Nathan Fielder says he still does not 'understand' Elizabeth Holmes documentary

Nathan Fielder says he is still trying to understand his experience making You Can See Everything, the upcoming A24 documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans.

Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim discussed the film during a screening and Q&A at the Academy Museum. The documentary was secretly screened at the Telluride Film Festival before its public release.

"I still am not sure to this day what I experienced," Fielder told the audience. "Maybe it being out there, everyone can help me understand what I went through a little bit. What we all went through."

Oppenheim explained that the project began after he contacted Fielder, having seen his debut feature Some Kind of Heaven. After initially rejecting Oppenheim's ideas, the pair found inspiration during a visit to The Magic Castle.

A performer asked the audience to suggest a name, prompting someone to shout "Elizabeth Holmes!" Oppenheim said he had learned the previous day that Holmes and Evans had approached A24 about making a documentary covering Holmes' final days before beginning her prison sentence.

Fielder and Oppenheim subsequently approached A24 about meeting Holmes. Fielder recalled finding the first meeting difficult to understand.

"It was a really disorienting experience, talking to someone like that, when they seem so sincere," Fielder said.

Much of the documentary was filmed in 2023, before Holmes began her prison sentence. Fielder initially had a smaller on-camera role, but Oppenheim said the cameras eventually turned towards him to help audiences navigate the events surrounding Holmes and Evans.

The filmmakers and a seven-person crew spent around 35 days documenting their lives, with Fielder and Oppenheim staying in the couple's guest house.

The directors said they often disagreed about what they had witnessed, with even members of the crew forming different interpretations of mundane events.

"The first place that we started from was like, 'Can we document this in a way that brings the audience into this experience?'" Oppenheim said.

You Can See Everything is scheduled to release in cinemas on October 16.