailene Woodley as Lindsay Miller, Melissa Leo as Laura Poitras and Zachary Quinto as Glenn Greenwald. After the screening, producers Eric Kopeloff and Rob Wilson joined Cinema Series host Pete Hammond for a Q&A session, a portion of which appears below.
The fall season of the KCET Cinema Series is sponsored by the James and Paula Coburn Foundation and runs at the Aero Theatre weekly through October 10.
On why Snowden was made.
Eric Kopeloff: I think this gives you a real understanding of who, what, when, where and how. I think the documentary is almost like an appetizer to this. It got you a taste of what it is, but we took you on a journey, hopefully, and gave you an understanding of who he is and why he made this decision.
On Edward Snowdens involvement in the movie.
EK: None in the beginning. Moritz Borman, who is not here tonight, and myself, it started where we were looking at some books that would be published on Snowden and there was a book that was coming out from the Guardian newspaper called The Snowden Files. We decided to go down the road and speak to them. We did this very, very quietly and made a deal with the Guardian for this book that was going to be published, but also with the Guardian itself as a newspaper. That was step one. Once that was in place, Oliver and Kieran [Fitzgerald] started putting the script together. It wasnt an idea that we thought would even be possible, to have access to Edward Snowden.
Over the years, Oliver has had a relationship with the ACLU and different people at the ACLU. Once we were far along, we reached out to the ACLU and they gave us a connection to... a lawyer who is based in Russia, who is Mr. Snowdens lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena. There was a connection made and Oliver and Kieran went over to meet with the lawyer first and get a sense of him. He also had a piece of material, a fiction-based book that we also decided to acquire. Through this process and talking to them, eventually, the word came back that Snowden would like to meet with Oliver and Kieran.
Pete Hammond: So, Oliver went there and met with Snowden?
EK: Was it the first trip?
Rob Wilson: Second trip.
EK: And Snowden said, Why dont we meet. And they just started talking about it. It was more about, theres a fictional component to this movie. You cant, hes not going to reveal exactly what he did or how he did it or he could be self-incriminating. So he ultimately ended up working with us on a through line for certain components in the movie that you see.
Pete Hammond and Snowden producers Eric Kopeloff and Rob Wilson at the KCET Cinema Series. | Photo: Liz Ohanesian.
On Edward Snowdens appearance in the movie.
EK: That wasnt something that was discussed beforehand. It wasnt something that we engaged with Snowden prior to. We finished the sequences... we were shooting in Munich at the time and, at that point, it was an idea that was starting to be kicked around with Oliver and Moritz [Borman] and myself. At that point, we decided, lets reach out with this idea that we had and we wanted to show him a little bit of the movie and what we were planning on doing and he said, Lets give it a shot.
RW: I was there. Eric was there. We had a very small crew from Germany, including our DP when we found a little location and tried to make it look like a house or an apartment or a home. We had a wonderful day there.
EK: Its not like you pick up the phone and call him and say, hey, were going to meet over here, youre going to come and were going to shoot you. It was pretty complex.
PH: You have to deal with the Russian government, probably on all of this.
EK: Not the government.
PH: Really?
EK: No, not actually at all. Hes a guest of the government and he lives freely over in Moscow. I dont know the particulars of how his movement works. Does he wear a baseball cap and sunglasses when he goes out? Its more about, we had to coordinate with him, usually through the attorney, so that we could find a location. We set everything up and at that point, theres a time where we would go and he shows up, we chatted. We do our thing. We had lunch, etc. We keep shooting and then he finishes and he leaves and then we pack up and get out of there.
On Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
EK: Joe was, truthfully, Olivers first choice. When he was writing the movie, he just felt very strongly that Joe would be the guy.
I think he just watched a series of his films and knew him as an actor and he just felt that he was, I dont think it was the political component. I think he just felt that he could do this part...
The first thing we did after we had a script and Oliver felt that was the direction we were going to go, we went to Joe and then built everything for Joe.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in Snowden.
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On Lindsay Mills, Snowdens girlfriend, as a character in the film.
EK: I think it definitely was in the writing process. As we did research about Mr. Snowden, you realize that theres a human side, a side of his relationship with her and how she really did not know anything. He picked up and left. It was definitely an important through line and it was a situation with Joe -- we had Joe -- and Shailene [Woodley], she heard about the project and she passionately reached out to us. I think one or two letters to Oliver. Her agents were very persistent and really reached out, so this was something that she very much wanted to do.
On protecting th
