Errol Morris Says He Holds a Two-Hour Elizabeth Holmes Interview Few Have Seen

Errol Morris has a two-hour interview with Elizabeth Holmes, and by his own account almost nobody has seen it. He told Variety that he is considering releasing the full conversation as an unedited film, at a time when interest in the former Theranos chief executive is rising again.

Morris said he shot the session at the height of Holmes's success. He used the Interrotron, a camera and screen setup he developed, which lets the person being interviewed look straight into the lens. Apart from himself and people in his office, he said, no one has watched it.

The two first crossed paths in 2015, when Holmes hired Morris to shoot a series of advertisements for Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded. Morris told Variety that he later tried for years to make a documentary about her. It never happened, he said, because she was under indictment amid large-scale litigation.

Morris also said he recently watched Alex Gibney's 2019 documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, about Holmes and Theranos, for the first time. He added that he has contacted the appropriate people to see a screener, a advance copy used for review, of You Can See Everything, a new documentary about Holmes by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. He said he has not been able to get one.

That film is being distributed by A24. A24's trailer, published in September, announced a theatrical release on October 16. Separately, Variety reported on 24 October that Fielder negotiated a "kill switch" with A24 before filming began. A kill switch is a contract clause that lets a party halt a project.

For a general audience, the timing is the interesting part. Two Holmes films are now in the public eye: one that has been promoted with a set date, and one that Morris says he may release himself, with footage no one outside his office has seen. Morris has not given a date for his version. He said he is considering it.

The story also shows how long a single subject can stay on the calendar. Holmes's company collapsed, her case went to court, and filmmakers kept returning to her for years. Each project still needs someone to fund it, a studio or streamer to release it, and a date on the calendar. Those decisions shape which Holmes story reaches audiences first.