15 details you might have missed in 'Inventing Anna'
- "Inventing Anna" premiered February 11 on Netflix and is packed with subtle details and references.
- The series is based on the real-life case of "fake heiress" Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey).
The magazine Vivian Kent writes for is a fictionalized version of New York magazine.
Jessica Pressler's article about the real-life Anna Sorokin was first published in New York magazine in May 2018.
There's a hidden warning that the show is fictionalized on every episode.
On the first episode of "Inventing Anna" the warning is quite clear, posted against a black screen and written in basic text. As the season continues, it's hidden in unique places like on billboards, on building plaques, and in newspaper headlines.
Billy McFarland and Fyre Festival are real... and Anna Sorokin has a real connection to him.
In episode four, Anna crashes at one of the lofts owned by the scammer behind the infamous Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland.
According to Page Six, Sorokin "moved into the Wooster Street headquarters of McFarland's dubious credit-card company Magnises for four months" and "wouldn't leave," according to a source.
Martin Shkreli is another real-life convicted criminal.
Martin Shkreli is known as "Pharma Bro" for intentionally causing "the price of a potentially lifesaving antiparasitic medication" that was sometimes used to treat HIV to skyrocket in 2015, per ABC News.
Per Jessica Pressler's New York Magazine article, Sorokin really did have dinner with Shkreli one night and he really did play her Lil Wayne's "Carter V" album before it was released.
There are a lot of "Scandal" connections, like Katie Lowes.
Katie Lowes has perhaps the most significant role of all "Scandal" alums in "Inventing Anna. Lowes plays Rachel Williams, the former Vanity Fair photo editor who Anna leaves on the hook for a $62,000 bill for a group trip to Morocco. But Lowes isn't the only "Scandal" star to appear in "Inventing Anna."
Jeff Perry plays Lou, one of Vivian's colleagues in "Scriberia." He played Cyrus Beene on "Scandal."
Kate Burton plays Nora Radford on "Inventing Anna" and was Sally Langston on "Scandal."
Last but not least, Joshua Malina played David Rosen on "Scandal" and appears as Henrick Knight on episode two of "Inventing Anna." He's the man whose yacht Anna squats on until she's caught.
We shouldn't forget to mention that Burton and Perry play Meredith Grey's parents Ellis and Thatcher Grey, respectively, on "Grey's Anatomy."
Plus Vivian's timeline of Anna's actions has Olivia Pope vibes all over it.
It's not set up at a fancy office with big windows, but Vivian's timeline definitely gives off Olivia Pope vibes nonetheless.
Longtime Rhimes fans will also recognize a familiar office assistant.
Christopher Lowell plays Noah on season one episode seven of "Inventing Anna." He's the videographer who Rachel enlists to document the Morocco trip.
Lowell also played beloved office assistant Dell on the "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice."
In one scene, Neff tells Vivian that "one of the Culkin brothers, maybe the one from 'Home Alone'" was at a dinner party she attended with Anna.
It's a small moment, but it's pretty entertaining given that Anna Chlumsky, who plays Vivian, starred in the 1991 film "My Girl," alongside Macaulay Culkin, of "Home Alone" fame.
A major image in the New York magazine story is missing an important detail.
Sorokin's hair is significantly messier in the actual feature photo for the New York magazine story than it is in the "Inventing Anna" recreation.
An important character doesn't have a name in "Inventing Anna."
Vivian is pregnant in season one of "Inventing Anna." So, we arguably know her daughter for a very long time, but even though she's a baby in the outside world for about two episodes, we never learn her name.
Vivian uses something Anna said to her as motivation while giving birth.
On season one episode one, "Life of a VIP," Anna tells Vivian, "You're not special. People have babies every day. They squat in fields."
When Vivian is finally giving birth on season one episode seven, "Cash on Delivery," her husband Jack motivates her to push by making her say, "people squat in fields" to have babies and "I am not special."
There is a real Instagram account that tracked Sorokin's court looks.
The Instagram account seen on the "Inventing Anna" finale, @AnnaDelveyCourtLooks is real and has 20.4K followers to date.
Anna's boyfriend Chase seems to have been inspired by a real-life app developer.
On "Inventing Anna," Anna's boyfriend is named Chase Sikorski, an up-and-comer in the tech world who's working on an app called Wake that catalogs dreams. Chase is played on the show by Saamer Usmani.
The real-life Sorokin's boyfriend was never mentioned by name in the New York magazine article, however, and was referred to by Pressler only as "a futurist on the TED-Talks circuit who'd been profiled in The New Yorker."
Many speculate that Sorokin's real-life boyfriend (and likely the inspiration for Chase on "Inventing Anna") was an app developer named Hunter Lee Soik, who did, in fact, give a TED talk in 2013, and was profiled by the New Yorker the same year.
Much like the character Chase, Soik was born in Asia and adopted by a couple in the Midwest, per the New Yorker profile. He also was working on an app that kept track of users' dreams, called Shadow.
"Murder, She Wrote" is playing on the TV when Vivian first visits Anna in prison.
Vivian seemingly becomes distracted by the Angela Lansbury series while waiting to see Anna.
The hotel Neff works at is called 12 George — a thinly veiled reference to the real-life hotel where Anna stayed.
As revealed in Pressler's 2018 article about Sorokin, the real-life Sorokin first met her friend Neffatari "Neff" Davis while Davis was working as a concierge at the 11 Howard hotel. Sorokin plied Davis with $100 tips, and the two soon became friends.
On "Inventing Anna," the hotel's name is tweaked slightly to "12 George." The first episode sees Vivian, a fictionalized version of Pressler, head to the 12 George to meet with Neff (played on the show by Alexis Floyd).
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