Amanda Seyfried's teenage Elizabeth Holmes is already employing a form of "the voice" when she first appears in The Dropout as a young woman. When she speaks, she utilizes a lower tone, tightening her lips and tensing her cheeks to tighten up her vowels, and she occasionally inserts uncomfortable gaps between words. In the third episode, she gives herself a pep talk in the toilet after getting into a heated dispute with her lover and business partner, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, that is particularly shocking and unexpected. Shaken and untidy, with green juice stains on her white shirt, grown-up Elizabeth, now the CEO of biotech firm Theranos, delivers a business speech in front of the mirror to psyche herself up before a meeting with investors. Each time she repeats the phrase, her voice becomes deeper and deeper.
"At Theranos, we are in the process of inventing new technologies," she explains as she descends to further depths. "This...is...an...inspiring...step...forward."
It's a scary experience. It's very great. This is a freakishly exact approximation of Holmes' gruff baritone, for whatever reason it came to be. Besides singing high notes in Mamma Mia! and even higher notes in Les Misérables, Seyfried has also spoken breathily in Mean Girls and Mamma Mia! So, how did she prepare for The Dropout, you might wonder?
She also received vocal instruction, which she continues to get on a monthly basis. However, she still participates in them on a weekly basis via Zoom video conferencing.
ELLE.com reports that the actress collaborated with her voice coach to create a "safe zone" in which she could explore the complexity of her character. Nevertheless, I was confident that I would never reach that level of frequency because I am normally a bit over average on the scale of frequency. And so I was simply going to play tic tac toe do what was deep for me and hope that the audience was already on board, because that would be episode three, when she really begins putting it all on the line. It's true that the intensity level varies depending on what she's doing and with whom she's conversing."
Seyfried approached Holmes's voice with an accent, as if it were his own. "However, the issue with the voice is that it's actually more of an accent, at least for me. This is due to the way her mouth works, which is different from mine," she adds before easily switching into her Holmes voice to say: "We talk in a different way." Then she reverts to Amanda's voice, saying, "Like, her mouth is formed in a different way."
Several weeks before the start of production, Seyfried would send video clips to the director, Michael Showalter, showing herself rehearsing her accent work at her property in the Catskill Mountains. "I'd be tossing hay out to the horses, as if I were giving a TED Talk on selling hay," she explained. After that, she continued to practice "till it became muscle memory."
"And then, when I had the accent, when the accent started to feel comfortable, we would work on the depth a little bit, but the depth would be in the moment," Seyfried continues. It wasn't as if I had consciously worked on making my voice sound lower. I simply know how far I'm willing to go. And on a good day, everything comes together with projection, with the accent, with intensifying it, and with breathing in a specific manner. "
According to Seyfried, the cast and crew of The Dropout were not surprised by Seyfried's Elizabeth voice because she used it all the time and because their production pace was progressive. But it was her wardrobe overhaul in episode 3 that really took everyone by surprise, as she swapped out her drab button-downs and ill-fitting slacks for a more sophisticated all-black ensemble. "The most vivid memory I have of being on set is the reception I received when I stepped out for the first time wearing the Elizabeth 2.0 look, which consists of a turtleneck, a red lip, and my hair pushed back. That was the thing that got people's attention."
For Seyfried, the transition was an exciting experience as well. This felt wonderful since you need those layers to be comfortable. You will go farther into the role if you are portraying someone who is real. The further you move away from yourself—the more indulgent—the further you will fall into the character."
A focus of the show is on Holmes's deep voice and obsession with black turtlenecks, which are more than just eccentricities; they are evidence of how she manipulated her image and her presence in order to be seen (and respected) as a young CEO, especially at a time when the vast majority of her peers and advisors were male.
According to Seyfried, "she needed to be taken seriously." The fact that males are inherently domineering in a variety of ways is well known, which is why we use deeper voices or more projection in order to be heard, seen, understood and desired. You realize that there are some things that you can do to increase your speed," says the author.
"And she was also this little woman who was really intelligent and charismatic, and she was well-versed in dealing with the men in this society because she had studied." she continues. She spent her whole youth obsessively studying Steve Jobs...she was obsessed with the way he talked and the cadence of his voice. In terms of rhythm, she sounds a lot like public speakers; at times, she sounds a lot like Barack Obama. That is not a coincidental occurrence."
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