Theranos was founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes. It claimed to be a revolutionary health technology company that would use rapid blood tests with the help of automated devices developed by the company, and in just a few drops of blood, it would be able to detect conditions such as diabetes or cancer. But in 2015, it started crashing down when the validity of Theranos’ technology was questioned by medical researchers such as professor John Ioannidis, Eleftherios Diamandis, and investigative journalist John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal. The company faced several challenges from then on. In early January, Holmes, faced 11 charges, being found guilty of four federal charges of fraud. According to NBC News, Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors of nearly $145 million in total. Holmes was valued at $9 billion at one point, being able to raise more than $700 million. Some of the notable people who invested in Holmes’s startup include businessman and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and tech mogul Larry Ellison. Featuring the story of Holmes and Theranos, Hulu will be releasing an upcoming American television drama series titled The Dropout, which is based on the podcast The Dropout by Rebecca Jarvis and ABC Audio. The series is set to premiere on March 3, 2022, exclusively on Hulu and the final cast has already been announced. Here is the cast of Hulu’s upcoming miniseries The Dropout.
Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes
Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried will play the lead role of Elizabeth Holmes, once hailed as the next Steve Jobs. Originally, American actress, comedian, and writer Kate McKinnon was set to play the role but dropped out in February 2021. The versatile actress has appeared in several blockbuster films including Mamma Mia! and its sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, as well as several romantic movies including Dear John and Letters to Juliet. She also had lead roles in thrillers such as Jennifer’s Body, Red Riding Hood, Gone, and Things Heard & Seen. Seyfried has earned several accolades throughout her career which includes a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for her role as Cosette in the musical film Les Misérables (2012). She received critical acclaim for her role of Marion Davies in the biographical film Mank (2020) and received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. For the same role, she won the Satellite Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award, Critics’ Choice Movie Award, and Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani
Naveen Andrews will play the role of Sunny Balwani, Holmes’ secret boyfriend and business partner, who is scheduled to begin his trial in March. Andrews is best known for his role as Sayid Jarrah in the television series Lost for which he earned a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination. He also won a Screen Actors Guild Award along with the cast. He has also appeared in films such as The English Patient (1996), Mighty Joe Young (1998), Rollerball (2002), Planet Terror (2007), The Brave One (2007), and Diana (2013).
William H. Macy as Dr. Richard Fuisz
William H. Macy joins the cast of The Dropout to play the role of physician, inventor, and entrepreneur Richard Carl Fuisz. Homes filed a case against Fuisz in 2011, alleging Fuisz of stealing a Theranos patent for his own medical analyzer patent. In John Carreyrou’s book Bad Blood, which exposed Theranos’ fraudulent blood-testing technology, Richard Fuisz was credited for helping the author get in touch with the former medical director of Theranos, leading to the first exposure of Holmes and Theranos allegedly misleading customers, partners, and investors. Macy is best known for his role as Frank Gallagher in the American comedy-drama television series Shameless (2011-2021) by John Wells, an adaptation of the British television series of the same name by Paul Abbott. Macy has appeared in several independent films and action films. He has won two Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Fargo.
Laurie Metcalf as Dr. Phyllis Gardner
Laurie Metcalf, who is known by many for playing Sheldon’s mother in Big Bang Theory, will take the role of Phyllis I. Gardner, a Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine who was one of the first people to be skeptical of Holmes and her start-up Theranos. Laurie Metcalf has received several accolades throughout her career, including two Tony Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards, and various nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. She has appeared in several shows and one of her notable performances is her role as Jackie Harris on the sitcom Roseanne (1988–1997, 2018) and its spinoff The Conners (2018–present), for which she won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also appeared in 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Norm Show, Frasier, Desperate Housewives, Horace and Pete, and The Big Bang Theory. She also played a lead role in the HBO series Getting On (2013–2015), for which she received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
Stephen Fry as Ian Gibbons
Actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, and writer Stephen Fry will take on the role of the chief scientist of Theranos, Ian Gibbons, who worked for 30 years in the diagnostic and therapeutic industry before joining Theranos in 2005. Stephen Fry has appeared in several films including Wilde (1997) playing Oscar Wilde, for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; murder mystery Gosford Park (2001), Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), V for Vendetta (2005), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and The Hobbit film series. Stephen Fry also wrote and presented several documentary series including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, where he explores bipolar disorder including his own struggle with the disorder. The documentary won the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary at the 35th International Emmys in 2007.Big Bang Theory
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It takes a crook to recognize another crook. William Macy’s character, Dr. Richard Fuisz is a Villain par excellence. I know that for a fact, because I was an Asset he was running covering Libya, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Yemen in the 1990s up to the invasion of Iraq. We’d speak on the phone every day and meet once or twice every week on average, covering anti-terrorism. Former CIA, Richard got investigated THREE TIMES for stealing moneys from intelligence operations.
Oh boy would I LOVE to speak with Macy. Our breaking point was Richard’ “diverting” $13 MILLION from Emergency Appropriations for the 9/11 investigation to build his family’s mega-mansion on Langley Lane in Langley Virginia, a stone’s throw from CIA headquarters. In a notorious case, I would later get ARRESTED for using clever and resourceful tactics to pay $2,000 to an Iraqi diplomat turned double agent to scout REAL TERRORISTS inside Iraq for the FBI. It was unbelievable. They denied my right to a trial, rather than expose the degree of corruption in U.S. Intelligence. Purely Kafkaesque.
Oh yes, I would LOVE to speak with Bill Macy.