The actress replaces Kate McKinnnon, who was originally cast as the disgraced Theranos founder.
Following her recent Oscar nomination for Mank, Amanda Seyfried has just locked in her next big role as Elizabeth Holmes, the former founder and CEO of Theranos, in the Hulu limited series The Dropout. The actress replaces Kate McKinnon, who was originally cast in the true-crime drama.
Adapted from the ABC Radio podcast about the rise and fall of Holmes and her Silicon Valley-based company, The Dropout will chronicle the true story of an American businesswoman who managed to raise billions of dollars over false claims of developing a revolutionary blood test. After authorities got involved, she was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
While her case is still playing out in court, her story was first captured in the 2018 nonfiction book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, which served as the basis for the 2019 HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, which came out at the same time as the ABC Radio podcast.
In an interview with ET, Inventor producer Jessie Deeter explained how deep Holmes' manipulative world ran -- even after she got into trouble. “When I spoke with [Elizabeth] in the fall of 2017, the SEC hadn’t yet come out with all of those multitudes of allegations against her,” Deeter said. “So our team didn’t know about that. But she knew about that. She acted as if she was going to be moving forward [with our documentary].”
But in the end, their relationship fell apart with Deeter adding, “She lied to me quite a bit.”
For Seyfried, this marks her second time portraying a real-life figure after receiving critical acclaim and awards recognition for embodying Marion Davies in David Fincher’s film about the making of Citizen Kane. Mank has earned her nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes and the upcoming Oscars.
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