Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic, and this is next question.
Speaker 1: You know you can't turn on your TV these days
Speaker 1: without being ambushed by a sea of true crime stories,
Speaker 1: not the murder kind that's so pre pandemic. These days
Speaker 1: were obsessed with the silicon scammer, the bad entrepreneur, the
Speaker 1: failing founder from super Pumped about Uber founder Travis Kalenik.
Speaker 1: You are disruptors, because that is what revolution requires. Two
Speaker 1: we crashed about We Work founder Adam Newman. What do
Speaker 1: you think when I say to the dropout about Thereinos
Speaker 1: founder Elizabeth Holmes? The world works in certain ways until
Speaker 1: a new, great idea comes along and changes everything. We
Speaker 1: just can't seem to look away from the heart pounding
Speaker 1: rise and the inevitable gut punching fall of these brilliant, young, white,
Speaker 1: mostly male, and very rich moguls. For me, it's all
Speaker 1: about Elizabeth Holmes. She fascinates me. The voice, the look,
Speaker 1: the burning ambition. A healthcare pioneer is being compared to
Speaker 1: visionaries like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. She is the
Speaker 1: youngest person to ever get the Horatio Alger Award. Every
Speaker 1: time you create something new, there should be questions and
Speaker 1: to me, that's a sign that you've actually done something
Speaker 1: that it's transformatives in At just thirty years old, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: was one of the youngest self made billionaires thanks to
Speaker 1: her blood testing technology and her biotech startup Paraus. By January,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was found guilty on four out of eleven federal charges.
Speaker 1: After seven full days of deliberations, the verdicts are in.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty in this fraud trial.
Speaker 1: Guilty of conspiracy to defraud Paras investors, not guilty of
Speaker 1: conspiracy to defraud the patients. So at one time she
Speaker 1: was compared to Steve Jobs, and now she's a convicted
Speaker 1: felon who was facing up to twenty years behind bars.
Speaker 1: She'll be sentenced this fall. But even after a four
Speaker 1: month trial in which Elizabeth herself took the stand, it's
Speaker 1: still not clear how this woman was such promise, fell
Speaker 1: from grace and massive success in such dramatic fashion. Today
Speaker 1: we find out what it was like to become Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: to embody that enigma. I'm talking to the star of
Speaker 1: the new Hulu series The Dropout, Amanda Cipher. It you
Speaker 1: have to do it. I mean this podcast for crying
Speaker 1: out loud so you have to do it. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to get down, but it's actually easier
Speaker 1: is to do the accent, which is it's really just
Speaker 1: an effect, but it's just really the way her mouth moves.
Speaker 1: The thirty six year old after is a familiar face,
Speaker 1: having worked in the movie business since she was fifteen,
Speaker 1: after a decade of coasting through silly but beloved comedies
Speaker 1: from Mean Girls, So here from Africa. Why are you white?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Karen, you can't just ask people why
Speaker 1: they're white? To Mama Mia, honey, honey, how he thrills me?
Speaker 1: Amanda has become somewhat of a dramatic dark horse, wowing
Speaker 1: critics and David Fincher's film Bank My Exit, what I
Speaker 1: already made My exit and now transforming into Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 1: for the dropout. Here at theirs, we are developing new technology.
