Amanda Seyfried’s series, The Dropout, begins on Hulu this Thursday. The photo above is from last week’s premiere. Amanda is wearing Oscar de la Renta. I love the fabric and the color, but the superpuff detail and very low neckline looks like it’s weighing it down. The series is about Elizabeth Holmes and her mess with Theranos. I’m a fan of Amanda’s and the cast is great so I may check it out. Holmes’ story makes me so angry though.
Amanda swung by Jimmy Kimmel Live! in person to chat. While she was there, they talked about her love of pranking her friends, which is something I didn’t know about Amanda. She started off big, admitting to dressing in a bear costume and hiding in the woods to scare her poor husband – OMG! But most of her pranks sound much milder and pretty funny. Her go-to is filming her friends while they’re looking at their phones and sending them the videos. And then she films their reactions.
She pranks people by recording them and then sending it to them
If I see someone on their phone and there’s a place to hide I’ll go hide pretty far away and zoom in and video them for at least a minute. Then I’ll send it to them to disorient them. They’re gonna get it. You send it to them and then you record them getting it.I did this to my friend Eli. He was outside of the barn eating something that was way too big for his mouth. I videoed him for three minutes. I sent it to him. He was like [looks around]. I have the video of that too. I f’ck with him a lot. It’s a gift to them, it’s not the meanest thing. There’s always some kind of shame or guilt when someone gets caught on their phone, but we’re just doing what everybody does.
On playing Elizabeth Holmes
I came from a compassionate angle, but also I was just fascinated. The perfect analogy I heard was she had jumped off a cliff and was trying to build her parachute before she got to the ground.
I love pranks. I’m not the best at pulling them off, but I feel like I could do this video thing. The problem is that the only people I really prank are my family. And it won’t work because my kids never check their texts from me, and my extended family all live in different cities. I love how Amanda thinks it’s a gift for her victims because she sends the reaction videos to them. That’s prank logic for you, “no, see – you like it!”
I like Amanda’s comments on how she approached Elizabeth Holmes, too. Actors usually try to find the humanity in their character or something sympathetic, so they don’t look overly opportunistic for wanting to portray them coughawardbaitcough. But I can appreciate becoming fascinated with a person who’s buried so deep in their own sh*t, it’s hard to tell if they can smell it or not. And I like Amanda’s analogy about the parachute as well. Only in Holmes’ case, there should be a line about how she stole the rip cords from someone else when she found out hers didn’t work.
Photo credit: Getty Images, Instagram and YouTube
Nope.
Not ever funny.
Nasty, abusive thing to do to people.
100% agree. Never funny.
I agree. Abusive, mean, not funny at all.
Uuugh. I know she thinks it’s cute and funny, but uuuugh. I have a bad limp and I’ve caught strangers recording me when I walk. Why? I dunno. I guess it’s different when you’re doing it to a friend or family, but…
I don’t think it’s that much different when you’re doing it to a friend or even your family.
My sisters take pictures and record videos at Christmas dinners and birthday parties and other similar gatherings. Back in the day, these situations made me very anxious because I used to be a LOT heavier than I am now. I wasn’t even trying to prevent them from taking pics or videos, nothing like that, all I wanted was a little warning beforehand so that I could mentally prepare myself for it. I thought they’d understand because they knew I had tons of complex body issues but they didn’t. They had both always been very pretty, tall and thin so I guess they just couldn’t see it from my point of view. Or didn’t want to try.
Not funny!
I hate pranks.
Same here Eurydice. Unless you know for certain your target has the same sort of humor as you, is also a prankster, and won’t be upset, you just shouldn’t do it.
I associate pranks with bullies in school. Pranks are meant to cause public embarrassment and that kind of humor has always made me uneasy.
I hate pranks, too…there always seems to be a touch of mean-spiritedness. And I dislike how the default response is “it’s just a joke – can’t you even take a joke?”
Me, too.
Learn to laugh at yourself. That’s a lot more endearing.
That is some lame low brow humour. I wouldn’t think it was that funny? 🤷♀️
Telling people what to feel and disregarding their pain is never friendly or endearing.
I’m seriously considering that a lot of intelligent, progressive people have gotten so far up their feels that the idea of laughing at themselves is now out of the question. It’s a fking prank. I’m sure she does it to people she knows can take a joke or won’t mind. I can’t believe I had to type that last sentence.
Now she’ll be called a narcissist and canceled. So will I. Lol. Thats actually the part that’s not funny.
Who knows? Maybe she’ll put trigger warning before she sends someone a video of them scrolling on their phone or eating a burger. Sorry for my post: Trigger warning.
I’m seriously considering that a lot of intelligent, progressive people have gotten so far up their feels that the idea of laughing at themselves is now out of the question. It’s a fking prank. I’m sure she does it to people she knows can take a joke or won’t mind. I can’t believe I had to type that last sentence.
Recording people without their knowledge so they can be the butt of your joke? Never funny.
Oh, but Amanda swears “It’s a gift to them. It’s NOT the meanest thing!” Okay then, Amanda.
I have never been a fan of hers and this just cements my opinion. Her only saving grace is her Aussie, we’ve had several of those wonderful doggies.
I have a healthy sense of humor, twisted even…filming/photographing someone without their permission gets a big nope from me.
But like… what’s the funny part? It’s weirdly narcissistic that because you find it funny, it’s automatically a great prank?
Hated the anecdote but she’s a brilliant choice for Holmes, hope it’s good, I was obsessed with the book Bad Blood when it came out.
I am very nitpicky about biopics,if someone doesnt look like their subject i just cant dont it. She is just too petite for Elizabeth and i just dont see it. They are a few actors who have managed to pull off the perfomance even with no resemblance(angela bassette) so i may give it a try.
