"I'm really happy that your film is doing as well as it's doing because I think it pushes the boundaries and we all learn from it," Amir Bar-Lev told Fielder, while Chai Vasarhelyi said of the huge box office showing of the doc, "It was kind of like the most beautiful moment ever in nonfiction."

"When you're in their bubble, you're in a different mindset than when you step out of it," Nathan Fielder told THR during a live Q&A in Savannah on Tuesday. "I'm gleaning new things from just hearing what other people are saying."

• Ethan Pines shot Elizabeth Holmes for a Forbes cover story in 2014.
• The photo of Holmes holding a blood vial has become synonymous with the disgraced Theranos founder.
• Pines spoke to Business Insider about meeting Holmes and his thoughts on "You Can See Everything."

As photographer Ethan Pines drove to the Theranos offices in Silicon Valley, all he could think about was how to make his shoot with its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, stand out.

It was 2014, and the hype around Holmes' health technology company, which boasted it could run hundreds of medical and diagnostic tests using only a few drops of blood, had hit its zenith. The 30-year-old Holmes was on the verge of becoming the youngest self-made female billionaire with a net worth of $4.5 billion.

Pines had photographed CEOs before, and he was racking his brain for ways to make the visuals for Holmes' Forbes cover story memorable.

He never could have predicted that his shot of Holmes would become the symbol of the now-disgraced CEO's meteoric rise and spectacular fall, not to mention imitated on TV series, put on billboards, and discussed in a popular documentary.

Twelve years later, Pines' photo of Holmes has re-entered the zeitgeist thanks to Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's hit documentary, "You Can See Everything," which chronicles the life of Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, in the final weeks before Holmes reports to prison for defrauding investors.

Pines' famous shot is brought up several times in the doc. At one point, while having her body scanned to create an AI hologram, Holmes breaks down, recalling how her image has become a symbol of duplicity in the press.

This isn't the first time Pines' photo of Holmes has gone viral. The shot was used on the poster for Alex Gibney's 2019 documentary on Holmes, "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley." The shot is also re-created in the 2022 Hulu miniseries "The Dropout," which stars Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. But Pines said "You Can See Everything" has brought an even larger wave attention to his work.

"I posted on my Instagram the entire shoot in a flipbook motion piece, and it has a million views," Pines said. "My posts don't get anywhere near that."

The making of an iconic shot

When Pines arrived on set that day in 2014, he knew he wanted to take photographs that functioned as both a portrait of a young founder and a showcase of her invention.

"In my mind, I pictured a tight shot with her holding something up," Pines told Business Insider.

Halfway through the shoot, he asked Holmes' team if there was a suitable object they could use. They obliged with a small vial of blood (well, fake blood; the real stuff, he was told, was in a temperature-controlled lab down the hall).

Once Holmes held the vial up to her face, everything clicked into place.

"Sometimes when you're shooting, you're thinking to yourself, 'This is a gift,'" Pines recalled. "With her big eyes and that intimate, interesting expression, I felt we had something."

Unlike the typical photoshoot with a CEO, where Pines would only get around 10 to 20 minutes to photograph his subject before they rushed off to attend to other matters, Holmes was generous with her time.

Over a couple hours, Pines said he took a total of 220 shots — 52 of her holding the blood vial — in three different setups. What stood out to him the most was Holmes' persona. She was relaxed and down to earth, chatting it up with Pines and his assistant. She'd done her own hair and makeup for the shoot.

Pines recognized a similar easy charisma on display in "You Can See Everything."

"I cannot say if she's being real in this movie or putting on a facade to Nathan Fielder, but it reminded me of my experience," he said. "I felt she was really approachable; she's humble, makes a lot of eye contact, and doesn't come across as cocky or uptight. Oblivious to everything going on around her." 

With the doc a hit at the box office, Pines doesn't think the Holmes hype will die down anytime soon. He's constantly seeing reminders of his iconic photo.

"I was at a Halloween carnival for my daughter's school, and there were at least two people dressed as Elizabeth Holmes with the little blood vial," he said. "The whole thing is a trip." 

"You Can See Everything" is in theaters now.

The popular nonfiction film is eligible for several Oscars. But the academy’s documentary branch may not be receptive to its unconventional approach.

• A24's new documentary "You Can See Everything" follows Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans.
• The movie features an early scene of full-frontal nudity while Evans is showering.
• Director Lance Oppenheim said the scene was Evans' idea and "he didn't care about being seen naked."

In "You Can See Everything," one person apparently took the movie's title to a physical extreme.

A24's twisty new documentary is ostensibly focused on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, one of Silicon Valley's most infamous felons — yet it's her longtime partner, William "Billy" Evans, who frequently steals the show.

Evans' comfort in front of the camera is evident when the couple invites co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim to capture intimate moments in their home life, just a few weeks before Holmes is scheduled to begin an 11-year prison sentence.

In fact, according to Oppenheim, Evans proactively suggested one of the movie's buzziest and most revealing moments: a full-frontal shot of Evans in the shower.

"We were in the car ride on the way back from the gym, and I said to Billy, 'We will give you some time to shower,'" the filmmaker said in a recent interview with GQ. "And Billy responded, 'Want to film me showering?' I offered to film him in a way that could avoid seeing his genitals, but Billy said he didn't care about being seen naked."

