-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award-nominated
actress you know from films such as "Mank,"
"Mamma Mia!", and "Mean Girls."
She stars as Elizabeth Holmes in "The Dropout,"
which premieres on Hulu March 3rd.
Let's take a look.
-"Here at Theranos...
we are developing new technology."
[ Clears throat ]
[Deeper voice] "Here at Theranos...
we are developing new technology."
"New technology."
"This is an inspiring step...
forward."
Forward. Forward.
-Please welcome back to the show Amanda Seyfried, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hello!
-It's so warm here.
-It is so lovely to have you.
You are such a friend of this show, and you haven't even --
It hasn't even been that long
since the last time you were here,
and we just want you to stop by whenever you feel like it.
-Thanks. It's warm. The lighting's warm.
It's not as cold as it could be,
and you guys are really, really sweet, so I --
-That's nice. I mean, you just met them.
You just met them. -I'm just --
I feel like, by association, they must be really nice.
-Yeah. That's very safe. That is a safe --
hey, I always do like to check in on the animals in your life.
-Yeah. -You live a farm life.
You have much in the way of animal pets.
-I do. -And how are they all doing?
-Yeah, I mean, everybody was accounted for this morning.
-So that's a big part of your morning, is accounting.
-Yeah. Yeah.
It's funny. Accounting. Not the same as math.
-No.
-I do have to count all the chickens
'cause we have so many.
I brought you some eggs. -Did you really?
-Yeah, they happen to be right here.
I actually was late -- Not kidding.
I was late, so late today because I forgot the eggs
and I had said I would bring them.
And so I was like, "I have to keep my word," so I went back.
It was really out of the way, but anyway...
-You're making me feel a little bad about this gift.
-I'm sure you have something for me.
-You shouldn't give a gift and go,
"Anyway, it was really out of the way."
-I mean, but it was like --
I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate my eggs
and I really love giving eggs.
-And these are laid this morning?
-Those were yesterday. I did it last night.
I set it aside. -Okay, great.
-And I put the ribbon on.
I got to Amazon new egg crates.
But, yeah, no, it's a great gift.
I just love them, and, you know, we have --
-We love fresh eggs in our family.
This is a big deal. We're very happy about this.
How many chickens are you at right now?
-Uh... -How many you have.
-Ten, ten, ten, ten! -Ten?
-Ten. -I mean, if you don't know --
-Ten. Sorry. Yeah, we have ten. We have ten, but we recently --
We had a loss, you know, of a goat.
-A goat. -Not a chicken.
-You mentioned this on Instagram.
-So, like, I keep tabs of all the animals,
and it's like -- it's farm life.
-This is a very sad thing to talk about on National Pig Day.
I don't know if you know. -It's Fasnacht Day, as well.
-What day is it? -Fasnacht.
-What's fasnacht? -So, when I saw
the National Pig Day thing, I was like, "Oh, that's great.
We could celebrate that." But, like, fasnacht.
Doughnuts?
-What are you talking about?
[ Laughter ]
-I feel really embarrassed
'cause I feel like maybe this is a long-running joke
that my mom has been playing on me
just so she would get me in this position
to talk about it on TV and it's not even real.
-Wait. It's a holiday called Fasnacht Day?
-Yes! Like, every few months --
-Wait. Do you really know it? -Tell me it's real.
-Okay. -Whew!
I was like, "Wow. My mom is so smart.
And she plays the long game."
-Is fasnacht a kind of doughnut?
-Yes! -Okay, great.
We're really leaning on the audience.
-Thank you! So, it's real.
So, happy Pig Day. Happy Doughnut Day.
-Yeah, so feed a weird doughnut to your pig, by all means.
Alright, so, which of the goats is lost?
-[ Audience awws ] -Aw, that's very sad.
-She was pretty old, and, you know, she had a great life.
-That's really sweet. -I know.
It's really weird when you lose animals
that didn't live in your house.
-Well, sorry. Again -- -I don't know. I actually --
-I mean, I think it'd be weird if they lived
in your house, too.
-Well, no, I mean, like, dogs and cats.
-Oh, I see what you mean.
Yes, of course. Yeah. To lose a farm animal, right.
'Cause I would imagine it's a little -- Is it easier?
But you seem so connected to your farm animals.
-It is easy, in a way.
Like, I guess I'm just used to it.
Isn't that weird, to be used to that?
-Yeah, but I think that's part of the --
I don't know -- the wonder of farm life, is you do learn --
Carter -- the circle of life.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah. Wow.
-I'm sorry.
I should've told you to put on your noise-canceling as I...
You know, I don't know -- We've talked a lot
about the animals that live on your farm.
Do you know the goat story of my life?
This -- There was a real story in my life.
My wife's father -- my father-in-law --
before he was my father-in-law
and I was just dating his daughter --
he had a goat named Raisin, who is also no longer with us.
-That is like the Hercules of goats!
-It's a beautiful goat. -That is a stunner.
-This is proof that Raisin and I were close.
And Raisin was one of the reasons --
-Oh, my God. His head against yours.
-I know. It's really sweet.
And that's why I wanted to -- -Raisin's no longer...
-He's no longer with us, yeah.
He moved to L.A. to be an actor.
-Okay. -[ Laughter ]
-Do you find goats to be -- My father-in-law
swears by them as very affectionate animals.
