Amanda Seyfried almost turned down the role of Elizabeth Holmes for Hulu’s The Dropout
She was dealing with a lot at the beginning of the pandemic okay?!
Aux News Amanda Seyfried
Days before Amanda Seyfried is set to make her debut as Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu original series The Dropout, she is reflecting on how she almost passed on the role completely.
After Kate McKinnon left the project in order to play Carole Baskin for Peacock’s Joe Vs. Carole series, Seyfried was tapped to play Holmes, which she initially turned down. Like the rest of us, the pandemic was posing numerous challenges for her and taking on the role of the Theranos fraudster seemed like the least of her concerns.
“Listen, I was having a fucking moment, OK?” she explains in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I had COVID. I was isolating in the basement of a gross townhouse in Savannah, Georgia, because my husband was working on a movie there. And now an L.A. shoot? Pass!”
However, after coming down from her COVID-fever, Seyfried called her agents to let them know she’d take the role. “It’s really going to be difficult,” she recalls telling them at them time. “It’s a huge challenge. But I can’t believe that I get a challenge like this.”
We would say that the role of Elizabeth Holmes is a once in a lifetime role, but with another Theranos feature helmed by Adam McKay and starring Jennifer Lawrence, The Dropout joins a wave of depictions of Silicon Valley meltdowns including Apple TV+’s WeCrashed about WeWork and Showtime’s Battle For Uber starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. We’re living in The Social Network-era of television and film, that’s for sure.
Once Seyfried got on board, another challenge came into fruition: Holmes’ now-infamous (and allegedly faked) deep, hollow voice.
“I knew my voice was never going to be as deep as hers because I’m physically not capable of it,” Seyfried says. “Besides, I promised I wasn’t going to give myself a hard time and try to completely mimic this other human being. It’d be impossible. And just not fun.”
Well, from the trailer it looks like she aced it, and hopefully had some fun along the way. The Dropout premieres on Hulu on March 3.
26 Comments
Take THAT gross Savannah, Georgia townhouse owner!
If it wasn’t for Seyfried I probz would have skipped this series, I’m just happy she’s able to be recognized for the force she is in her recent roles.I wonder where all this recent fascination in big time con artists is stemming from. Some kind of recognition about how capitalism and business ventures are a whole lot of smoke and mirrors but then it’s this weird idea that there’s something sympathetic about these frauds. It’s like some topsy turvy Robin Hood era.
Sympathetic? Who do you know who feels sympathy for Holmes, Kalanik or Neumann?
Maybe “empathetic” would be a better term.
I feel Anna Sorokin’s netflix show, the new WeWork show trailer, and this shows trailer all try to garner some ability to understand the characters. I was just wondering where the appetite is coming from all the sudden for this kind of media. People seem to admire Anna Sorokin now as some Robin Hood type character when that’s not what she was.It seems people still feel conflicted about Holmes since she seemed invested in her idea, but that was literally all she had, was an idea.
I’m all for understanding them, particularly what they thought was really going to happen when hard reality caught up to them. But honestly I’ve worked in business long enough to have seen founders who would rather go down with the ship (taking everyone with them) than admit a misstep. So with Holmes in particular it may be as simple as that. I get the impression Neumann got a machine cranking but other than riling employees and investors up at corporate events didn’t seem all that bright, certainly not capable of running a multi-billion dollar company. And I guess Kalanik was just a dick who ended up with the resources to selfishly act on base impulses. But I’m going to watch all three.As for appetite, WeWork and Theranos were both originally popular podcasts so there was a built-in audience. Plus movies like Moneyball, The Social Network and The Big Short have all proven to be winners with audiences.
totally fair and my appetite seems just as eager for a lot of these stories as everyone else, so sometimes it’s just fun trying to make sense of why we collectively attach ourselves to certain stories. Are we really interested in the individual or that one individual can really fuck things up so bad in the capitalist machine. I guess the fascination is how they managed to dupe so many people, the gall of it all and what similarities these personalities have to one another.In the Anna Sorokin case, although she wanted to be a member of the elite, she also wasn’t wrong that for a lot of the high society people she took advantage of, it really was chump change for them. I don’t sympathize with her, but I didn’t sympathize with a lot of the people she stole from either (aside from the ones that seemed like actual working class friends).
You see Sorokin types pop up every now and then and yeah, for a lot of these people I’m sure they feel more embarrassed than financially strapped after being taken by her. Just a talented grifter.But as someone who works in finance, the “how they managed to dupe so many people” part is fascinating to me. The amount of due diligence that goes into deals 1/100th this size is arduous. In Holmes’ case she got a bunch of influential but not expert people to talk one another into investing (rather than biotech VCs that apparently wanted nothing to do with her), but even they should have had people making customer calls, getting third party tests of the equipment, etc. I mean basic, 101 type stuff. I doubt we’ll see much behind those scenes in the show but I’d love to get Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch on some truth serum and find out how they got played so badly.
