Amanda Seyfried replaces Kate McKinnon to play Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu series

Team Udayavani, Mar 30, 2021, 11:44 AM IST

Los Angeles: Actor Amanda Seyfried has been tapped to play Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu series “The Dropout”.

Seyfried’s casting was announced over a month after actor Kat McKinnon exited the project.

According to Variety, the limited series is based on ABC News/ABC Radio’s podcast about the rise and fall of bussinesswoman Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos.

Seyfried, who recently received an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for her role in the David Fincher film “Mank”, will also serve as executive producer on “The Dropout”.

Produced by Disney’s Searchlight Television, “The Dropout” has the podcast’s host/creator Rebecca Jarvis and producers Taylor Dunn and Victoria Thompson, on board as executive producers.

The podcast, launched in January 2019, was also turned into a two-hour documentary that aired on ABC News” “20/20” in March the same year.

Holmes, a Stanford University drop out, founded Theranos in early 2000s. The company invented the Edison machine, a diagnostic tool that promised an easy way to test for 200 diseases. But the machine didn’t work as she claimed, though she lured wealthy investors including Betsy DeVos and Rupert Murdoch.

She became one of the richest women in the world before being indicted by a federal jury in 2018 on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.