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 "I don't know why, he just looked like, and felt like, and
acted like he was one of that generation, very much the same age
and computer knowledgeable," Stone told Reuters last month in
Los Angeles.
"Snowden," which had its world premiere on Friday at the Toronto
International Film Festival and hits theaters on September 16,
sees Gordon-Levitt, 35, play the 33-year-old Snowden through a
decade of his life.
Gordon-Levitt, who achieved fame as a child actor in television
series "3rd Rock from the Sun," said that by playing Snowden, he
hoped to understand his motivations.
"I was kind of trying to figure out why he did what he did, what
was going on in his head," he said. "And one of the questions
everyone asks is, 'Why didn't he just, you know, voice his
concerns through proper channels?'"
The film leads up to the events of 2013, when Snowden fled the
United States after exposing the government's mass surveillance
programs to journalist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker
Laura Poitras.
The U.S. government filed espionage charges against Snowden and
he was granted asylum in Russia, where he has lived since, with
his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. Actress Shailene Woodley plays
Mills in the film.
Gordon-Levitt said he related to Snowden's disillusionment with
the U.S. government after watching U.S. National Intelligence
director James Clapper deny, before a congressional committee,
that the NSA was collecting records on millions of Americans.
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"If the director of National Intelligence is being asked by a
senator under oath, 'Hey, is this happening?' and he's telling a
lie, well, then, what is some guy that works at the NSA going to
accomplish by complaining through proper channels?" the actor said.
Tech-savvy Gordon-Levitt, who said he donated his fee for the film
to the American Civil Liberties Union, is the founder of HitRecord,
an online collaborative creative hub to brings together artists from
around the world.
He said he tended to be optimistic about new technology but the
movie made him more aware of its negative aspects.
"It's worth being optimistic about all those things, but it's also
probably worth paying attention and considering what might the
downsides be of this new technology that we're inheriting," he said.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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