The trailer for the screen adaptation of the story behind literary persona JT LeRoy, the fictional writer created by American author Laura Albert, has been released.
The film, directed by Justin Kelly from a script he co-wrote with Savannah Knoop, based on Knoop’s memoir, stars Kristen Stewart as Savannah Knoop, a young woman who spends six years pretending to be the celebrated author JT LeRoy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.
The cast also includes Laura Dern stars as Laura Albert, Jim Sturgess as Savannah’s brother, Geoffrey, Diane Kruger, Courtney Love, Stella Maxwell, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and more.
The trailer reveals how Stewart’s character started to portray JT LeRoy and accompanied Laura everywhere. Her life changes completely when she becomes a point of attraction and gets more and more attention, and also when she falls for a woman. “Nobody gives you anything, you have to take it,” Laura tells Savannah in one of the scenes, after learning that Savannah, whose true identity was uncovered, doesn’t want to keep playing a role anymore.
The song used in the trailer is the 2018 single “Understand” by California singer-songwriter Anna St. Louis, from her first full-length studio album, “If Only There Was a River”.
The film is set to be released in theaters, on demand and digital later this month, on April 26.
The JT LeRoy story came to surface in 2005, when The New York magazine’s October issue proved that the “it boy” wunderking JT LeRoy, whose prose about a sordid childhood had became an international best-seller, didn’t actually exist, but was the creative expression of 40-year-old San Francisco former phone-sex operator turned housewife Laura Albert.
