Director Justin Kelly and Savannah Knoop talk about 'Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy' and Kristen with Vanity Fair

Since Kristen Stewart left the Twilight franchise, she’s used her star power to help get a series of thoughtful, indie movies made—the latest being Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, Justin Kelly’s fascinating film about the the wildest literary hoax of our lifetime. That the story also examines gender fluidity—a subject on which Stewart has spoken about before—and thoughtfully probes issues of identity may have been an added allure for the César-winning actress.

In the film, which premieres this week at the Toronto Film Festival, Stewart stars as Savannah Knoop, the artist who helped author Laura Albert (played in the movie by Laura Dern) dupe the public into believing the myth of JT LeRoy. Albert wrote three books under LeRoy’s name, and pretended to be the pseudonymous persona—purportedly a teenage boy who wrote semi-autobiographical fiction—over e-mail and phone. Knoop, who was Albert’s sister-in-law, donned a blond wig and sunglasses to play LeRoy in public, fooling a cult of famous fans including Courtney Love (who has a cameo in the film), Gus Van Sant, Madonna, Winona Ryder, Carrie Fisher, and Bono. Though there have been other movies made about the hoax, Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy—which is based on Knoop’s memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy—is the first to be told from Knoop’s perspective.

After Stewart got ahold of the script, she reached out to Kelly, whose previous films I Am Michael and King Cobra explore queer issues. (Kelly joked that the LeRoy movie is the third in an “accidental trilogy.”) Stewart immediately won Kelly over with “her energy and her thoughts on the story, and the fact that, at the time, she was kind of going through a very similar trajectory as JT, dealing with issues of sexuality and being in the public eye kind of thing,” he said.

In preparing for the role—a complicated exercise in playing a character who is playing another as the primary character transforms—Stewart met with the real-life Knoop and did extensive research.

“One of the main things that felt clear as Kristen and I met was that she had studied JT’s character from all of the various public sources, and had it down,” Knoop e-mailed Vanity Fair on Monday. “She is a skillful physical mimic and, I remember, one of the first days on set, seeing her do a sort of turned updown smile that was more of a nervous grimace, and thinking, that’s JT! There was also a clap with flat, stiff palms—jilted and emotional. She really perfectly captured the discomfort of Laura’s character, as well as the headspace of me playing that character. She had also read my memoir, Girl Boy Girl, so she had all of the emotional mapping from that, and when we came together I could feel her pocketing Sav solo gestures as well. The main point that I gave her was to play Savannah as someone open, and curious; someone who could discover themselves by going deeply into JT’s character.”

The film is part coming-of-age love story, as Savannah—while in disguise as JT—falls for an actress named Ava Avalon (Diane Kruger). Boundaries are blurred on different levels as the two have a fling, and Savannah finds herself pulled between her affection for Ava—who does not know her true identity—and a boyfriend in San Francisco, who does.

Given the complexity of the story, it took Kelly and Knoop—who met through a mutual friend in 2009—nine years’ worth of script drafts until, as Knoop wrote, “the logistics faded and the emotions materialized as one clear trajectory.” Like Stewart, Dern also expertly inhabits alter egos including Speedie, a British handler who accompanied Knoop’s LeRoy while traveling.

When Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy filmed in Winnipeg last summer, Knoop got along so well with Stewart and Dern that the co-screenwriter extended what was supposed to be a several-day visit. “The vibe of us all being there was just so on point,” said Kelly, reminiscing about evenings at his Airbnb discussing the script over wine and Thai takeout.

Before filming, Kelly asked Van Sant—whom Kelly considers a mentor—for his blessing on the project. Kelly was heartened to find that both the filmmaker and Love supported the movie, in spite of the fact that they had been duped by its characters. “I think in Courtney’s mind and Gus Van Sant’s, [the hoax is] too weird and brilliant to be that upset about,” said Kelly. “Like, you feel weird at first, and then it’s like, ‘Well, I’m not going to be butthurt for the rest of my life.’”

Asked what Kelly learned about human nature from being steeped in this hoax for nine years, Kelly paraphrased something Albert once said herself: “You can create a character, get someone to believe you, and then drop your accent or take the wig off, and people will still believe who you are. Because who you said you are is so ingrained in their mind that they’re not just going to stop believing it. Savannah, as JT, would at times take the wig off. There are photos of Savannah as JT looking so much like her real self—a woman—but people still believed it.” (Today, Knoop prefers they/them pronouns.)

The film’s lesson about human nature can be applied to current events as well. “I don’t want to get political, but in our current climate, there is another character right now who’s very JT-esque—who has messy hair, a signature hat, and lies out of his teeth,” said Kelly. “But people just keep believing and believing and believing, even when every single thing he says is revealed to be a complete lie. There are a lot of correlations right now with what’s going on in politics and JT. It’s really funny to me—this ability to spin lies and get people to believe you even when those lies can be completely debunked.”

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