Documentarian Errol Morris Says He May Release a Never-Before-Seen Interview with Elizabeth Holmes
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Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris revealed in a new interview that he wants to release a two-hour interview he conducted with Elizabeth Holmes years ago
Holmes, who is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas, has returned to the spotlight in the days since the release of the new documentary You Can See Everything
Morris created advertisements for Holmes’ now-defunct company Theranos in the 2010s and discussed making a documentary with her as the company fell apart
Oscar -winning documentarian Errol Morris is interested in revisiting his past interviews with Elizabeth Holmes following the success of the new movie You Can See Everything .
Morris, the 78-year-old director known for his portrayal of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the 2003 documentary The Fog of War , told Variety in an interview published Tuesday, Oct. 27, that he filmed an interview with Holmes, 42, in the past that he now wants to release as its own documentary.
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“I had tried very hard, over a number of years, to do a documentary on Elizabeth Holmes and it would have happened except that she was under indictment. There was massive litigation going on,” he said. “I asked her, at a certain point, if I could film an interview with her — and this is at the height of her success — and I did film a two-hour interview with her, which is not very well-known if it is known at all. And I just watched that. I am sincerely interested in putting that out as an unedited film.”
Morris told the outlet that he has not yet seen Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim ‘s new documentary on Holmes and her partner Billy Evans , which follows the couple in the 34 days before she began serving her 11-year prison sentence in May 2023. As Morris noted in the interview, he once created commercials for Holmes’ now-defunct company, Theranos , “at a time when Elizabeth Holmes was on the front cover of Forbes and many other magazines” and years before a federal jury found her guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against investors and three counts of wire fraud involving investments totaling more than $140 million in January 2022.
Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes in ‘You Can See Everything’
Credit: Courtesy of A24
“If anything, it gives you a comparison of Elizabeth before and Elizabeth after, which I think is interesting in and of itself,” Morris said of his unseen interview. The director clarified that his footage of Holmes has only been viewed by “myself and the people in my office, but yes, for all intents and purposes, it has not been seen by anyone.”
The New York Times previously reported on Oct. 17 that Holmes and Morris discussed working together on a documentary in 2016. In that article, the outlet’s reporter John Carreyrou — who broke news related to fraud at Theranos in 2015 and published a book on the company’s story in 2018 titled Bad Blood — noted that he declined to take part in Morris’ plans for a documentary at that time.
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“Some people see these stories as an on/off switch of she’s innocent or she’s guilty, she’s lying or she’s telling the truth. And when you’re investigating a crime, part of that investigation has to be if the person is guilty or innocent, since the criminal justice system works in such a way that you are looking for some kind of result,” Morris said, regarding his past conversations with Carreyrou and his own opinions on why You Can See Everything has proven popular with moviegoers.
He continued, saying, “But what interests me is: To what extent was she self-deceived? To what extent did she believe in her own bullshit? Carreyrou understandably wants to tell you that she knowingly committed fraud, is guilty, should have been convicted and is in prison, as she should be. I keep wondering about the psychology of self-deception because part of me believes that she believes in Theranos and that she could achieve the results as promised.”
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Elizabeth Holmes in November 2015
Credit: C Flanigan/Getty
When Morris was asked why he never released footage from his interview with Holmes previously, he responded, “Because the company fell apart and she was prosecuted… but I can’t really answer it. The clearest answer is that I’d moved on. But now I feel pretty strongly that this is an interesting document — not because I’m trying to prove something about Elizabeth Holmes, but it does provide some kind of evidence of what she was like when everything was going her way.”
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Morris added that he believes Holmes “was a true believer” in her work at Theranos, after reviewing his interview with the disgraced CEO once more.
Read the original article on People
