Elizabeth Holmes Has Yet To Address The Dropout

Those wondering what exactly Elizabeth Holmes thinks of The Dropout, Hulu’s new series about Holmes’ rise and fall in Silicon Valley, may not get an answer anytime soon.

Early reviews of the limited series, which was adapted from the ABC podcast of the same name, have been mostly positive. Many critics have lauded Amanda Seyfried’s convincing portrayal of the eponymous Stanford dropout, and praised showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether’s handling of the story. “The Dropout nails the ‘vastness,’ illustrating how a charismatic leader, even one as magnificently awkward as Holmes, could make people buy their snake oil and ignore increasingly unavoidable realities,” reads one review.

Holmes, however, has yet to chime in with her thoughts. Since she was found guilty on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud earlier this year, she’s stayed out of the spotlight. Holmes is currently awaiting her sentencing, which will be announced in Sept. 2022.

Despite Holmes’ silence, there’s been no shortage of media attention on her in the days leading up to The Dropout’s release. In addition to the new Hulu series, the Theranos story will be covered in a 20/20 special premiering Friday, March 4. The two-hour special will offer further insight to Holmes’ 15-week trial and ultimate conviction, and will also take viewers behind the scenes of The Dropout, with interviews from Seyfried and actor Naveen Andrews (who plays Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Holmes’ former boyfriend and Theranos’ onetime COO).

Seyfried, who took on the role in The Dropout after SNL’s Kate McKinnon exited the project, went to great lengths to prepare for the part, studying Holmes’ voice and mannerisms, and reviewing hours upon hours of footage and deposition tapes. Ultimately, the 36-year-old actor interpreted Holmes’ “robotic” tendencies — from her allegedly manufactured voice to her piercing stare — as “a sign of trying to listen and to show someone that you’re listening and invested. That’s how I took it. It is bizarre and robotic looking, but if I played her like a robot from the jump, that would be uninteresting and not realistic,” Seyfried told Vanity Fair last month. “I’m not diagnosing her with anything. For the sake of our show, she’s a human being.”