Nicolas Cage has joined the cast of the Oliver Stone-directed feature film Snowden, which tells the story of controversial NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Filming in Germany has already begun, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role. Cage has been cast as a U.S. intelligence officer.

Playing Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills is Shailene Woodley, known for the Divergent film franchise and The Fault in Our Stars. The cast also features Melissa Leo (The Equalizer), Tom Wilkinson (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek: Into Darkness), Rhys Ifans (Elementary), Joely Richardson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Timothy Olyphant of TV’s Justified.

Besides directing the film, Stone also wrote the screenplay, which is based on two books—The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, by Luke Harding; and the novel Time of the Octopus, by Snowden’s Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena. Harding’s book chronicles what happened when Snowden moved from Hawaii to Hong Kong, where he gave the NSA documents to journalist Glenn Greenwald. Kucherena’s novel focuses on the period during which the former information analyst spent time in Russia,waiting to be granted asylum by the government in Moscow while the U.S. government demanded his extradition so he could be tried for leaking classified information.

This is the second time Cage has worked with Stone. He previously starred in Stone’s World Trade Center. Cage will also soon be seen in another political drama, The Runner, and in the thriller Men with No Fear, both premiering later this year.

Snowden will open in theaters on Dec. 25.