Hitting theaters today from Universal Picture is J.T. Leroy, written and directed by Justin Kelly and starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Diane Kruger, Jim Sturgess, Courtney Love Cobain, and Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Based on the life rights of Savannah Knoop and her book “Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy.” The film recounts the true story of the JT LeRoy hoax, in which a female writer pretended to be a man who identifies as transgender, tricking the rich and famous in Hollywood, the fashion world and elite literary circles. After six years, The New York Times revealed that Leroy was just a literary persona.
Laura Albert (Dern) writes tough, insightful fiction under a pseudonym, JT LeRoy. Her JT is not just a pen name but a whole persona, a teenage boy from West Virginia living a dangerous life as a truck stop sex worker. Laura was born in Brooklyn a generation earlier, and grew up in New York’s punk scene. Writing books such as The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things as JT gives her complete freedom to explore the darker regions of human experience.
Readers love it. The media loves it. They love it so much that they begin to demand JT in person. As journalists press for interviews with JT, turmoil mounts with Laura’s husband Geoffrey (Jim Sturgess) and sister-in-law Savannah Knoop(Stewart). Partly from desperation, partly for kicks, they conspire to have Savannah don a wig and sunglasses, adjust her voice, and become the teenage boy author.
Kruger will play Eva, a French actress who brings JT to Paris, falls for him, then helps turn his life story into a film.
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