One of the fall’s most talked-about movies just got a revealing behind-the-scenes story. Amanda Seyfried says she started filming Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary “You Can See Everything” before telling her agents and before her lawyer had signed any deal.
The Oscar nominee shared the story in a new interview with Rolling Stone alongside both directors, their first spoiler-filled conversation together. Here are the highlights, as reported by Variety.
A box office hit that keeps getting bigger
“You Can See Everything” has been in theaters for nearly a month and is on its way to crossing $80 million at the domestic box office, according to Variety. That is a remarkable number for a documentary. The film follows Fielder and Oppenheim’s time inside a beach house with Elizabeth Holmes, the former Theranos founder, and her partner, Billy Evans.
How Seyfried got involved
Seyfried famously played Holmes in Hulu’s “The Dropout,” a role that won her an Emmy. Fielder said the idea to bring her in came two years after he had shot the beach house scenes, when he and Oppenheim were unsure how to continue the movie. They realized her portrayal still mattered to people in Holmes’ orbit.
The introduction came through a mutual friend. “I got your phone number through Emma Stone,” Fielder told Seyfried. After a 30-minute Zoom call, she agreed to have them come over with cameras.
Seyfried said she first assumed Fielder simply wanted advice about playing Holmes. “After the Zoom, I was totally game to do whatever you needed,” she said.
“Not the normal process”
The unusual part is what happened next. Seyfried said she filmed before telling her representatives. “When I told my agent and lawyer that I had already done it… Not the normal process,” she said. Her lawyer then had to “retroactively set your deal in place because you need protection.”
Fielder stressed that she was never shown scripts in advance. “People should know that [Amanda] had no creative control over this project,” he said. Seyfried added: “No approval. Whatsoever.”
She described feeling a constant “vibration of risk,” wondering if she might hurt her career or say the wrong thing, but said her drive to understand the story won out.
The dinner everyone is talking about
One of the film’s most memorable stretches is a tense dinner between Seyfried, Fielder and Evans at his home. Seyfried told Rolling Stone she wanted to meet Evans after watching the earlier footage, which left her with strong negative feelings about him.
Her opinion “only got worse” after they met. In the film, Evans insults her acting and the two argue. Seyfried said “there was no reason for [Evans] to get that aggressive,” calling that the most diplomatic word she could use, and added that she felt “disrespected.”
She also described an unexpected moment before the dinner, when she was spending time with Holmes and Evans’ children and Holmes herself called from prison. “It’s a documentary. Who else would it be?” she said, when asked if the call was real.
Why this matters for the movie
Stories like this tend to send more viewers to theaters, especially for a film built on surprises. Seyfried’s account also highlights how unusual Fielder’s working style is: few actors of her stature would agree to appear in a project with no script, no approvals and no deal in place.
The bottom line
“You Can See Everything” is already a breakout documentary, and Seyfried’s candid account of how she joined it, with no paperwork, no creative control and a dinner she still calls “aggressive,” adds one more layer to the conversation around it. The full interview is available at Rolling Stone.
Image: Free movie theater seats photo via Rawpixel, CC0 1.0
