NEW YORK — Anna Delvey conned almost everyone she met: friends, sommeliers, designers, bankers. And she did it all in Manhattan, the most cynical place of all.
“Even though she’s complicated, even though she’s sociopathic at times, there’s something that people are drawn to,” Arian Moayed, who plays Delvey’s lawyer, Todd Spodek, in “Inventing Anna,” told the Daily News.
“There’s this energy. Everyone wanted to be in the business of Anna Delvey.”
“Inventing Anna,” which premiered Friday on Netflix, follows Delvey, played by Julia Garner, as she grifts her way through New York. She stole from hotels, private plane companies, members of elite society. She didn’t offer anything special or unique; even her $40 million idea, a Soho House but fancier and more focused on art, already existed. And yet she came, according to a jury of her peers, dangerously close to pulling off the con.
“There was nothing remarkable about this girl,” Katie Lowes, the Queens native who plays Delvey’s friend Rachel, told The News.
“She wasn’t the hottest. She wasn’t the most sexualized. She wasn’t a vibrant personality. But she behaved as if it were true.”
Alexis Floyd, who plays concierge Neff, credited Delvey’s energy: she walked into the room and demanded attention. The con artist didn’t have imposter syndrome; she truly believed she not just belonged but was the most important person there.
“She knows who she is and she knows what she wants,” Floyd told The News.
“She has really crafted a unique individual who was undeniable, even to the seasoned power-players of New York.”
Neff, who Floyd considers Delvey’s one true friend, already knew elite Manhattan society, but from the outside. She was the one who booked the appointments at the hair salon and the private trainers, who set up tours at the museums and galleries.
“I think of her as the keeper of the keys. She has this ringmaster energy,” Floyd said. “She knows these exclusive, exquisite New York experiences, but she’s never been invited. A seat at the table has never been made for her.”
Delvey was the first to invite her. By the end of Delvey’s trial, Neff was the only one who stuck around.
Both Lowes and Laverne Cox, who plays celebrity trainer Kacy Dukes, used the same word to describe Delvey: an algorithm. She knew exactly what to say, what to offer and what to ask for from every person. To friends, she promised luxuries and experiences they could never afford themselves. To the biggest financial institutions in New York, she promised a trust fund back home. She promised fame or redemption or opportunity.
“People get fascinated by the allure of who she is,” Moayed told The News.
“We are all susceptible to feeling hope and energy. She did that. She did that for maybe the wrong reasons, but she did that.”
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