A24's Theranos Doc Could Put Amanda Seyfried Back in the Oscar Race

Amanda Seyfried is eligible for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for a documentary. That is not a prediction; it is what Academy rules permit, and A24 has not denied it.

The film is You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary that follows Elizabeth Holmes through her final weeks of freedom before her prison sentence in the Theranos fraud case. Midway through the film, after Holmes enters a Texas federal prison, Fielder brings Seyfried — who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing Holmes in Hulu's The Dropout — into the production for a series of reenactments opposite Christopher Abbott as Holmes's partner, Billy Evans.

What do the rules actually allow?

Academy rules state that a documentary billed as such can "qualify for awards in other categories if [it] meet[s] the specified requirements and submission deadlines." For the acting categories, a performer must hold a role "credited in the film's legal billing." Seyfried, Abbott and the other reenactment performers all appear in the end credits.

So the eligibility question is closed. The campaign question is not. A24, described as tight-lipped, has yet to confirm whether it will push Seyfried for a nomination. Every promise of a campaign rests on inference, and the inference has one public data point.

That data point came Saturday at the Academy Museum Gala, where Seyfried appeared alongside Fielder among a crowd of potential contenders. She dodged questions about her participation on the carpet. Her presence, however, suggested a distributor positioning a performer for a run.

What does this change for the film?

Quite a lot, potentially. You Can See Everything sits at No. 9 on the experts' Best Picture leaderboard with 48% odds, behind films like The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary at 100%. The source tracking it says the film is on pace to become the first documentary ever nominated for Best Picture since it opened in limited release.

An acting campaign would signal that A24 wants more than the Best Documentary Feature category. Seyfried already has one prior nomination in this race — Best Supporting Actress for 2020's Mank — so a second bid would not be unprecedented territory for her.

Where the path narrows

The eligibility stops at the Academy's door. Neither Seyfried nor the film can enter the Golden Globes or the SAG Awards, because both precursors stipulate that only scripted movies qualify. That matters practically: the Globes and SAG typically function as signal-builders for acting campaigns. A contender who cannot campaign there starts the Oscar race without the usual momentum machinery.

The full picture, then, is narrow and specific:

• Seyfried is Oscar-eligible because the rules credit her billing in a documentary.
• A24 has confirmed nothing about an actual campaign.
• The Globes and SAG are closed to her under their scripted-only rules.
• The film carries 48% odds at No. 9 on the Best Picture leaderboard.

The open question

Seyfried's work in the film's second and third acts — the reenactments, the awkward exchanges with Holmes and Evans, the questions she puts to Fielder — is the substance a campaign would run on. Whether it runs at all depends on a distributor that has said nothing on the record.

Eligibility is not a nomination. Until A24 commits, Seyfried's Oscar prospects are a rulebook possibility with a gala appearance attached.