Speaker 1: Here at theres new You're developing new technology. New technology
Speaker 1: is inspiring. Step forward, forward, forward forward, This is inspiring,
Speaker 1: step forward, and she does it all outside of the
Speaker 1: Hollywood spotlight. We should explain, by the way, where you
Speaker 1: are right now, where we're doing this podcast. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we are thousands of miles apart um I am upstate
Speaker 1: at my main residence before I have to go back
Speaker 1: into the grind of the city, New York City, which
Speaker 1: is two hours away, And um, I do as much
Speaker 1: as I can from here. Why not? Why not? And
Speaker 1: did you guys sort of take up residence there during
Speaker 1: the pandemic or were you always pretty much living most
Speaker 1: of your life for as much as possibly you possibly
Speaker 1: could there that this was way before the pandemic, We just, um,
Speaker 1: we happened to already live full time, and um, my
Speaker 1: daughter already was in school up here, so it was
Speaker 1: it was kind of a everybody seemed to join us
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, so our life was already kind of settled,
Speaker 1: so we didn't. It's not like we missed anything when
Speaker 1: we didn't move up here during the pandemic and missed
Speaker 1: the city. I never missed the city. Are you you're
Speaker 1: a country girl, Yeah, but I was a suberb I
Speaker 1: grew up in suburbia. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. I think it's just control over a
Speaker 1: space maybe that I didn't have growing up. I am
Speaker 1: so loving this show. You do such a phenomenal job
Speaker 1: of of actually occupying Elizabeth Holmes body and her psyche
Speaker 1: um and I know that you consumed everything that was
Speaker 1: out there about this woman. Tell me first how you
Speaker 1: prepared for the role. I started studying those deposition tapes,
Speaker 1: because when you have that many hours of footage of
Speaker 1: somebody's static with on camera just staring at them, you
Speaker 1: don't miss a thing. I mean, we have all that footage.
Speaker 1: When she's doing her ted talk, I believe the individual
Speaker 1: is the answer to the challenges of healthcare. And when
Speaker 1: she's on stage with Maria Schriber for the Vanity fair thing,
Speaker 1: are you a disruptor? Are you a transformer? Revolutionary? When
Speaker 1: it comes to healthcare? We have a vision and a
Speaker 1: dream for early detection and prevention, and we want to
Speaker 1: change our system in such a way in which early
Speaker 1: detection and prevention can become reality. There's just so many interviews,
Speaker 1: but there's something so like rich in those deposition hours
Speaker 1: that you couldn't get in her performative presence. For you
Speaker 1: the decision maker on behalf of fairness? And did you
Speaker 1: sign the Walgreens contract or the amendment? I did. I
Speaker 1: signed many of the Walgreens rooms. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I signed all of them. Time and yes, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the CEO and the ultimate decision maker for
Speaker 1: the company. Well, let's get back to Elizabeth, because I
Speaker 1: was wondering, Amanda with the deposition tapes, if you saw
Speaker 1: a different Elizabeth Holmes, as you said, it wasn't as
Speaker 1: performative as you know she was in most arenas. But
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed watching you acting as her during the
Speaker 1: deposition without the red lipstick, kind of much more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: But tell me about the differences between how she appeared
Speaker 1: there versus so many of the other things that you watched.
Speaker 1: There's an innate defensiveness when you're being questioned, when you're
Speaker 1: um choices are being questioned. And I still feel like
Speaker 1: there was a part of her that might have been
Speaker 1: playing a part. I tried to imagine myself in that position,
Speaker 1: and I'm always my my first pogative is to make
Speaker 1: sure that people feel comfortable with me, and that I'm
Speaker 1: not making anyone uncomfortable. And I'll tell the truth, and
Speaker 1: I'll say everything. I I'll give all the information that
Speaker 1: I can give. And I wondered what I'd be like
Speaker 1: in that position, and and and so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I could be totally wrong because I'm not in her
Speaker 1: head and I never got to speak to her about this,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like there were levels of there
Speaker 1: was still some maneuvering she was doing. I mean, she
Speaker 1: was still negotiating her way around the questions and and
Speaker 1: it's also a legal environment. I mean, she's got her
Speaker 1: lawyers and she's got these prosecutors, and I just imagine
Speaker 1: it was just really tricky for her. So watching her
Speaker 1: negotiate her way around the questions and her own whatever
Speaker 1: she might have been feeling, and the defensiveness that comes
Speaker 1: along with it for anybody, It's just like it was
Speaker 1: just rich and uncomfortable, and there was just so many
Speaker 1: hours worth that I could just soak get in every
Speaker 1: day watching something new. I mean I can practically quote
Speaker 1: it because I had two and a half months too,
Speaker 1: you know, prepare. And during the deposition, did she cast
Speaker 1: aside some of these affectations that she adopted in order
Speaker 1: to move in the world that she was trying to
Speaker 1: be successful? In other words, did did her voice uh
Speaker 1: you know, did it change a little bit? And was
Speaker 1: it less um kind of BARITONEI ish when she was
Speaker 1: doing the deposition. Oh, that isn't really good. It's a
Speaker 1: real feat to get that low for me, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't like you have a pretty like average sitting like females.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could go either way, like
Speaker 1: you're pretty, I have a pretty I think I have
Speaker 1: a I don't know. I think I have a pretty
Speaker 1: low voice. I guess, I guess maybe maybe I would
Speaker 1: love to know what your measurement is. There's a measurement,
Speaker 1: and I don't remember if it's like frequency desciples. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. But someone told me at
Speaker 1: a body language expert told me that Elizabeth her what
Speaker 1: her deepest she was at like a one eighties something,
Speaker 1: and I sit at a two thirty three, and apparently
Speaker 1: like two thirty is an average female where average female
Speaker 1: voice sits. And at her lowest she was one eighty.
