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Errol Morris Is Sitting on a Secret Elizabeth Holmes Interview (EXCLUSIVE)
Errol Morris has revealed that he filmed a two-hour interview with Elizabeth Holmes at the height of Theranos’s success, and is considering releasing it as an unedited film. The Oscar-winning documentarian says the footage could offer a useful comparison with Holmes after the company collapsed and renewed attention turned to her story.
Morris directed Theranos advertisements in 2015, when Holmes was widely celebrated, and says he had no reason then to suspect fraud. He later tried to make a documentary about her, but the project stalled amid her indictment and litigation. After watching Alex Gibney’s 2019 film, which uses footage from Morris’s interview, he says he is interested in exploring how far Holmes may have believed her own claims.
In short
- Morris filmed a two-hour interview with Holmes before Theranos collapsed.
- He is considering releasing the footage unedited.
- He is interested in Holmes’s possible self-deception.
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The case for
Releasing the full interview could help viewers compare Holmes’s public claims during Theranos’s success with what became known later, and assess whether she appeared to believe what she said. An unedited film may also offer useful context beyond excerpts selected for another documentary, while letting audiences draw their own conclusions.
The case against
The interview was filmed when Holmes was widely celebrated and before the company’s collapse, so presenting it now could invite hindsight to shape how viewers interpret her words. Releasing two hours of footage may give an incomplete or misleading picture without broader context, and renewed attention could turn a serious story about alleged fraud and its consequences into a focus on Holmes’s personality.
Explained simply
Theranos was a US blood-testing company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, who said its technology could run many tests using just a few drops of blood. The company attracted major investment and attention, but its claims were later challenged, and it shut down after scrutiny of its testing methods.
Errol Morris is a documentary film-maker who interviewed Holmes while Theranos was still celebrated. He also directed adverts for the company in 2015, and says he did not then suspect fraud.
Holmes was later convicted of fraud over misleading investors and sentenced to prison. Footage from Morris’s interview has appeared in a later documentary, and the original recording may offer a view of how Holmes presented her claims before Theranos collapsed.
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