Amanda Seyfried began filming “You Can See Everything” without telling her agents or signing an agreement with her lawyer, the actor revealed in a new interview with Rolling Stone. The Oscar nominee joined directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim for the trio’s first spoiler-filled press interview now that their documentary has been in theaters for nearly a month and is on track to surpass $80 million at the domestic box office.
According to Fielder, bringing Seyfried into the fold was an idea that came about two years after he shot all the scenes in the beach house with Elizabeth Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans. The filmmakers weren’t sure how to continue the film and realized how Seyfried’s Emmy-winning portrayal of Holmes in Hulu’s “The Dropout” remained relevant to people in Holmes’ orbit, including his parents.
“I got your phone number through Emma Stone,” Fielder told Seyfried. “We had a 30-minute zoom, and you were like, ‘Yeah, come with cameras.’ We wanted to show you what happened to the first half of the film, and then we’d talk about it. That’s all you agreed to.
Seyfried explained: “I remember when (Emma) texted and I was like, ‘Nathan Fielder? Ooh, I wonder if he wants to do something with me?’ My sister is a big fan (of yours, Nathan), and I know a lot of people are big fans of “Nathan for You.” I had only seen “The Curse”. When you said you had 90 minutes of footage to watch and help you work through, I was like, “Oh, he just wants advice.” He just wants us to know my experience playing her and researching her and getting into the mind of this quote-unquote character that I played. After the Zoom, I was totally ready to do whatever you needed. It was just your energy (that convinced me) and the time you spent (on this project) and no one knew it was happening.
The first scenes Seyfried filmed for “You Can See Everything” were where she watched all the footage Fielder had previously shot from inside the beach house, which is how she is introduced halfway through the documentary.
“I would say there was a lot of risk in my head, and then when I told my agent and my lawyer that I had already done it… It wasn’t the normal process,” Seyfried said. “But I go off to do my own thing sometimes, and no one has any say or control over what I was doing with Nathan and Lance. My lawyer said to me, ‘Well, now we have to implement your agreement retroactively because you need protection.'” At that point, we weren’t even considering reconstitution.
“We should clarify that because, yes, all you agreed to was just to come in, and we would show you things and talk,” Fielder added.
Eventually, conversations with Seyfried turned to whether or not she would be interested in playing Holmes on camera again, as Fielder and Oppenheim wanted to recreate some of the initial conversations they had with the real Holmes off camera.
“We also said that because this is a documentary, we don’t want to discuss these scenes or show you scripts ahead of time. We just want you to introduce yourself and we’ll talk about the scenes on camera,” Fielder explained. “Anything that comes out of these conversations will potentially be part of it. People should know that (Amanda) had no creative control over this project. Anything that was filmed…(Amanda had no approval of anything).”
“No endorsement. No matter what,” Seyfried stressed. “There was always this vibration of risk and this feeling of: Am I going to destroy my career in some way? Am I going to get mixed up in this kind of hornet’s nest with Billy? Am I going to say the wrong thing? Am I going to perpetuate the negativity for her? It was all scary, but I still had this drive that was more in the front seat – which was literally the front seat with you in the car. I was like: “Let’s go, buddy! I want to put my hand in the fire!’
The only thing Seyfried knew she wanted to do after seeing all the footage Fielder and Oppenheim had shot during their time with Holmes was meet her partner, Billy Evans. For what? “It was dangerous. I wanted answers,” Seyfried told Rolling Stone. “We all needed to understand who was pulling the strings. What he was doing and how he was behaving in the footage that I saw, how you were interacting – it seemed disgusting to me. I just wanted to have all the information I could get on Billy. I became this strange Billy detective because I had felt very strong negative feelings from him in the footage. I felt like I needed to meet this guy. It was exciting to me, and it was scary, and it was questionable.”
Seyfried’s opinion of Evans “only got worse” after their meeting. As depicted in one of the film’s most unforgettable sequences, Seyfried and Fielder meet Evans at his home and have a confrontational dinner during which Evans insults Seyfried’s acting and the two argue over Seyfried’s criticism of Charlie Kirk. Before dinner, Seyfried meets Holmes and Evans’ children and the moment is interrupted by a phone call from Holmes herself from prison.
“We didn’t know she was going to call at that point,” Seyfried told Rolling Stone. “And I’m sitting there with her kids and cuddling her dog! While she’s in jail! And then she calls, and… Someone asked me if it was real, if it was really her on the phone. And I was like, ‘It’s a documentary. Who else would it be?”
As for the confrontational dinner, Seyfried maintains “there was no reason for (Evans) to be so aggressive. That’s the word I’m going to use, because it’s more diplomatic. If my jaw wasn’t visibly on the floor, you could say it lashed out. I don’t want to provoke him, but at this point, it’s kind of like the gloves are off.”
“This guy disrespected me so much that I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, buddy,'” she said. “I was in a state of mind where this guy is being disrespectful, and I’m here in his house, and I’m going to discuss this because I actually have a pretty strong stance on things. I don’t like the way he uses this human being, his wife – the person he says he ‘builds monuments of love’ to – as a tool. Maybe he respects her, but he behaves like he doesn’t respect her. And not only do I protects me, I’m just trying to set the record straight by also trying to defend myself, while still maintaining some sort of relationship with him, so that I can stay and he doesn’t kick us out, you know?
Visit the Rolling Stone website to read Seyfried’s full interview with Fielder and Oppenheim.
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