While Amanda Seyfried has garnered attention for her award-worthy portrayal of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes on Hulu's true-crime drama, The Dropout, she's not the only one to turn up her likeness onscreen. William H. Massey makes a shocking change as Richard Fuiz, an entrepreneur and former neighbor of Holmes, who is sued by his health technology startup and later helps expose the company's fraudulent claims.
"I thought the way Richard looked was important," Macy told ET's Lauren Zima about making sure he looked as close to Fuiz as possible.
To achieve the look, Macy spent hours with the hair and makeup team as they went to work turning her into an entrepreneur. "Getting that bald hat wasn't easy," he says. "New technology has come in the last few years, but it's not flawless... They used to be made of rubber. Now they're made of a silicone gel kind of thing, so it budges. And there are new solvents so it can protect your skin." It dissolves bald caps in me so it doesn't create any lines. It's great."
And after 12 hours of shooting, the 71-year-old actor says, "It looked as good at the end of the day as it was at the beginning."
According to Massey, it wasn't only the onlookers who gave a surprising reaction to his appearance. "Firstly, I saw my dad's face, rest in peace. And secondly, I saw how I was going to look in a few years and I didn't like it," the actor admitted, before revealing that He sent photos of himself in full makeup to his wife Felicity Huffman, and others. "I like to send it to some people without telling them who it was. That was fun."
Most importantly, it allowed him to make more bold choices as a character. “When you have all that rubber on your face, it prompts you to be more flamboyant in your acting,” Massey says, “and at the same time, dare to do a little because you have all this rubber that Leading is the fee for you."
Of course, the scripts led by showrunner and executive producer Elizabeth Meriweather also gave Messi a lot to work with, especially when he opted not to reach his real-life counterpart. "I didn't think it was fair," he says, noting that the case was still on trial while the series was filming.
"The script was genius, a page-turner," he continues, comparing Holmes' journey to a Greek tragedy. “To an extent, she was a victim of this thing. She went to Silicon Valley and said, 'I have an idea for this device,' and all the luminaries of power and government were begging her to take their money. Who will say no? But at a certain point, she went to the dark side because she couldn't invent the tool. ,
And not only was its failure to deliver on the promises made by Theranos, which at one point was valued at $10 billion, that caused a major downfall within the company, but it also drove out enemies including Fuse, who in addition to didn't want anything. See it all crashed.
Maisie, played here by Michelle Gill and Elizabeth Marvel, said, "She thought the family looked down on her," referring to Holmes and her parents, Chris and Noel.
"When [Elizabeth] walked out to Stanford and said, 'I'm going to invent this medical device,' she never forgave him for not knocking on his door and asking for advice because that's what he did to survive. And he made a fortune doing that," Massey says. "So, he was determined to bring her down."
As a result, his vindictive personality led him to file a patent related to Theranos' blood-sampling technology before teaming up with Stanford professor Phyllis Gardner to find out the truth behind Holmes' company. The two later caught the attention of Wall Street Journal reporter John Carrerou, who was the first to publicly uncover the growing fraud within Holmes' company.
In the end, Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors, while his meteoric rise and fall became a media sensation, leading to a book, an HBO documentary, a podcast, and now a scripted series chronicling his story.
While the actor himself doesn't want to pass judgment on Holmes ("Here's a moral or cautionary tale," he suggests), there's one thing he knows for sure. With the fuses, "it was personal," Macy concluded.