JT LeRoy — Official Trailer

source:   youtube.com

added: Thu, Apr 4th '19

Kristen Stewart becomes the public face for a reclusive best-selling author in the official trailer for "JT LeRoy," the stranger-than-fiction drama, which is based on the real-life scandal that rocked the literary world in 2006.

Emmy-winner Laura Dern (Big Little Lies) portrays Laura Albert, a middle-aged housewife who ends up writing a best-selling semi-biographical novel about the tragic, hardscrabble life of an unnamed drug-addicted teen boy whose mother was a truck-stop prostitute. The book was written under a made-up "avatar," an imaginary pseudonym.

Enter: Laura's sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop (Stewart). When the book becomes a must-read phenomenon, Savannah is coaxed into becoming the physical embodiment of Laura's fictional persona, a gender non-conforming literary wunderkind, named JT LeRoy.

Magazine interviews, book tours, celebrity parties, and movie deals soon follow. But when the weight of the lie becomes too much to bear, Savannah tries to find a way out before the truth is exposed.

Co-starring Jim Sturgess, Diane Kruger, Courtney Love, and Kelvin Harrison Jr., the film is written and directed by indie filmmaker Justin Kelly (King Cobra, I Am Michael).

"JT LeRoy" is hitting theaters and on VOD April 26th. Watch the trailer, above.

synopsis:
Based on Savannah Knoop’s memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy, this captivating true story goes beyond the headlines to tell the story of the most compelling literary 'hoax' of recent times. Laura Albert (Laura Dern) writes as her "avatar," a disenfranchised young queer man named JT LeRoy. When her debut novel becomes a best-seller and JT becomes the darling of the literary world, she comes up with a unique solution to preserve her anonymity but give life to her nom-de-plume.

Enter her boyfriend's androgynous fun-loving sister Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart), who connects with Laura’s punk, feminist, outsider universe and agrees to be JT in the public eye. Together, they embark on a wild ride of double lives, infiltrating the Hollywood and literary elite, only to discover who they are while pretending to be someone else.

 

directed by   Justin Kelly

starring   Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Jim Sturgess, Diane Kruger, Courtney Love, Kelvin Harrison Jr.

release date   April 26, 2019 (in theaters and on VOD/Digital)