The heroine in Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" spearheaded one of the CIA's most successful missions, the hunting down and killing of Osama bin Laden.
But the real-life agent's record of service has been less than exemplary since the mission, according to the Washington Post.
Though she remains undercover, the operative was passed over for promotion, openly sparred with colleagues over credit for the bin Laden raid and came under scrutiny for her interactions with Bigelow and her filmmakers.
The female officer in her 30s — the agent portrayed by Jessica Chastain's character Maya– is combative and temperamental, the Post wrote citing unidentified agency sources.
Maya, which is not the real operative's name, is at times depicted as having near-messianic vigor for her work: When a female colleague is killed in an attack in Afghanistan, she says, "I believe I was spared so I could finish the job."
“She’s not Miss Congeniality, but that’s not going to find Osama bin Laden,” a former CIA associate, who added that the attention from filmmakers sent waves of jealousy through the agency’s ranks, told the Post.
Earlier this year, when she and a handful of employees were awarded the agency's Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the officer criticized her fellow recipients.
“She hit ‘reply all’ ” to an e-mail announcement of the awards, a former CIA official told the Post. The thrust of her message, the former official said, was: “You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.”