Oppenheim speculated that Evans was inspired to give the audience "full access," though he admitted that he was personally baffled by the choice.

"There's a camera in the bathroom, there's a camera that was on Nathan, there's a camera outside the bathroom, and there's an interaction that we see after Billy leaves where he sort of looks at the camera and smiles," Oppenheim said. "So I don't know what that means, but I feel like there's enough stuff in there that gives me the impression that maybe he was excited that people could see everything and that there was full access, I guess. But it really beats me, honestly."

Oppenheim said that, to his knowledge, neither Holmes nor Evans has seen the movie. Evans has not commented publicly on his portrayal, and he did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

"We haven't talked with Billy in a bit now," Oppenheim told GQ. "You sort of see it in the film. Billy can be intense, and there were a lot of conversations he had about the future of the film and the release of the film that made us uncomfortable. So contact broke down for a bit."

Holmes reports to prison about halfway through "You Can See Everything," though Fielder and Oppenheim continue to film Evans as he adjusts to life as a single dad and aspiring entrepreneur; at one point, Evans tells Fielder that he's planning to build another company off the back of Theranos and "do it all again."

In 2025, The New York Times and NPR reported that Evans had raised millions for a new blood-testing startup called Haemanthus.

Evans also boasts that he's in charge of running Holmes' social media while she's incarcerated, telling Fielder that he has power of attorney. "I can literally do whatever," he says.

• Dozens gathered in New York for a Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes look-alike contest.
• A small crowd cheered on the sea of black blazers, blonde buns, and tiny headphones.
• One of the event's winners said she got around 100 Instagram messages urging her to compete.

Washington Square Park on Sunday afternoon looked like a cross between a vigil, a corporate mixer, and a low-budget film set.

It was, in reality, an Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder lookalike contest, as fandom about the documentary "You Can See Everything" spilled onto the streets. A small crowd cheered on the gaggle of blazer-donning blondes and graying fans wearing tiny headphones. Holmes wannabes milled around, their heavily lined eyes wide and fingers forming the "okay" hand gesture associated with the Theranos founder.

Age was no object: One of the Holmeses appeared to be under 10 in a video on X, though she'd already mastered the founders' characteristic stare.

Maddy West, a New York-based comedian and Fielder fan, organized the event with a friend. The organizers had about a week to set up the event, from the registration to securing the guest judge, Kor Skeete, who starred in an episode of Fielder's series "The Rehearsal." West said more than 200 people responded to a registration form on the event's Partiful invitation.

The prize ultimately went to Joe Sivick and Nicole Travolta, the post on X said. Travolta, an actress and comedian, said she's been doing impressions of Holmes since 2022, and already owned the costume and wig. She said she got around 100 Instagram messages from fans urging her to participate in the contest and mainly went because she thought it would be funny.

"In the world that we're living in, everything is so heavy, and I think if you are choosing to go to something like this, you're doing it to be silly and fun," she said.

Travolta thinks her spoken impression is probably what secured her the win, since everyone looked eerily similar to Holmes. Her eyes were somewhat bloodshot on Monday morning, after keeping them wide open in the sun for hours.

Neither Sivick nor Travolta wanted the $50 cash prize, West said, opting instead to just keep a purse made by a local business.

Both West and Travolta said Sivick's impression was so convincing, they momentarily thought he was Fielder himself.

"When he showed up to the event, I saw him from a distance, and he was wearing sunglasses. At first glance, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, did Nathan Fielder actually show?" West said.

Sunday's contestants aren't the only ones investing in the documentary duo's wardrobe. TikTokers have posted about dressing up as Holmes and Fielder — or Holmes and her "drop of blood," in at least one case — for Halloween.

Fielder's documentary has made waves in the tech and film worlds since it debuted earlier this month. The A24 movie tracks the time the comedian spent with Holmes weeks before she reported to prison for defrauding investors, among other charges. Business Insider's Callie Ahlgrim described it as "part character study, part psychological thriller, part surrealist thought experiment."

"I came out of the movie feeling like I had gone through some sort of vortex, black hole, mind-bending experience," Travolta said, having seen it a week before the contest.

"You Can See Everything" grossed $15 million in its opening weekend after opening in 855 theaters, doubling producers' expectations.

The movie is part of a string of recent releases about wealthy, hubristic tech founders — there's Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Reckoning," Elon Musk in "Musk," Sam Altman in "Artificial," and Sam Bankman-Fried in "The Altruists." The on-screen Silicon Valley backlash has coincided with real-life discontent about the AI buildout, which is becoming a more potent issue for tech leaders and politicians alike.

This story has been updated with comments from event organizer Maddy West and winner Nicole Travolta.

Look into that unblinking gaze and see the abyss.

© Illustration by The New York Times; source photographs via A24

"You Can See Everything," the documentary co-directed by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, is a breakthrough success. It follows Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted founder of Theranos, just weeks before she goes to prison. The intimate access and the questions it raises are the talk of this fall movie season. Jeffrey Brown sat down with Alissa Wilkinson for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.