How ‘The Dropout’ Star Amanda Seyfried Captured the ‘Oddness’ of Elizabeth Holmes’ Voice

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAmanda Seyfried doesn’t think she nailed the iconic deep voice of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes for Hulu’s upcoming limited series “The Dropout” — but she did her “best to try to capture the oddness of it.”“The shape of my mouth isn’t the same as hers, but I can make sounds somewhat or pretty close to what she did,” Seyfried, who plays the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire on the Hulu show, said during a virtual panel at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour Tuesday. “And that’s my job as an actor, mimicking and stuff like that.

But in terms of the depth of it, I had to work really hard to get there because I speak at such a higher level than she does naturally.

So even though she was deepening her voice more and more to what we all understand is for power’s sake, to make an impact, I still couldn’t get all the way there.” Seyfried says she practiced “different breathing and tricks,” and though she doesn’t think she “nailed it 100%” in the end, she does believe she did “what I needed to do for the audience to to come with us.”“And that was really my only concern,” “The Dropout” star said. “So I am a little worried about what people are going to say about the voice.

But at the end of the day, I’m an actor and I’m not her and I did my best to try to capture the oddness of it.”“The Dropout” showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether (“New Girl”) said during the panel she was “really blown away” by Seyfried’s version of Holmes’ voice and her performance in one installment of the eight-episode show that is devoted to how Holmes’ voice got there over time.“I didn’t want it to be at all a sketch or a satire,” Meriwether told reporters.