Are your goats affectionate?
-Yeah, we have some dudes that just --
Too cool for what. I don't know. But too cool for me, for sure.
But then we have one who's cool, really cute.
And then we have two who are just --
Oh, God, they're just amazing.
They were just like Josie, actually, who we lost.
But they're amazing, and they love getting their horns --
-Yeah, that's a great scratch.
Scratching a goat is a good feeling.
-Yeah, and the smell on your hands.
It's really actually a very cathartic experience.
-Yeah. -For both of you.
-Yeah. -It's crazy.
-You should open up, like, a New York spa
where people just come in and rub a goat's...
-You know what? That's the thing about the goat yoga.
Like, I'm not tapping into a new thing.
-You're not doing it. Yeah.
-It's like, no, they've already been tapped.
-Yes. Have you done goat yoga?
-No. -Yeah.
-Why would you -- -Yeah, I don't --
-Why would you -- I don't know. Maybe it's great.
Actually, I'm not gonna knock it, but, like, they --
I don't know if you know this,
but they don't have any control of when they poop.
So why would you want to -- -Yeah, exactly.
So, you're playing Elizabeth Holmes, and, you know,
I think this is a story that even those of us
who don't follow, you know, business or that world,
we all learned about Elizabeth Holmes
and Theranos and this company.
Did you know much about her when this came to you?
-I did, 'cause I listened to "The Dropout."
-Which is a fantastic podcast, yes.
-Such a good podcast. I was into podcasts.
And I was sitting around and I listened to it,
and I was like, "Wow. This is fascinating."
And then, you know, I just, like, went on my judgy way.
-Yeah. -And then this comes up
a couple -- like a year and a half later,
and I'm like, "I'm gonna really --
I got to come at it from a different angle."
And, sorry, but we're -- If you think about it,
I mean, as actors, like, we're all human.
-Yes. -We know that, and our ability
to be compassionate is hopefully working.
And, gosh, what a complicated person to be able to play.
I feel so lucky.
And yet I don't know anything about her,
but her story is as fascinating or more than it was before.
-While you were filming, she was found guilty
on multiple counts. -Yes, crazy.
-That is obviously a crazy thing to happen
in the middle of while you're --
-We had dumped like 700 text messages
one night in the middle of filming.
And Liz Meriwether, the genius that she is,
she's like, "We're gonna use these."
And, in fact, one of the text messages
was referring to a baby bird.
And I was like, "Oh, my God. There was a baby bird."
And she's like, "No, I thought she was referring to him
as 'Baby Bird.'"
And it's like, "What is this baby bird?
Do we need a baby bird on the show?
How do we incorporate a bird?
And, like, what scene is it gonna be in?
And -- Or is it a metaphor for something, you know?"
And it was a real, like, mind eff.
-Are you not gonna tell us what the bird was?
-I don't know! -We still don't know?
-No, but, also, apparently we couldn't afford a baby bird.
-Really? -And the line producer
was like, "We can't." -Really?
-And we're like, "Alright." I guess --
Because we don't know anyway, but we were just guessing.
It's all guesses.
-By the way, the show looks fantastic.
Like, it seems like it has a pretty robust budget.
I can't believe baby bird was, like, the kill point.
-Oh. -"Oh, we could do a baby bird,
but there's no pizza at the crew party."
-Nobody gets fed for a week.
-Oh, yeah, you got to feed the birds.
You know. You got that farm life.
You're like, "It's never just a goat!"
-It's nev-- You're right.
You don't know what baby birds eat.
You don't know what they need.
-They're growing birds. -Could be super expensive.
-You -- One of the things --
You've played real people before.
You've never played a living person before.
-True.
-And a person who's, you know, in the same generation as you.
And I did read that when you were in the bedroom set
that you had built, you realized
that this is a person you also had things in common with.
-We're essentially the same age.
She had, like, the "Seventeen" --
I remember reading that issue. It wasn't "she."
I have to remember. This is a set.
It was designed by a production designer.
We had a set dresser.
But I remember, like, it really connected me to her,
'cause we're contemporaries.
We were brought up in the same world where the same movies
were playing and, like, we knew the same music.
I don't know her favorite. We think we do.
But it was just -- it really tied me to her.
And it was also amazing to see these, like, "YM" magazines
and that magazine that had the stickers in it.
You don't know, 'cause you were a boy.
But, like, remember when the magazines came with stickers?
-What were the stickers of? -Boy bands.
-Oh, yeah. -Chad Michael Murray.
-[ Cheers and applause ] -I don't know.
-I'm very confused by this group of people tonight.
[ Laughter ]
Like, I get if you had named your favorite boy band,
but they just went for, like, that description of a band.
-Well, because boy bands are a thing of the past-ish.
-Ish. I think it's back.
-There were a lot more than there are now.
-Yeah, they all died off, like the dinosaurs.
-Well, they didn't, though,
because they had a Christmas special.
Whatever. I didn't see it. I missed it, but I --
-It is a really -- It is a really cool role,
playing a very complicated person.
And you're very, very good at this.
And thank you so much for being back on the show.
It's always a delight. -It's so exciting.
Thanks for having me, always. -Amanda Seyfried, everybody.
"The Dropout" premieres on Hulu this Thursday,
with new episodes airing weekly through April 7th.