Amanda Seyfried is dropping her opinion on Elizabeth Holmes’ prison sentence in the mix.
The Emmy winner “Dropout,” who played the founder of Theranos in the Hulu limited series, faced Holmes’ 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors in the medical start-up.
“There are two children hanging in the balance here. As a parent, just like a mom,” Seyfried said while promoting the new series ‘The Crowded Room’ on ‘Good Morning America’, adding, ‘Life isn’t fair, but in many ways it is. It’s right for her, especially.
Theranos has raised nearly $1 billion from investors and has been valued at nearly $4.5 billion since its founding in 2003. The company was dissolved in 2018; Holmes and former partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to investors.
Seyfried previously told IndieWire that she was drawn to ‘The Dropout’ as the series approached Holmes’ case “from a very non-judgmental point of view,” which in turn allowed Seyfried to completely dissolve into character. .
“You distance yourself from the real person if they’re still alive, which I felt helped a lot. We weren’t allowed to talk to her anyway and she wasn’t allowed to talk to us,” Seyfried said of Holmes. “She Who knows what that would have been like, but thank God because I think I tend to approach people and see the good immediately, and I’ve definitely gotten myself into trouble in the past. The more kids I have, the more boundaries they build, it’s great. From now on if I’m going to play someone who’s around, I, for the sake of my experience playing this person, it’s safe to keep my distance.
Holmes later told The New York Times that his on-screen portrayals “don’t play me, they play a character I created.”
A fictionalized adaptation of the non-fiction book (and later HBO documentary) “Bad Blood” was to star Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes, with Adam McKay directing. The feature film was confirmed in January 2021, but Lawrence reportedly dropped out of the role after seeing Seyfried’s turn as Holmes.
Second New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan Lawrence said, “I thought she was amazing. I was like, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to do this again.’ She did it.”
