Claim: Eddie Redmayne acted in a 2006 spy film.

The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie , with an extensive supporting cast . Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events , it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency . The film 's main character , Edward Wilson -LRB- portrayed by Matt Damon -RRB- , is loosely based on James Jesus Angleton and Richard M. Bissell . This was Joe Pesci 's first film appearance after his six-year hiatus from acting between 1999 and 2005 . Eric Roth , the film 's screenwriter , began to work on the project after he abandoned his attempt to bring Norman Mailer 's Harlot 's Ghost to the screen . Like De Niro 's film , Mailer 's novel is a fictionalized chronicle of the C.I.A.