The critically acclaimed new miniseries tells the real-life story of Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), a Stanford student who leaves school to create Theranos, a promising blood testing start-up. Under Holmes’ direction, the company soars to new heights—that is, until it all comes crashing down when she’s exposed as a fraud. Holmes’ ability to recruit the support of influential people like Shultz helped build her success; years before he joined Theranos’ board of directors, Shultz served as Secretary of Labor and later Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard Nixon, and then Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan. So how did a man who had worked with world leaders and powerful men of industry fall under Holmes’ spell? In an exclusive new interview with Parade, Waterston hypothesizes, “What we should take from this is that if someone like George Schultz, with his background and intelligence and knowledge, can be taken in, we all ought to take that seriously as it applies to ourselves. That ‘what fools these mortals be’ applies to us. And when somebody tells us something that’s too good to be true, we shouldn’t fall for it, but we should be humble enough to know that we are susceptible to fall for it.” For Waterston, who was familiar with the Theranos scandal before joining The Dropout’s stellar cast, it was the appeal of working with Seyfried that drew him to the project, as well as the “extraordinary” way that it was written. “The more I knew, the more I wanted to do it,” he explains. “Holmes was the right person at the right time, but she was also very good at it. She was telling people something that they really wanted to hear. Sometimes they didn’t know that it was something that they wanted to hear, but when they heard it, they knew that it would be wonderful. So, they were primed, they were easy targets.” In addition to The Dropout, Waterston will soon be seen in the final 12 episodes of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie when it premieres on April 29, and he’s also currently reprising his role as Jack McCoy on NBC’s revival of Law & Order. “I thought, ‘Well, you’ve done that. Is it really okay to go back, and can you go back?’" Waterston says when asked if he had any hesitation in returning to his most famous role. “And it seems like maybe, yes, you can go home again. I was cautious about it, but then when I arrived on the set and I saw the same books on the shelves, and the same linoleum on the floor, and the same absolutely rock-solid story structure coming episode after episode, I wondered how I could have ever wondered whether I should be there. Also, this is a dream that Dick Wolf has had since the show went off the air. He did wonderful things for me and it’s very nice to be able to help him have his dream come true.” Keep reading to find out about Waterston’s flamboyant style in The Dropout, whether he thinks things would have been different if Holmes had been a man and why viewers enjoy watching stories about successful people who crash and burn.
George Shultz seemed to have quite the personality, which he expressed though his wardrobe.
Yes. I think we were pretty modest about it. He was a dapper man. He liked clothes; it was part of his signature.
As an actor, doesn’t that help you find the character?
Yes, although it’s funny, in his case, it seems to me, it was just a thing. He didn’t seem vain; it was just a thing that he did. I even wondered whether it was something that he started out thinking that you should show up for work looking like you were ready for work and in proper shape. And then he found that people identified him with that and that became a handy thing, the world of Washington and politics and all of that.
Do you think if Elizabeth had been a man that people would have perceived what she did less as fraud maybe and more as, “Well, this happens in startups?”
The jury found that it was clear-cut fraud by the time it was cooked. Where it stopped being an aspiration and started being a fraud, I haven’t seen the show, but I expect that that one of the things we get an answer to in the show is: When did it slip over, or how did that happen? Or did it happen without anybody, including the principals, really knowing? I’ll be fascinated to see what the show’s answer to that is.
In the beginning, it seems as if she did have this idea, and she really did want to do something good and it wasn’t just the money.
That sounds plausible to me. But really, I wasn’t there. It’s a version of “I’m not a lawyer, I play one on TV.” I don’t know more than you do.
We have The Dropout, WeCrashed, and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, all these real-life stories about people who have these great ideas, find success and then they crash and burn. Why do you think we like to watch them so much?
Well, I think part of it is that we want to believe, we hope, it’s them and not us. But I think it’s also that we all somewhere in our deepest souls recognize that it’s a weakness in us that we really need to be very much on the lookout for. I think we think because we’ve been seeing advertising for such a long time that we’re basically immune to it, that we can’t be fooled anymore. But I think another thing happens, which is that somebody makes an outrageous claim, and we think, “Well, who knows? Maybe there’s something to that. Maybe if I buy that car, I’ll have a whole new life and get a great girlfriend.” So, maybe we are more susceptible because we’ve seen so much advertising. Maybe we need to be even more alert in the world we live in than we needed to be before.
You have this wonderful role in The Dropout, you’re back on Law & Order, you wrapped up Grace and Frankie. You’re 81 years old and you’re getting some of the best roles of your life. Did you ever imagine that at this point in your career that this is where you’d be?
No. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel, how grateful I am and thankful I am to the audience. The Law & Order experience is a perfect example. We stopped making those shows 12 years ago. The audience kept right on watching them until finally somebody said, “Okay, let’s give them some new ones.” The audience is everything, nothing happens without them. The Dropout is currently streaming on Hulu. Next, Everything We Know About The Dropout, Hulu’s Dramatization of the Theranos Scandal
