The Dropout, a new release on Disney Plus in the UK and Hulu in the US, tells an extraordinary story that people may have become familiar with over the past few years concerning self-made billionaire Elizabeth Holmes.
Portrayed by Mamma Mia star Amanda Seyfried, the eight-part series follows Elizabeth from her time as a college student at Stanford inventing a new medical device to creating a company worth billions of dollars called Theranos.
While Elizabeth’s story seemed like a business maven’s fairytale, under the surface, Theranos was built on a foundation of lies, that not only concerned people who had invested millions into the firm, but also patients who were informed the blood-testing gadget could benefit their lives.
Several of The Dropout’s cast spoke about the the inspiration that they took for their performances and what they knew of Elizabeth’s story before taking on the roles.
The drama, which originally had Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon as the lead star, shines a light on a series of events that seem almost too outlandish to be real.
So is the rise and fall of Theranos and Elizabeth based in truth?
Is The Dropout based on a true story?
The Dropout is indeed inspired by a true story, but as it is a dramatisation rather than a documentary, certain elements of the story have inevitably been tweaked.
The show is based on the podcast of the same name by Rebecca Jarvis and ABC Audio which followed Elizabeth’s career, all the way from dropping out of Stanford University to becoming the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire in 2003.
The podcast delved deeply into the story, interviewing people closely linked to Elizabeth, including former employees, investors and patients, so as to explore the controversial tale in as great detail as possible.
Elizabeth Marvel, who plays Elizabeth’s mother Noel Holmes in the drama, emphasised that they didn’t want to simply ‘impersonate’ the characters in the script.
‘I think when you’re creating something you don’t want to do just an impersonation, and this isn’t a documentary, it’s not docu-drama,’ she said.
‘We are telling a story and so much of it is about her younger years, her childhood, her upbringing, and so although it is based on that information, it’s definitely our interpretation, our storytelling that you are receiving.’
Elizabeth also stressed how The Dropout’s creator Elizabeth Meriweather, who previously helmed New Girl, focused on telling the ‘story of the human being of Elizabeth Holmes’.
‘I feel like we all know the Elizabeth Holmes with the blonde hair and the black turtleneck in Silicon Valley, but we don’t know the story of Elizabeth when she was eight, when her father lost his job, how the family fell apart,’ she stated.
‘We don’t know what made her who we see today, and as people follow the trial and the aftermath of the trial, it’s so important to understand the human being that’s walking through that, so I think this will be a wonderful opportunity because it goes deeper than any of the other things that are out there, it goes deeper into her personal story, her humanness.’
Succession star Alan Ruck plays Dr Jay Rosan in the limited series, one of the medical professionals who were swindled by Elizabeth on her mission to make Theranos a fortune-making firm.
Noting how he doesn’t look like Dr Jay, ‘so obviously the producers weren’t worried about that’, Alan expressed his belief that viewers are ‘interested in people who almost teal the world’, off the back of other recent deception-inspired releases including Inventing Anna and The Tinder Swindler.
‘Somebody shoots for the moon and makes a fool of themselves. It’s a cautionary tale every time, and so I just think there’s something deep in all of us that wants to know about that so we can avoid falling into those traps, I think,’ he said.
He also added that he hasn’t reached out to Dr Jay, as the real-life figure is ‘not portrayed in the nicest light’ in The Dropout.
Michaela Watkins stars in the drama as Linda Tanner, an in-house lawyer who works for Theranos.
While her character is a fictional addition to the cast, she outlined how Linda is likely an ‘amalgamation of the in-house team’.
For her performance, the actor took inspiration from video footage she saw of a celebration over an FDA approval taking place at Theranos, when she watched a woman who works for the company dancing to Pump Up The Volume.
‘I thought, that’s who she is, she’s someone who is so excited to be on the winning team, she’s all in at Theranos and she’s going to do whatever she can because she thinks this is the winning team,’ she said.
The Dropout is available to watch on Disney Plus.
Credit: Original article published here.You can read this post on My Celebrity Life.