Executive produced by showrunnerElizabeth Meriwether, the Hulu original seriesThe Dropouttells the story of Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), Theranos, and the deception that pulled the curtain back on the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire to reveal the fraud of it all. It’s a tale of ambition and big dreams, but all the optimism in the world couldn’t help the tech startup founder out of the hole she dug for herself when her attempt to revolutionize the healthcare industry turned out to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider,Sam Waterston(who plays George Shultz, a prominent investor in Theranos and former U.S. Secretary of State) talked about how familiar he’d been with this story when the project came his way, how people seem to fall for these types of scams too easily, seeing the incredible transformation Seyfried made in this role, the unique experience of telling a story that hasn’t fully reached its real-life conclusion yet, and howLaw & Orderhas been such an important part of his life.
Collider: When this came your way, how familiar were you with this story? Did you feel like this was something you had to learn more about?
SAM WATERSTON: Oh, I did have plenty to learn about it, but I had been following along in the news. It’s a fascinating story. I thought, from the get-go that, it was a story for our time. The only thing that’s strange about these stories about scammers is that essentially the story is not about the scammer, but the scamees, or us. We are so susceptible. Sometimes you get the impression that there they are just so devilishly clever, but really, we’re patsies. We fall for this stuff much too easily. No matter how smart we are and no matter how well-researched we think we are, people tell us things that we want to hear and we fall for it, much too easily. I think that’s the cautionary tale that’s behind this. On the other hand, Amanda Seyfried is a wonderful actress, and Elizabeth Holmes was an unbelievable scammer. There is skill involved. Elizabeth Holmes was really good at it, and Amanda does a wonderful job portraying that.
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One of the things that struck me in watching this is that, even though they don’t look exactly alike and probably don’t sound exactly alike, it’s uncanny how well Amanda Seyfried embodies Elizabeth Holmes. What was it like to do those scenes with her and to see the transformation that she would make?
WATERSTON: I don’t know how you channel being a snake charmer, but boy, I thought she did it. From the first scene that I shot on the show with her, she was amazing.
This is such an interesting story because there were so many red flags, and it feels like the red flags had red flags that were screaming at people to not keep going with this. What do you think it was, for your character in particular, that just really kept him on the hook and dug in, even when his own family was telling him that he might be wrong?
WATERSTON: Yeah. First, there was belief. Then, there was investment. And then, there was the hope that the investment would come to fruition. Then, you’re not just protecting your own conclusions, but you’re trying to protect your investment, which makes it harder to hear the truth. The truth threatens your money.
George Shultz also didn’t seem like a guy who really liked to admit that he was wrong or made an incorrect judgment.
WATERSTON: I don’t know. I don’t know enough to know about that. I recognize what you’re saying, and of course, you wonder that, very often, about people who’ve been involved in politics. There’s a nevertheless, onward attitude that people seem to develop when they work in the world at that level. But I don’t know how much that applied to George Shultz.
How unique of an experience was it to be telling a story that was still playing out in real time? There still isn’t really a final conclusion to all of this yet.
WATERSTON: No, there isn’t, and it’s a legitimate question, whether telling history before it’s happened is an okay thing to do, before it’s become actual history. But for the reasons we’ve been discussing this story, it shouldn’t wait and couldn’t wait. It needed to be out there. We need to think about this for ourselves. We don’t need to think, “Oh, what an evil and wicked schemer Elizabeth Holmes was,” but how susceptible we are.
It really makes you wonder how Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani ever got to the point where they thought it was okay to be doing all of this.
WATERSTON: That’s really interesting. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I have a feeling, from having read it, that you’re gonna get a real sense of how that happens to a person, and it’s fascinating. How do you start with a brilliant idea, and then wind up telling a whole chain of lies like that? You can see how it would happen, and it’s awful because it could happen to you or it could happen to me, if we were to get in too deep and not be able to figure out how to climb out and be too beguiled by all the things that come with the fibs, which turn into lies, and then gigantic scams.
It feels like maybe it came from this innocent place of her just wanting to succeed because nobody thought she could, but it all just got so out of control there was no way to reign any of it back in. It’s such a fascinating character study.
WATERSTON: Yes, I agree with you. As all actors do, you may think that this is a story about what happened to a grandfather and his grandson, but it’s not. It’s the story you’re describing, and it’s a fascinating story that’s really interesting.
You’ve had a long career, as an actor, and the longest running constant that you’ve had in that career has beenLaw & Order. Very few actors ever get to play a character as long as you have with that character. What has that been like for you, and what’s it like to come back to it?
WATERSTON: It’s kept me out of trouble, for a long time. We all need to make a living in this business, and you’re probably aware that there’s quite a lot of junk out there.Law & Orderdid some wonderful things for me. It made it possible for me to pay for my children’s education. People who are parents know that education doesn’t come cheap in this country anymore. And then, it made it possible for me to do other things. I got to doLong Day’s Journey Into Night, on very short notice, with my son, just before he got married, when I had a break fromLaw & Order. We couldn’t have put that together, if it hadn’t been for the glitter that surrounded doingLaw & Order. It’s been an enormous benefit to me. And it kept me from doing stupid stuff.
