THERANOS

Kate McKinnon Will Play Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu’s The Dropout

It’s the logical choice.


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In this age of scammer stories that are almost stranger than fiction, it makes sense that the turnaround for greenlighting fictionalized adaptations and biopics of the con artists in question is remarkably fast. Case in point: Hollywood is not only giving us a movie about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the faulty blood technology company Theranos, but will bring the story to streaming next in a separate project.

The film, Bad Blood, is based on John Carreyrou’s book of the same name, directed by Adam McKay, and will star Jennifer Lawrence as the Silicon Valley scammer. However, the story of the Theranos long con is now also coming to television: Per reports from Deadline, Hulu has ordered a limited series called The Dropout, which will star none other than Saturday Night Live‘s Kate McKinnon.

Those familiar with McKinnon’s work know she has done her fair share of vocal transformation to play various roles based on real people, like Australian hairstylist and Bravolebrity Tabatha Coffey, British prime minister Theresa May, Kellyanne Conway, and perhaps most famously, Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. As one of SNL‘s most valued and versatile players, it only makes sense that McKinnon would sign on to play Holmes, and given her track record, she’ll probably nail her extremely deep and possibly fake voice to a T.

The Hulu series is reportedly based on the podcast The Dropout, with McKinnon serving as executive producer. When Holmes dropped out of Stanford to start Theranos, a company that falsely promised to conduct various important genetic tests, she became a wunderkind of Silicon Valley, hailed as the next Steve Jobs, until the truth was exposed. HBO’s documentary on the subject, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley was swiftly popularized on the Internet, thanks to the interview clips that highlighted Holmes’s crazed eyes and shockingly deep voice (which many people pointed out was as fake as her blood-testing technology), and spawned plenty of memes and backlash from the Holmes family.

The Dropout is expected to be a short six- to ten-episode limited series, and stars a key comedic player, but make no mistake: This project is not billed as a comedy. Still, it’s basically a rite of passage if Kate McKinnon roasts you with an exact science on television.

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