Speaker 1: But I think for the deposition, so I think she
Speaker 1: was already I imagine, like muscle memory, I was speaking
Speaker 1: more like her. I'm better at it now because I
Speaker 1: did it for so long. It's muscle memory. And I
Speaker 1: think for her she adapted. I think she adapted to
Speaker 1: that lower register and it was more natural for her
Speaker 1: than it is for me. So I think during the
Speaker 1: Deposition era that's like two thousand seventeen. She was already
Speaker 1: she had already adopted that that baritone that I don't
Speaker 1: think she's ever gonna be rid of. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: But she didn't put in terms of body language, she
Speaker 1: was much less commanding. I mean, she wasn't she wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to change anyone's mind. She was there was a
Speaker 1: some moments feebleness to her and vulnerability, like you said,
Speaker 1: like and and and it was also really uh, it
Speaker 1: was also easier to relate to her and to feel
Speaker 1: compassion for her in that setting, um, because she does
Speaker 1: seem like she's like kind of stripped of all that
Speaker 1: and you know that the charisma was all just go on.
Speaker 1: I actually met with her when I dropped my daughter
Speaker 1: off at Stanford, and it was sort of at the
Speaker 1: height of her celebrity status, when she was on the
Speaker 1: cover of so many magazines. And when I went to
Speaker 1: visit her in Palo Alto. I went to her office
Speaker 1: and she sat in a in a room with me,
Speaker 1: and she got tears in her eyes when she told
Speaker 1: me how she need to help people with cancer. Of course,
Speaker 1: I think she knew that my husband had died of cancer,
Speaker 1: and I've done so much cancer advocacy work, but she
Speaker 1: seemed to care so deeply, and maybe again that was
Speaker 1: performative for me. But UM, you know she actually I
Speaker 1: thought she was going to start crying and it kind
Speaker 1: of made me get kind of teary. And so do
Speaker 1: you think that was real well or do you think
Speaker 1: that was just playing to an audience? Yet again, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I want to believe. I just always want
Speaker 1: to believe the good no matter what. Um, much like
Speaker 1: she wanted to believe that it was the tech was working. UM,
Speaker 1: I want to believe that she was there with you,
Speaker 1: But I am skeptical because you know, she's powerful. She's
Speaker 1: powerful and she knows it. She's very smart. She's really
Speaker 1: really smart. It's amazing. UM. I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: to ask you about the voice. M you got rid
Speaker 1: of that pretty quickly, but you have to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean this podcast, we're crying out loud, so you
Speaker 1: have to do it. Well. UM, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: get down. But it's more it's it's actually easier is
Speaker 1: to do the accent, which is it's really just an effect,
Speaker 1: but it's just really the way her mouth moves and
Speaker 1: it's hard to get back down there. Um, I had
Speaker 1: a better time. I had an easier time doing it
Speaker 1: after when I was doing a d R, after I
Speaker 1: had COVID for the second time after Christmas, I was
Speaker 1: coughing so much. Then my register was actually much deeper,
Speaker 1: even though it's not great for my vocal cords. It
Speaker 1: was like it was really low, like I can't even
Speaker 1: get there right now. But but it's it's mainly about
Speaker 1: the placement more and which you know you talk. But
Speaker 1: then again, like I'm thinking of you sitting in rooms
Speaker 1: with her, which I never got to do. I would
