The trailer for Oliver Stone’s fact-based thriller Snowden has given us our first look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt in action as the polarising former CIA employee.

The film, which has been delayed from its original release date last year, follows the journey of Edward Snowden from the army to the CIA and then his resulting infamy as he leaked classified information about global surveillance programs. It is based on The Snowden Files by Guardian reporter Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena.

Gordon-Levitt is joined by Melissa Leo as documentary film-maker Laura Poitras, Tom Wilkinson as Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill and Zachary Quinto as lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald. The film also stars Rhys Ifans, Nicolas Cage and Shailene Woodley.

Stone co-wrote the screenplay with The Homesman writer Kieran Fitzgerald and decided to shoot the film outside of the US as he worried about NSA interference. He also met the real Snowden with Gordon-Levitt before production began.

“I left knowing without a doubt that what [Snowden] did, he did because he believed it was the right thing to do, that he believed it would help the country he loves,” said Gordon-Levitt in a Guardian interview from 2015. “Now, as he would say, it’s not for him to say whether it was right or wrong. That’s really for people to decide on their own, and I would encourage anybody to decide that on their own.”

The actor says he has will be donating his entire salary from the film to “help facilitate the conversation” about the relationship between technology and democracy.

Both star and director are coming off the back of major failures with Stone’s crime thriller Savages receiving mixed reviews and Gordon-Levitt’s Philippe Petit biopic The Walk bombing at the box office.

Snowden will be released in the US on 16 September with a UK release yet to be announced