Errr I don’t think filming your friend looking at their phone is ‘abusive’. It’s not the height of hilarity to me but honestly, abusive? Jesus. She’s filming friends not strangers!!
I have to say I don’t think it’s very funny though.
If filming friends doing stupid stuff is “abuse,” you’re going to lose a lot of TikTok lol. At least she’s only sharing it with them and not the whole world. Sounds mostly harmless to me if they know her and get her sense of humor. If they don’t like it, they can tell her. As long as she respects that, she’s fine.
Not sure what’s so funny about recording someone without their knowledge or consent, but do go on.
What a horrible thing to do to your friends. Absolutely insensitive and disgusting. I wouldn’t stay friends with a “friend” who did something like that to me and expected me to find it funny.
Good lord the melodrama here. My husband and I have done this to each other a thousand times. I caught him picking his nose, he caught me making bizarre faces at the news I was reading. You laugh and move on. I guess don’t play this joke on someone you know has a stick up their butt, but I hardly think this is abuse in and of itself.
These people are not his spouse. They are co-workers. It is entirely inappropriate.
I agree. And her explanation that it’s a gift from her sounds like her head is too big for the rest of herself! A little selfish and self absorbed maybe? Not funny, not at all.
I agree 100%. It is not the same thing at all when it’s your spouse.
It just sounds…stupid.
Okay, glad I’m not the only person who read this headline and was like wtf??? That would really, really bother me.
“It’s a gift to them…” really squicked me out too.
that doesn’t sound like a prank to me, it sounds like something she thinks is funny and everyone else just puts up with but probably hates it.
I want to see this series, but I don’t have Hulu and I’m refusing to get it at this point, lol. Maybe I’ll wait until the whole thing is available and see if there is a free trial or something.
Let me ask my western Cbitches. I always read about what a pain it is to get so many streaming platforms etc. In my country we have these movie shops where you go and get anything you want. You just hand over your hard drive and you get anything from netflix,hulu,hbo,prime. I mean eveything you want and not just new stuff you can get classics too. Nothing like that in the States,Europe even if its on the hush!??Years ago it used to be dvds also.
Ugh I hate having so many different platforms in the US. I would love it to be more centralized.
You just hand over a hard drive, willy nilly? Seems ripe for digital trouble to me.
I meant an external hard drive, or a usb flash. Most people have ones for just this purpose so you obviously wouldnt leave anything in there you didnt want anyone to see
Yeah I’m not a fan of pranks at all. You are laughing at the other person, not with them. It’s mean spirited.
Sorry, but no, no, no. This isn’t a prank, it’s creepy.
Agree. Filming people at their worst and then having a good laugh at their expense is evil, even when you ” think” they are in on the joke. Too much like high school. Not funny and one is not amused.
I despise pranks because the “joke” depends on the humiliation of another person. And filming someone without their knowledge when they have an expectation of privacy isn’t funny at all. If I had a friend who did this to me they would no longer be a friend. I’m really flummoxed how anyone would defend this. Maybe I’m especially sensitive to consent issues…but it seems I am not alone based on the responses.
Also: She seems to think it is even funnier that the recipient would be scared about who is watching them. Not funny at all.
This reminds me a *little* of how paparazzi treat female celebrities, most of whom vehemently protest it and call it out. Will never forget seeing a video of Kate Moss get absolutely swarmed by men with cameras and microphones at an airport.
I wonder if I’m showing my age here though, since I’m definitely not a millennial who grew up with social media everywhere. Maybe it’s much more normal to that age group. Not sure how old she is.
Maybe I don’t have a sense of humor because if my friend filmed me without my consent I’d be pissed. It seems mean and if they stopped being your friend, potentially really embarrassing. I don’t understand this fascination with these young blonde scammers like Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvy. There is this veiled admiration of their grifting ways and a fascination with them able to move in the rarefied circles and basically live off other peoples money. Holmes dropped out her freshman year, none of the data ever backed her, but people kept believing her and investing because she was the unicorn everyone wanted.HBO did a really good documentary on Holmes so the dramatized version seems a bit redundant.
“My friend thought he was alone and he was just trying to eat in peace but it was sooooo funny how he stuffed his face, so I secretly recorded him. But that’s not even the funniest part! Then, I sent him the video and watched him get freaked out because he didn’t know someone was there taping him. It was hilarious!”
I have no idea why this is funny. It sounds incredibly rude and we wouldn’t be friends for long. Maybe she has a different perspective because she has been an actress for so long and is just used to being on camera from every angle and assuming people in public are taking her picture or video without her consent?
I don’t like her. I don’t know why. There’s just something about her. I can’t watch her in anything. There’s a smugness about her that is very off-putting. Reading this article, I feel vindicated. She’s a nope for me.
My husband loves pranks. He does not prank me, because I think they are mean-spirited. He pranks his brothers who also like to prank. Read the room, Amanda. Not all of us like pranks or being shown videos where you caught us in embarrassment. It also has nothing to do with a stick up our butts, some of us just have more sensitive conscious egos.
Yeah, I don’t like the “prank.” It’s weird and stalkerish. I don’t think she’d like it done to her.
I can take a joke. By definition a joke is supposed to be funny,though. I don’t get how filming me while I’m looking at my phone is funny. I know what I look like and I know what my phone looks like- I know what I look like when I look at my phone. I look like me, looking at something.
I can picture this playing out and THAT’S funny to me. I can imagine someone doing this and just cracking up while the subject of the prank looks confused and kind of wanders off looking vaguely concerned. It’s cringed when people who are deeply unfunny think they’re funny, but I don’t mind a little cringe.