Hot of the heels of Citizenfour winning for Best Documentary Feature at this years Oscars, production was getting underway on the factionalized take of the story. It’s being directed by Oliver Stone and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the NSA whistleblower. And today, Gordon-Levitt gave us a first look at himself in the role of Snowden.

Gordon-Levitt posted the first image, with the second being released later on:

JGL posted the following caption with the first image above:

“I was surprised when I first learned this about Snowden–that he enlisted in the US Army in 2004. He wanted to go fight in Iraq, but during basic training at Fort Benning, he broke both of his legs and received an administrative discharge. After that, he was still determined to serve his country (love him or hate him, you gotta admit the guy’s strong-willed) and so he ended up getting a job at the CIA, which is where his career in Intelligence began.

Today’s scenes felt like a really good way to start this shoot. It was hard, but of course, nowhere near as hard as real basic training. And me, I’m just honored and excited to be doing a soldier sequence with Oliver. I keep saying to myself: “fuck, this guy directed Platoon!””

There is no official synopsis as of yet, but the project also stars Shailene Woodley as Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, Zachary Quinto as journalist Glenn Greenwald, Tom Wilkinson as political reporter Ewen MacAskill; Timothy Olyphant as a CIA agent who befriends Snowden, Melissa Leo as Citizenfour director Laura Poitras, and Nicolas Cage as a former intelligence official. Rhys Ifans and Joely Richardson round out the cast.

This project is huge. After what Citizenfour did not just for documentaries or film, but for everything outside of the industry, Snowden is a big project. Bringing in Oliver Stone was such a great grab and then adding a cast like this one with Gordon-Levitt starring as Snowden? This one is already shaping up to be something special, just as the documentary was.

Snowden has a December 25th, 2015 release date. Directed by Oliver Stone starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Olyphant, Melissa Leo, Nicolas Cage, Rhys Ifans, and Joely Richardson.