Jennifer Lawrence will star as Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the biotech firm Theranos in a new movie, according to Deadline.
The 25-year-old actress will play the Stanford dropout in the Adam McKay-produced film about the biotech firm.
Theranos is the blood-testing startup that once had a valuation of $9 billion and is now reportedly worth nothing. Founded by Holmes in 2003, the company claimed to have found a way perform blood tests with only a few drops of blood from a finger prick.
However, in 2015 The Wall Street Journal ran an investigative piece calling the company’s groundbreaking method into question. The Food and Drug Administration stated Theranos’s technology was only approved for a single test—for herpes. The company had to perform all other tests the old-fashioned way, by drawing blood from a vein.
When asked to showcase findings, Holmes had yet to produce any data.
Forbes once listed Holmes as the 121st richest American. It has rescinded its label and has listed her as being worth zero dollars.
“Our estimate of Holmes’ wealth is based entirely on her 50% stake in Theranos,” Forbes stated in a June 1 article. “Holmes’ stake is essentially worth nothing.”
James Stewart of The New York Times argued that Holmes’s ability to emulate the look of other successful tech startup founders worked in her favor. After all, she was a college dropout and wore black turtlenecks, like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs before her. She was therefore able to woo investors without providing much evidence.
This is the second role Lawrence has accepted about women entrepreneurship.
Earlier this year, the Oscar winner starred as Joy Mangano in the film, “Joy.” Mangano is a self-made millionaire who created her own business empire when she invented the self-wringing Miracle Mop in the early 1990s. The role earned Lawrence an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
