Joseph Gordon-Levitt Shares First Look at SNOWDEN

The story of Edward Snowden is already an Oscar-winning tale. CitizenFour, the film chronicling his flight from America, won Best Documentary at the recent Oscars. Director Oliver Stone is going to try his hand at telling bringing Snowden's journey to the big screen in the appropriately named Snowden.

Stone cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his film's lead. The actor posted on Facebook the first official photo from Snowden on Tuesday. This image isn't exactly what we traditionally think of when Snowden's name comes up, trading his crooked classes for army fatigues.

"I was surprised when I first learned this about Snowden — that he enlisted in the US Army in 2004," Gordon-Levitt wrote on Facebook. "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."

Gordon-Levitt also shared a behind-the-scenes pic from Snowden, posting a selfie of himself in the more typical Snowden look with Stone in the background.

"Today's scenes felt like a really good way to start this shoot," the actor wrote. "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!' ... This is gonna be Oliver's twentieth film, and I feel so sincerely privileged that he asked me to play this part."

Snowden will hit theaters on Dec. 25 and star Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Nicolas Cage, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, Joely Richardson and Timothy Olyphant.