Speaker 1: have loved to. I would have connected with her. I
Speaker 1: know I would have. I mean it. It would have
Speaker 1: been hard not to, and I I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: didn't because I don't think I would have been able
Speaker 1: to play her. I would have felt bad. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about her, because how much license did the writer
Speaker 1: take in terms of her relationship with Sunny, the way
Speaker 1: she interacted with her employees, Um, how much about did
Speaker 1: they have to create to fill in the blank spaces? Well,
Speaker 1: the blank spaces were all very for us. Just when
Speaker 1: she's alone, when she's making these decisions, when she's developing
Speaker 1: the voice like that's all just imagined reality Liz Meriweather's genius,
Speaker 1: sparking brain. Um, we enriched so much of the Sunny
Speaker 1: Elizabeth relationship because I will say it wasn't until halfway
Speaker 1: through we were filming that we got the dump of
Speaker 1: text messages between them, and thank god they said what
Speaker 1: they did, because we were already on that path. Like
Speaker 1: their relationship was um very uh confusing to people and
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating because you knew they were they were tight.
Speaker 1: You knew they had a very special bond um and
Speaker 1: nobody really understood it. So we tried to understand it.
Speaker 1: So that's all imagined. Um. But in terms of the
Speaker 1: goal person, posts were really were set. I mean there
Speaker 1: were lots of conversations that were really truly had the
Speaker 1: way she spoke to her employees, her engineers, that that
Speaker 1: was true. It's it's more truthful than um that I
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be and and there were moments
Speaker 1: where I was just like, I can't believe this was
Speaker 1: said out loud, um, like what behave this way? Like
Speaker 1: the way she fired Ian. He was the chief chemist.
Speaker 1: For people who haven't watched the series yet, he was
Speaker 1: the chief chemist Um he's also a cancer patient at
Speaker 1: the time, devoted to what Elizabeth was trying to do.
Speaker 1: The first engineer on the ground with her really believed
Speaker 1: in her. The the things she had said to Anna
Speaker 1: Aariola and Ave Tavanian, who were worked with apples, she
Speaker 1: took them, they were on her board, they were helping
Speaker 1: her out, and the things that she said to them
Speaker 1: about the technology. It was hard to play certain things
Speaker 1: because I knew how real they were, and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to stop believing in her because as an actor,
Speaker 1: when you when you play somebody that you might not
Speaker 1: agree with, you still have to find the humanity. And
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of the show, really to show
Speaker 1: the humanity but not condoned. Anything she did was tricky,
Speaker 1: but sadly it's mostly true. More with Amanda right after this,
Speaker 1: what is your assessment, Amanda, of Elizabeth Holmes? I mean,
Speaker 1: if someone said, who is Elizabeth Holmes in your view
Speaker 1: and you know what is she all about? What would
Speaker 1: you say? I would say, Elizabeth Holmes is an incredibly smart,
Speaker 1: incredibly passionate woman who it was in over her head.
Speaker 1: I think she you know, her belief led her down.
Speaker 1: This path. You know, she she became very powerful because
Speaker 1: she really believed in something and she was trying to
Speaker 1: make it work. And I think that, um, she just
Speaker 1: ended up making the wrong decisions halfway down the road.
