Jennifer Lawrence has revealed that she backed out of the Adam McKay-directed Elizabeth Holmes movie upon watching Amanda Seyfried’s Emmy-winning portrayal of the Theranos fraudster on the Hulu miniseries The Dropout.
In an interview with The New York Times for her upcoming drama Causeway, Lawrence praised Seyfried’s performance while also providing an update on her Don’t Look Up collaborator’s long-developing Theranos project Bad Blood. “I thought she was terrific,” she shared. “I was like, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to redo that.’ She did it.”
Lawrence’s sentiment was all but confirmed when Seyfried was awarded the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Despite Seyfried’s definitive grasp on the enigmatic startup founder, Lawrence couldn’t help but inhabit the role just a bit during her interview. She apparently arrived in a black turtleneck and remarked, “I tried on a hundred outfits for this and ended up just looking like Steve Jobs… or Amanda Seyfried.”
Bad Blood is set to adapt Washington Post reporter John Carreyrou’s 2018 book of the same name, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley. The project, to be written and directed by McKay, was picked up by Apple Original Films in December 2021.
Although losing the film’s central figure is undoubtedly a major snag for the Bad Blood production, it should be noted that Seyfried herself wasn’t the first actor attached to lead The Dropout. Instead, Kate McKinnon was originally tapped to don Holmes’ black turtleneck and baritone voice in 2019.
Causeway stars Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry. It begins streaming on November 4th via Apple TV+.