Written and directed by Billy Ray in his feature directorial debut, the film is based on a 1998 Vanity Fair article of the same name by H. G. Bissinger[4] and chronicles Glass' fall from grace when his stories were discovered to be fabricated.

Reporter Charles Lane is promoted by Peretz to replace Kelly, despite being disliked by the staff due to his cold reputation.

Glass writes a story entitled "Hack Heaven" that details a teenage hacker being hired by a large software firm he infiltrated.

The story reaches Forbes Digital Tool, where reporter Adam Penenberg finds no corroborating evidence for what Glass described.

When contacted by Penenberg about being unable to reach the individuals in his story, Glass provides a number with a Palo Alto area code for the firm that, when dialed, goes immediately to voicemail.

Caroline Goodall portrays Highland Park High School teacher Mrs. Duke in the classroom sequences imagined by Glass.

Louis Philippe Dandenault, Morgan Kelly, Christian Tessier, James Berlingieri, and Brett Watson appear as the Young Republicans described in one of Glass's stories.

Making uncredited appearances are Sean Cullen as The New Republic's attorney and the film's editor Jeffrey Ford as the voice of a security guard at the magazine's office.

The challenge for Ray was to make the subject matter watchable because, according to the filmmaker, "watching people write is deadly dull ... in a film like this, dialogue is what a character is willing to reveal about himself, and the camera is there to capture everything else".

[8] He used the Bissinger article as a starting point, which gave him a line of dialogue on which to hook the entire character of Glass: "Are you mad at me?"

[10] The character of Caitlin Avey is an amalgamation of Glass's friends and The New Republic allies Hanna Rosin and Jonathan Chait.

[9] Early on, he spent a considerable amount of time trying to earn the trust of the people who had worked with Glass and get them to understand that he was going to be objective with the subject matter.

Lionsgate lawyers asked Ray to give them an annotated script where he had to footnote every line of dialogue and every assertion and back them up with corresponding notes.

[14] He shot both halves of the film differently – in the first half, he used hand-held cameras in the scenes that took place in the offices of The New Republic, but when the Forbes editors begin to question Glass, the camerawork was more stable.

[19] Premiere's Glenn Kenny wrote, "it's Peter Sarsgaard, as the editor who serves Glass his just desserts [sic], who walks away with the picture, metamorphosing his character's stiffness into a moral indignation that's jolting and, finally, invigorating".