SILICON VALLEY SWINDLE
NEW Genre: Drama Available: Thu 3 March Season: 1 Episodes: 8 (first three eps from 3 March, then weekly) TVSW says: A fascinating account of a high-tech scam AMANDA SEYFRIED AND NAVEEN ANDREWS star in the true story behind a billion-dollar fraud
IN 2014, A Forbes article declared US businesswoman Elizabeth Holmes to be the ‘world’s youngest self-made female billionaire’. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur was the brains behind a seemingly groundbreaking blood test that was set to revolutionise the diagnoses of diseases.
A former college dropout, Holmes had taken the tech world by storm, with Wall Street rushing to invest in her company, Theranos, to the tune of a staggering $9 billion
But behind the scenes, the product was in trouble as scientists struggled to make the tech live up to Holmes’ grandiose claims. In 2015, a reporter from The Wall Street Journal published a damning article that exposed the company’s lies – and by 2018 Theranos had collapsed.
Now, a new eight-part drama brings the story to our screens, with Amanda Seyfried portraying Holmes, and Lost’s Naveen Andrews playing her ex-business partner and boyfriend Sunny Balwani.
‘Holmes was so convincing and able to lure investors in because she believed it herself,’ explains Seyfried, 36. ‘From a psychological point of view, if you want to believe something badly enough, then you can.’
In January, Holmes was found guilty on four counts of fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. She will be sentenced later this year.
The series co-stars William H Macy as inventor Richard Fuisz, and Alan Ruck as Jay Rosan, part of the team at pharmacy giant Walgreens, which invested heavily in Theranos.
Meanwhile, Stephen Fry plays tragic British biochemist
Ian Gibbons, who worked as chief scientist for Theranos, and who took his own life ahead of having to testify in a lawsuit about the company.
For Seyfried, one of the biggest challenges was capturing her character’s distinctive deep voice, which Holmes deliberately cultivated to give herself more gravitas.
‘In terms of the depth of the voice, I had to work hard to get there, as I speak at such a higher level than Holmes,’ she says. ‘I am a little worried about what viewers are going to say. But, at the end of the day, I’m an actor – I’m not her – and I did my best to try to capture the oddness of it.’