Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone film

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt will portray National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in an upcoming film written and directed by Oliver Stone.

Stone, who described the Snowden NSA files leak as "one of the greatest stories of our time," will base the film on two books -- reporter Luke Harding's The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man and Anatoly Kucherena's Time of the Octopus.

Variety reported back in September that Gordon-Levitt was in talks for the role, though a firm deal was still in the works.

Gordon-Levitt is also slated to appear in 2015's The Walk, chronicling high-wire artist Philippe Petit's 1974 walk between the Twin Towers.

Snowden now lives in Moscow, more than a year after he leaked classified documents regarding the NSA's global surveillance program.

Another Snowden film, based on Glenn Greenwald's No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the N.S.A. and the U.S. Surveillance State, is also in the works at Sony Pictures Entertainment.