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely there's as incorrect and correct ways
Speaker 1: clear black and white at this point, at the point
Speaker 1: where I'm talking about the fork in the road, and
Speaker 1: she took the wrong way and and she doubled down.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that's because she believed that
Speaker 1: it was still gonna work and she wanted she would
Speaker 1: do it at any get it done at any cost,
Speaker 1: with you know, lives and then in the balance and
Speaker 1: lies or she just you know, says we don't have it,
Speaker 1: give me some time, and and you know, I I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people would be like, why
Speaker 1: didn't you just say you didn't have it? And I
Speaker 1: can't say what I would I can say what I
Speaker 1: would have done, but it probably would have been harder
Speaker 1: at that point that she was at. I really believe
Speaker 1: she had the best of intentions and do do And
Speaker 1: with this show, it gives us a lot of context,
Speaker 1: like maybe these things really did happen. She wasn't great socially.
Speaker 1: She her dad lost his job at Enron, which is
Speaker 1: huge for their family. I mean, she claims she was
Speaker 1: actually assaulted in college. I mean that's not an excuse,
Speaker 1: but that can really that can traumatize somebody in ways
Speaker 1: that make it harder to to function. And the very
Speaker 1: least and where I stand now with hers that like
Speaker 1: she really she really had the best intentions, and she
Speaker 1: made the wrong decision and she made choices that I
Speaker 1: I wish she hadn't for the sake of a lot
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, just being irresponsible with health health care.
Speaker 1: It's just you can't. And if this is a if
Speaker 1: this is a lesson, like a cautionary tale for anybody
Speaker 1: who wants to, you know, take the shortcut developing health
Speaker 1: care technology thing again like science, That's why I love
Speaker 1: in this show. What is episode three or I think
Speaker 1: episode four, Elizabeth says to Ian, her head engineer, where
Speaker 1: she's firing him. She says, um, you don't understand the business,
Speaker 1: and he says, you don't understand the science. And it's
Speaker 1: just like there, it isn't a nutshell. She didn't understand
Speaker 1: the science. But I also think when you look at
Speaker 1: the origin story of theopness, which I think the series
Speaker 1: does really well. You know, it's not as if, at
Speaker 1: least how it's portrayed. It's not as if she came
Speaker 1: up with this idea and said, you know, the blood
Speaker 1: industry needs to be disrupted, we need to have a
Speaker 1: better way, We need to make it easier to diagnose
Speaker 1: the whole host of diseases. It's almost as if it
Speaker 1: was the means to an end. You know, she wanted
Speaker 1: to be this hugely successful entrepreneur. It seems like she
Speaker 1: retrofitted this desire to be of female Steve jobs, perhaps
Speaker 1: because her father had lost her job, perhaps because you know,
Speaker 1: she was looking to find her place in the world.
Speaker 1: But the idea didn't come first. The goal came first.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. I never looked at it that way,
Speaker 1: but it is exactly how we are we're telling the
Speaker 1: story as well. It's just like, yeah, it came she
Speaker 1: was looking for the next idea, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it was going to be in healthcare because she was
Speaker 1: really into micro fluid I. She was taking course she
Speaker 1: you know, she was still in school, and we actually
Speaker 1: show our version of her life. We show her studying
Speaker 1: and trying to come up the next idea. And and
Speaker 1: it is true that she came up with a blood
Speaker 1: with a patch that would um dispense a lot of
Speaker 1: like medicines to make it easier to get medicine. And
Speaker 1: it and it, and it wasn't like Phyllis Gardner at
Speaker 1: Stanford said, it's not actually possible. Try something else. And
Speaker 1: she she kept trying, and she found something else that
Speaker 1: was totally viable. Um, maybe not right now still, but
Speaker 1: I think she was inspired by somebody changing the world.
