KEEPING THE HOLMES FIRE BURNING
The Dropout tells a tale of the rise and fall of ambitious Theranos founder
The Dropout Disney+, new episodes weekly
Amanda Seyfried pauses as she ponders the saga of Elizabeth Holmes, the fraudster who launched Theranos and built the health-tech company into a multibillion-dollar venture, despite not being able to create a product that anyone could use.
Is the story of Holmes, who attracted myriad investors to back her faulty blood-testing startup, a cautionary tale for unbridled ambition?
“If we see someone wanting to do good and having an amazing idea and being confident about it, that makes us feel safer,” Seyfried says. “We just want to believe it.”
Holmes's rise and fall is recounted in The Dropout, a Hulu miniseries on Disney+. Across eight chapters, the show follows Holmes's failed attempt to revolutionize health care by launching a company that could run hundreds of tests from a drop of blood. The disgraced entrepreneur was convicted of four counts of fraud and conspiracy in early January with her sentencing set to take place later this year.
Seyfried, who landed her breakout role as one of the Plastics in 2004's Mean Girls before going on to star in the Mamma Mia! franchise and scoring awards buzz in David Fincher's Mank, wasn't the first choice to play Holmes. Saturday Night Live's Kate Mckinnon was originally attached as the lead before she dropped out to play Carole Baskin in Peacock's Tiger King dramatization Joe vs. Carole. But when Seyfried got the offer to slip into Holmes's signature turtlenecks and adopt her unnerving deep voice, she jumped at the chance.
Chatting in a late afternoon video call on a recent Friday, Seyfried discussed the ambition that fuelled Holmes and why we can't resist watching a good train wreck story.
Q What most compelled you about the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos?
A How the hell did she get that many people to support her device? Everybody I meet says the same thing, “God that story is amazing,” which is precisely why the series was made. Hollywood is making shows about every grifter, every con, every fraud — we want to watch that. I'm no different from anyone else. I also want to watch a rise-and-fall train wreck.
Q Do you relate to her ambition?
A Not quite. I have ambition, for sure. I wouldn't have got where I am without it. But her ambition went over the edge. I think her ambition got in her way after awhile. It got her very far, and then she lost her footing. So I can't say I relate to it on that level. But I know it's important to have ambition.
Q What was the biggest challenge of playing her?
A It was playing the fall (from grace). I got to know her and started to care about her as a human being. She had just had a baby, the trial was happening, I was getting more information about the relationship between Sunny and Elizabeth. So it was hard to separate and it was tricky pulling myself back to stay focused on the story we were telling. When I was portraying the choices that she made that eventually led to her fraud conviction ... my psyche was in conflict.
Q Why do we gravitate to train wreck stories?
A Because it could be any of us. We're fallible. Even the smartest, most well-intentioned person can make a bad choice and it could all go wrong. We want to watch a cautionary tale and something scary. For me, it's satisfying to watch something about someone who has taken advantage of society get held accountable. It feels good to see justice being served. So you want to rise up with them and you want to watch them fall. But also, we're pretty complicit in helping a lot of these people rise in the ranks. Like how many people put money into her business without seeing a single device or test being done accurately? How did she do that? It's because of us, the collective.
Q What was your final assessment of her?
A There's something really beautiful about her. Maybe it's naiveté or just blind optimism. I don't know what it is. I still feel like there might be some innocence there, but I don't really know.