Amanda Seyfried has mixed feelings when it comes to Elizabeth Holmes.
After playing the disgraced Theranos CEO in The Dropout, Seyfried knows that Holmes isn't a perfect person. "I know whatever she's sentenced with, it's what she deserves," Seyfried told Jared Leto as part of Variety's Actors on Actors series.
But a part of Seyfried feels some sympathy for Holmes, who was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud in February, saying, "Yeah, she lied a lot. She's a mother. She has her whole life ahead of her."
Seyfried, who is 36, continued, "She's my age. I like to think I'm still young, you know what I mean?"
And yes, Leto knows what she means. In WeCrashed, he played real-life figure Adam Neumann, who resigned as the CEO of WeWork following a vote of no confidence. Through the experience, Leto realized, "Not everyone is one thing. No one is one thing."
Leto's experience differed from Seyfried's in one big way though: He got to meet the person he was playing.
Both Seyfried and Leto were advised by their show's respective teams that they were "not allowed" to contact their respective characters, a rule that Seyfried followed but Leto didn't. As Leto told Seyfried, "I was too curious. I thought that I would regret it. We had a top-secret meeting."
Leto found their illicit rendezvous to be a rewarding experience and liked playing Neumann. He said of the role, "It was the longest and the most amount of material I've ever had in my life. Selfishly, I loved it."
Likewise, Seyfried takes great pride in her performance on The Dropout too. She just feels like the whole situation is a bit "messy" because of how the series premiere coincided with Holmes' sentencing. She told Leto, "I actually do care."
Neither Holmes nor Neumann have publicly addressed the TV adaptations about their respective lives.
Holmes is currently set to face sentencing on Sept. 26.
As for Neumann, he retreated from the public eye and now works in real estate management. In an interview with The New York Times last November, he said, "I have had a lot of time to think, and there have been multiple lessons and multiple regrets."
The Dropout is streaming now on Hulu and WeCrashed is streaming on Apple TV+.