Quick summary
- Amanda Seyfried gave her first in-depth interview about You Can See Everything to Rolling Stone, published on Wednesday.
- She says she became a “weird Billy detective” after watching footage of Billy Evans, the partner of Elizabeth Holmes, and wanted to meet him.
- She says she had “no approval” over anything filmed and started shooting without telling her agent or lawyer.
- Variety reports the documentary has been in cinemas for nearly a month and is heading towards $80 million at the domestic box office.
Amanda Seyfried has finally talked about the most discussed scene in this year’s most discussed documentary. In a joint Rolling Stone interview with directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, published on Wednesday, the Oscar nominee explained why she sat down to dinner with Billy Evans, and why she says she has no regrets about how it went.
Why Amanda Seyfried wanted to meet Billy Evans
Seyfried won an Emmy for playing Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, but, as CinemaBlend notes, she had never met Holmes or Evans before this project. According to TheWrap, her urge to meet Evans began when Fielder showed her footage he and Oppenheim shot in the month before Holmes began her prison sentence.
“I wanted answers,” she told her interviewers. She described the footage of Evans as “yucky” and said it gave her such strong negative feelings that she became a “weird Billy detective”. The meeting, she said, felt “exciting” and “scary” at the same time.
The meeting did not change her view. “Nothing changed. It only got worse,” she said, as quoted by TheWrap. Variety adds that the decision to go was hers. Seyfried said she felt “protected” by the filmmakers, according to CinemaBlend, and that the push to meet Evans had to come from her.
What happened at the dinner
The scene takes place at Evans’s home, where he lives with his and Holmes’s children. The Cut reports that Seyfried flew to Austin for the dinner, and that she tried to soften her stance before arriving. “I wanted to turn my disdain off a little bit,” she said, adding that she felt bad about speaking harshly of him beforehand.
That goodwill did not last. The Cut says Evans attacked her over her portrayal of Holmes in The Dropout and over an Instagram post she made about Charlie Kirk. Seyfried called his tone aggressive, a word she chose because it was “diplomatic”, and said that once she felt disrespected, “the gloves are off.”
She also took issue with how Evans speaks about Holmes. “I don’t like the way he’s using this human being, his wife,” she said, arguing that his behaviour did not match his claim that he was “building monuments of love”. Gold Derby reports that Oppenheim said she never asked the directors to cut anything from the scene. Seyfried laughed and called herself “a people pleaser”.
All three confirmed to Rolling Stone that the phone call from Holmes during the evening happened in real time with no advance planning. “We didn’t know she was going to call right then,” Seyfried said.
A role she agreed to without telling her team
The most surprising detail comes from Variety. Seyfried began filming without telling her agents or signing any deals with her lawyer. Fielder said he got her number through Emma Stone, and a 30-minute Zoom call was enough for her to say, “come over with cameras.”
At first, she only agreed to watch the footage and talk about it. Her lawyer later had to set up her deal retroactively, she said, because “you need protection”. The reenactments, in which she plays Holmes again, came afterwards.
Fielder stressed that Seyfried had no creative control. “No approval. Whatsoever,” she agreed. She described a constant “vibration of risk” and asked herself whether she might “destroy my career in some way”. Even so, her drive to go ahead won out. “I want to put my hand in the fire!” she said.
Gold Derby reports that she slipped back into her Holmes voice almost unconsciously while watching the footage with the directors. She calls this “muscle memory”.
Why this matters for the film
The Cut describes the documentary as a three-and-a-half-hour film, and Gold Derby calls it an Oscar-contending release. CinemaBlend goes further, suggesting her involvement without a safety net could lead to an Oscar nomination of her own. That is the critic’s opinion, not an official prediction. Seyfried herself told Gold Derby, “I have no regrets. I’m having the time of my life.”
What happens next
The film is still showing in cinemas, and Variety expects it to pass $80 million domestically. Seyfried’s Rolling Stone conversation is likely to keep it in the awards conversation. For more on how she first reacted to the secret being public, read our earlier report, Amanda Seyfried on Her Secret Holmes Role in Documentary. More coverage sits in our Celebrities and Movies sections.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Amanda Seyfried want to meet Billy Evans?
She says the footage of him left her with strong negative feelings, and she wanted answers about who was “pulling the strings”. She told Rolling Stone she felt she needed to meet him.
Did Amanda Seyfried have any control over the documentary?
No. She and the directors both say she had no approval over anything filmed, and no scripts were shared with her beforehand.
How did Amanda Seyfried get involved in You Can See Everything?
According to Variety, Nathan Fielder reached her through Emma Stone. After a short Zoom call, she agreed to watch the footage, and she later agreed to reenactments as Elizabeth Holmes.
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