Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — On September 16, Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be seen on the big screen as a guy who hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since 2013: former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Snowden fled to Russia after leaking classified details of the U.S. government’s warrantless surveillance program, and unless he’s pardoned, if he ever returned to the U.S., he’d face charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Appearing on Live with Kelly, Levitt — who imitates the controversial figure uncannily onscreen — admitted he had “a lot of learning to do.”

“The truth is, when Oliver Stone…first offered me the job…First I was excited, because I was such a fan of Oliver Stone’s, but I realized I didn’t know anything about Edward Snowden.”

Part of the learning process was traveling to Russia to meet the man — who has faced death threats because of his actions. 

“I honestly, it was the first time in my life that I was like, ‘Is this gonna be safe?’ I’d…never done research for a part and wondered about my safety.”

He was “half-expecting” some kind of cloak and dagger maneuvering to get to Snowden once arriving in Russia, but in the end it was just a meeting at an office.

“The truth is it was pretty normal and boring,” Levitt recalled. “t was just me and him and his longtime girlfriendLindsay Mills, who’s played by Shailene Woodley in the movie, and the three of us talked for about four hours.”

Levitt relished the complexity of the movie’s point of view. 

“It’s true, I mean he did break the law by giving the classified information to journalists — and that’s an important distinction, it went to journalists…but the thing is the NSA was also breaking the law millions of times every day, and…violating our rights. So it’s, it’s not simple, it’s complicated: there were laws broken on both sides, uh, and the question is which side is worse?”

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