Yeah, my wife worked for a while on the due diligence side at a large bank, and so it made sense to me Sorokin was never actually able to get her loan application approved. Now the people at a bank whose job it is to try to get such business to come to their bank—sure, they might well advocate for Anna. But banks usually set it up so these people—basically in sales—have to get through the people whose job it is to find reasons to say no (unless it is official policy not to, see mortgage bubble).So I don’t know how much of this is actually true, but when the show showed Anna keep insisting she was so close . . . nope. She likely wasn’t ever really close because the due diligence people were likely never going to say yes because she really didn’t do enough to actually fool them in the end.However, I don’t really know as much about the sorts of “venture” fundraising Theranos did. The implication, though, is there are equity investors in that world who have not so carefully set up their due diligence operations, and enough of them to unlock amazing amounts of funding in total.Anyway, I do feel like I personally have more to learn from Theranos. Sorokin—eh, crude scammer seduces lawyers and customer-facing bankers, but can’t get past due diligence, is not really an interesting story in terms of those details (the psychology is another matter).
I expect her calls with the actual bank credit underwriters went a lot like Jerry Lundegaard’s with his auto finance people. They know a rat when they smell it. And you’re right, it’s why originators aren’t allowed anywhere near the approval process. Theranos did get $500k seed money from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the biggest VCs in Silicon Valley. Think Peter Thiel giving Facebook $500k in The Social Network just to see what happens. But they are a tech shop, not biotech. That’s probably what she leveraged into convincing supposedly smart people to kick in much more down the road (that and lying to people who weren’t used to being lied to). “If DFJ believes in me, then so can you!”
Kalanik seems different from the others. Uber is still a valuable company, and his business model is still successful & copied by competitors.
“Hello . . . Neumann . . .”
More like:
OLDMAN!!!
I never quite get to a Robin Hood vibe personally. Because while they take from the rich, the giving to the poor part does not seem to be on their agenda.But I do think people get some visceral pleasure from just the taking from the rich part. Even if it was for selfish reason, and even if the viewer knows on some level that some not-so-rich people might have gotten hurt too, the idea of those particular targets falling for a scam is understandably pleasurable.
Hmmm, I wouldn’t say sympathetic and nor do I view them as any kind of Robin Hood, topsy-turvy or no. I am fascinated by people who bought into their own line of bull and when they actually realized that it was bull-and kept doing it anyway. Kalanick doesn’t fall into this since his company is working, but I am here for a take down of the bro-culture that is Silicon Valley. Am also curious to see if they are really narcissistic sociopaths (Delvey) or something else. I’m not sure any kind of limited series could do that though.
I can understand the fascination with these people and stories, but as a form of passive entertainment? Doesn’t work for me.
Tech journalists seemed a lot more fascinated with Elizabeth Holmes, WeWork etc than the general public (or possibly even their own readers.) Hollywood FOMO may have caused studios to snatch the stories up thinking there was massive interest.But really, do mainstream viewers care? It’s not surprising tech is as shady and corrupt as any other part of the corporate world.
Wish we got more of her in Twin Peaks. Either in more Twin Peaks or LynchTV in general. It’s agonizing knowing Covid postponed “Unrecorded Night” and I can’t deal with the fans parsing his weather vids for clues. AND IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT, IT’S A THURSDAY ONCE AGAIN!
If she was staying in a “gross” townhouse in Savannah, that’s on her. Once of the coolest cities in the country, with incredible historic architecture.Glad she took the role, though!
Not really. It’d be on the production that housed her husband there. No need to be so defensive, surely despite being a lovely place it has some places that aren’t fun to be in Covid isolation.
Fair enough – I doubt they chose it. It’s just the first time I’ve heard of townhouse lodging in Savannah described as gross (especially for someone spending a little $$).
She’s rich and successful.
Her definition of “gross” probably isn’t mine.
These actors! Taking roles, turning them down! Sometimes even changing their minds about it; as though it were their job or something.
From what I have seen it doesn’t seem like Theranos is profiting from this the way that the asshole scammer is from the corrupt netflix series. That’s good, and also goes with how I rate Seyfried vs. that other actress. I’m glad she took the part and I think we’ll all feel she killed it. Some of these have to have SOME fucking integrity, right?
“(and allegedly faked)“In the same way that I’m allegedly obese?