Speaker 1: And Liz Meryweather wrote a line in the first episode
Speaker 1: where she's telling William H. Macy's character Richard that she
Speaker 1: just wants to be a billionaire someday. And and and
Speaker 1: it is interesting that like that did that gold did
Speaker 1: come first? It did. How was Elizabeth Holmes able to convince, persuade,
Speaker 1: manipulate super intelligent, experienced people like George Schultz and Henry
Speaker 1: Kissinger and General Maddis to invest in her company? I
Speaker 1: mean that to me is just astounding. You know, it
Speaker 1: was interesting to watch George Schault's played by Sam Waterston,
Speaker 1: you know, just get all googly eyed around her. You know,
Speaker 1: she clearly bamboozled him by you know, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that story with me. Um that that was really
Speaker 1: profound or whatever she said to him, you know, and
Speaker 1: and to see him sort of fall for her. Ah.
Speaker 1: But it was weird because it was not over sexuality.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was what how did how
Speaker 1: did she do it? And why why did they do it?
Speaker 1: I'm still I don't think I'll ever understand that. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's got to be a level of fomo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're they're they're so much older. They're
Speaker 1: not in the tech world like she All of her
Speaker 1: investors weren't tech investors. They weren't Silicon Valley investors. Nobody,
Speaker 1: no VC wanted to go with her because they know better. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's because it's because health care is really hard.
Speaker 1: I mean when she says Mark Zuckerberg said move fast
Speaker 1: and break things. Yeah, that that totally um works when
Speaker 1: you're in the tech but not but io tech, I mean,
Speaker 1: like not human human beings like health She was using
Speaker 1: certain templates in the wrong places. In her template. It
Speaker 1: was get a lot of very powerful people in government
Speaker 1: to to invest, and then the rest will follow. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. I mean that's another thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I was I was watching. UM. Michael Showalter directed the
Speaker 1: first four episodes of The Dropout. He also directed Tammy
Speaker 1: Fit The Eyes of Tammy Faye wish God willing Jessica
Speaker 1: Chestion wear her oscar for this year UM, and I
Speaker 1: was curious. I actually looked over at my husband we
Speaker 1: were watching it. When Andrew Garfield drives up in the
Speaker 1: car with his new car, She's like, we can't afford
Speaker 1: this car and he's like, fake, do you make it?
Speaker 1: And sorry? But like her whole trajectory was faking it
Speaker 1: until she made it, getting security guards just for that
Speaker 1: that aura, just if you know, people would say she
Speaker 1: has all the security. I mean they must be protecting
Speaker 1: something real, and it's actually no. You build up around
Speaker 1: you and then people will believe whatever you tell them.
Speaker 1: I think it automatically, psychologically makes you think, well, there's
Speaker 1: got to be some there there if all of this
Speaker 1: is around her. And I think she was brilliant at
Speaker 1: at appearances. But it's interesting that you say fomo because
Speaker 1: I think that is so perceptive because George Saltz said,
Speaker 1: I'm ninety years old, and she says, what a vibrant
Speaker 1: ninety year old he is or something. And I think
Speaker 1: it is this clash of old, established business practices and
Speaker 1: success coming up against this brash, new generation of entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: And I think that makes people feel old, entrenched and
Speaker 1: as my daughter would say, choogy. And I think it's
Speaker 1: it's so well illustrated with the Walgreens guy, right, you
Speaker 1: have the I guess chief medical Operator or whatever he was,
Speaker 1: and he's played so brilliantly by the guy from Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 1: What's his name, Amanda Allan Ruck, Alan Ruck. And it's
Speaker 1: so clear that that this character, this man was going
Speaker 1: through kind of almost a professional midlife crisis, if you will.
Speaker 1: Listening to Katie Perry, you know, singing that song what
Speaker 1: is that UK? You know, this guy just wants to
Speaker 1: be a part of the action. He wants to be
Speaker 1: where business is going. And you know, I think with
Speaker 1: all these business pressures that some of these people saw
Speaker 1: her as this almost messionic figure who was going to
Speaker 1: try transform industry for the better and not really necessarily
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about improving healthcare, but improving the bottom line. Right,
Speaker 1: I do wonder if that's is this how things get done?
