The world of Inventing Anna has a wide cast of characters based on real people, including Vivian Kent, the journalist who is bent on telling Anna Delvey's story. Vivian, who is played by actress Anna Chlumsky (best known for playing Amy in Veep and Veda in My Girl), is based on a real journalist, Jessica Pressler. Pressler wrote an article on Delvey (via The Cut), "Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track Of It," that served as a basis for the Netflix drama. Though Inventing Anna shows a fictionalized of Jessica meeting with Anna to write her piece, there are still elements of the real Jessica's backstory to explain.
In Inventing Anna, the character of Vivian writes for the fictional Manhattan magazine. At the start of the show, Vivian is in a career slump after an article she wrote about a Manhattan teenage stock-trading millionaire ended up being false because the subject made up the story. With her journalistic reputation tarnished, Vivian fights with her editors to allow her to write about Delvey instead of #MeToo stories on Wall Street. Inventing Anna follows Vivian as she investigates Anna while also heavily pregnant.
The real-life inspiration behind Vivian Kent's character, Jessica Pressler is originally from Massachusetts and got her BA in English from Temple University. She wrote for Philadelphia magazine and Philadelphia Weekly and freelanced for other magazines before moving to New York City and writing for New York magazine, where she was a contributing editor for over a decade. Pressler is also known for writing the true story article that inspired the 2019 film Hustlers titled "The Hustlers At Scores" (via The Cut). Pressler currently serves as a special correspondent for Vanity Fair.
Inventing Anna is not the first time a character based on Pressler has been portrayed on screen. In Hustlers, the character of Elizabeth, an investigative journalist, was played by Julia Stiles. Various scenes in Hustlers show Elizabeth interviewing Destiny (Constance Wu), trying to get to know the women involved in the hustling scam at the Moves nightclub. Pressler has said (via an interview with Katie Couric) that she had minimal involvement in the film but did give director Lorene Scafaria some notes. She also mentions that Julia Stiles visited her to ask her questions about her reporting process and incorporated some of her mannerisms into the character of Elizabeth.
Pressler was more involved behind the scenes of Inventing Anna. She is credited as a producer and gave notes to the writing team. Inventing Anna isn't always accurate, but Pressler has noted (via Shondaland) that certain events did actually happen, such as the fact that she had to fight to get her article idea approved. However, the details are naturally dramatized, as is typical for a television show that needs to elevate the excitement and drama to sustain interest. In the Shondaland interview, Pressler also says that Vivian's character is more confrontational than she was in real life, but she thinks "the confrontational attitude is just for television."
Though Pressler talked to creator Shonda Rhimes and Inventing Anna's writing team, she notes (via Julia Garner, who plays Anna Delvy in Inventing Anna, are "wonderful" and approved of their casting in Inventing Anna, as well as Anders Holm as Vivian's husband. Anna Chlumsky revealed (via Newsweek) that she studied Pressler's written work very closely in order to help herself understand the character she was playing.
It must be somewhat strange to witness a character based on one's own likeness in a show. Even though Pressler never imagined she'd be a major character in Inventing Anna, she seems to be taking it all in stride, based on interviews. Pressler was allowed to give to make Vivian a more accurate portrayal of the journalist, and the show was able to take her notes while also applying a creative license for the sake of entertainment. If Inventing Anna viewers are intrigued by Vivian, they may also find the real-life inspiration for the character just as interesting.