Amanda Seyfried Plays Elizabeth Holmes Again — Inside the Twist

By Elena Vasquez

Amanda Seyfried returns to play Elizabeth Holmes halfway through "You Can See Everything," the new documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim now playing in theaters. Seyfried won an Emmy for playing the Theranos founder in Hulu's 2022 series "The Dropout." Now she reenacts her again — this time inside a documentary about the real woman.

The film chronicles the 34 days before Holmes began an 11-year prison sentence for fraud. Fielder stages the Seyfried twist only after Holmes is incarcerated, using the actress to interpret his odd interactions with a subject he can no longer reach freely.

Warning: major spoilers follow.

What does Seyfried actually do in the film?

Fielder recruits Seyfried for her take on his exchanges with Holmes, and the meta-conceit snowballs. Seyfried reenacts real-life moments that Fielder and Oppenheim could not capture on camera. She becomes a main character of the film's final half.

Christopher Abbott, of "East of Eden," joins her as Holmes' boyfriend Billy Evans in a smaller role. Together they recreate a private negotiation between Fielder, Oppenheim and the A24 team that took place before filming began.

In that reenactment, Seyfried's Holmes leaves the conversation to tend to her child. Abbott's Evans then demands payment for participating in the documentary. Fielder and Oppenheim, playing themselves, push back — they argue that paying the couple would severely discredit the film. A24 relents and agrees to pay.

Did Holmes know about the payment?

That question looms over the rest of the film. Did Holmes leave the room intentionally, buying herself deniability on a sketchy payment? Or did Evans go rogue and request the money alone?

Fielder eventually visits Holmes in prison. She says she did not know about the payment — a claim the film later recreates with Seyfried. At the end of the movie, viewers learn that Evans dropped his financial request, without further explanation.

Takeaway: the payment question is never resolved, and the film deliberately leaves it open.

What happens when Seyfried reads Holmes' words?

In the film's most meta moment, Seyfried — as Holmes — tells Fielder during their off-camera prison visit: "I don't want that to happen ever again," referencing "The Dropout." Holmes rants about how awful it is that women would "do that" to other women, blaming Seyfried and the entire "Dropout" team. She adds that many women incarcerated with her believe "The Dropout" depicted entirely real events.

Intercut with the reenactment, Seyfried appears as herself, reading Fielder's script built from his actual conversation with Holmes. Her guard goes up immediately. The actress argues that she "didn't do that to [Holmes]. She did that to herself," and later adds: "it's not lies. It's fucking TV."

Fielder, ever the documentarian, pushes back. He questions whether Seyfried's scenes in "The Dropout" were completely accurate. Seyfried acknowledges she does not know exactly what happened in Holmes' life. But she argues that Holmes' own behavior led to assumptions about her, and that neither she nor the show is at fault.

She said earlier in the film: "We're working in fiction-land" — but with "ridiculous amounts of research," including 10 hours of deposition tapes she studied for the 2022 role.

Who is the real Holmes on camera?

Seyfried told Fielder she will "reenact whatever you want me to reenact." When Fielder gently reminds her that she is "not [Holmes]," the actress asks: "Guess how many people believed I was her when I played her?" She answers with a smile: "A lot."

Seyfried herself struggles to decipher her subject. She is empathetic, noting that no woman would want to see another woman in a relationship with someone as manipulative as Evans. Yet she cannot tell whether Holmes is duping everyone — again. That push-and-pull between actress and imprisoned woman structures the film's final act.

The authenticity question extends to Fielder. He claims Seyfried's recreated scenes use Holmes' real speech. But viewers watch Fielder develop a warmth toward Holmes, and Seyfried questions whether he is protecting her with a kinder depiction. Is Fielder's kinship genuine, or is he playing a heightened version of himself to cast doubt on Holmes' intentions? The film never says.

It ends on a quote from a New York Times interview with Holmes about "The Dropout": "They're not playing me. They're playing a character I created." Holmes asserts throughout the film that the Times misquoted her — that she said "a character they created," not "I." The Times reporter has maintained the quote is accurate. That single, hotly debated word makes all the difference, and it leaves audiences wondering whether the on-camera Holmes is the real deal or a fictionalized dramatization of the woman herself.