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was necessary for me to
Speaker 1: be an audience member watching the show because I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what it could have been like inside of
Speaker 1: her head um, and then like being able to play her,
Speaker 1: I really really cared, Like I really wanted there to
Speaker 1: be something good in there. Um, What is good about
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes? Oh? I mean I don't know. People say,
Speaker 1: you know, so what do you think about her? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't really know her. I spent you know,
Speaker 1: seven months of my life playing a version of her,
Speaker 1: my version of her, But the she's a real human
Speaker 1: being and she's out there walking around with a baby
Speaker 1: and a family, and I'm like, I have no idea
Speaker 1: what she could possibly be thinking. Because of all the
Speaker 1: things that she's done, all the things she put into
Speaker 1: play that are really hard to watch and really hard
Speaker 1: to understand and really hard to excuse. You know, she's
Speaker 1: also a real person. So I think what's good about
Speaker 1: her is that she was very disciplined, and I don't
Speaker 1: know she was passionate. I guess that's a good. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you do with it when you have that passion? Like,
Speaker 1: it's it's all about what you do with it, It's
Speaker 1: all about the journey but it's also what motivates that passion, right,
Speaker 1: and that to me is still a gigantic question mark.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, Like what was she afraid of? That's it,
Speaker 1: I think are in our story. She cared about her
Speaker 1: parents and she was afraid of failing them. I was
Speaker 1: able to relate to her because she's also like a
Speaker 1: contemporary of mine. We you know, we're a little socially
Speaker 1: offered to the school. We were on the dance team.
Speaker 1: We you know, listened to probably some of the same music.
Speaker 1: Like that was the easy step to to to relate to.
Speaker 1: But the rest of it, you know, as it is,
Speaker 1: it as more stuff came to light, it's just so
Speaker 1: hard to think about the things that are good. But
Speaker 1: I think she there's got to be something right or
Speaker 1: is that just what I want to believe? We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. I'm wonder if Elizabeth will ever tell her
Speaker 1: own story. So much has been written about her. She
Speaker 1: should like she should, and also like will she see
Speaker 1: the dropout? I don't know she I don't think she
Speaker 1: should watch the show. I really don't. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: there's we made up. We made up. A lot of
Speaker 1: it is imagined reality. It's a TV show. I think
Speaker 1: she should. I mean, everybody deserves to have a a
Speaker 1: chance to speak their minds, right. Um, maybe she's waiting
Speaker 1: to write a memoir, you know, like wouldn't we all
Speaker 1: love to know from her perspective? I mean, we're trying
Speaker 1: to get some perspective here on the show for fans
Speaker 1: of her story. But um, and some of the motivations
Speaker 1: behind her choices, like what she could have been thinking.
Speaker 1: But I want to I want to read that book.
Speaker 1: I want her to be the narrator of her own book.
Speaker 1: But do you think we'll ever hear the real story
Speaker 1: if it's from her perspective? Or she'll continue to manipulate
Speaker 1: an audience? You know, Will we ever get to know
Speaker 1: the real Elizabeth Holmes? I guess is the question? Maybe
Speaker 1: we're not meant to. Maybe that's just one of life's
Speaker 1: like questions. I can tell you for sure, she's inventing
Speaker 1: something new right now. I don't think you can stop her,
Speaker 1: and so maybe we'll never understand that kind of drive.
Speaker 1: You know. I got to go to work every day
Speaker 1: and play this enigma, and then I got to go
Speaker 1: home and my family, you know, So it was it's
Speaker 1: interesting to walk around in her shoes for a minute,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I don't endy her, and I
Speaker 1: hope she comes up with something that does save the world,
Speaker 1: because we all have to come back, don't we. That
Speaker 1: was Amanda Seyfrid. By the way, you can watch the
Speaker 1: Dropout on Hulu now and it's based on the podcast
Speaker 1: of the same name, which is also excellent, So go
Speaker 1: catch up. The finale airs on April seven, and it's great.
Speaker 1: Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media and Katie Kurik Media. The executive producers are Me,
Speaker 1: Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen.
Speaker 1: Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fasio. The show is
Speaker 1: edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about
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