A new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes is doing something unusual, and in the process it’s putting two commonly misunderstood ideas on full display.
The film is called You Can See Everything, directed by Lance Oppenheim in collaboration with Nathan Fielder, with A24 behind it. Holmes, the founder of Theranos, who was convicted of defrauding investors, and her partner Billy Evans gave the filmmakers extraordinary access to their lives. And according to the documentary’s own account, that access came with a request: Evans wanted a share of the film’s profits. Fielder objected. A24 reportedly agreed to a profit participation anyway, and, by the film’s account, Evans ultimately walked away from it.
On top of that, the film uses actors to recreate conversations that were never captured on camera, including Christopher Abbott playing Billy Evans in a reenactment of those very negotiations.
Two different ideas, both worth unpacking, because filmmakers get both of them wrong all the time.
Being the subject doesn’t entitle you to a piece of the profits
Here’s the first misconception. A lot of people assume that if a film is about you, or you’re participating in it, you’re automatically owed something, a fee, a credit, a cut of the money. You showed up, it’s your story, so you get paid, right?
Not automatically. Appearing in a documentary, or being its subject, does not by itself entitle you to profit participation. Whether a subject gets paid at all, and whether they get a percentage of the film’s revenue, is a negotiated term, not a right that comes free with being the person on screen.
That’s exactly what the reported back-and-forth over Evans was about. A profit participation is something you ask for and negotiate into a deal. It isn’t something the subject is simply owed. A production can agree to it, as A24 reportedly did here, or decline it, and the subject’s only leverage is usually whatever cooperation and access they’re providing. In this case, by the film’s account, the participation was offered and then given up. The point stands either way: it was a deal term on the table, not an entitlement.
What a subject actually negotiates for
So if being the subject doesn’t automatically get you paid, what is actually being negotiated when a subject and a production make a deal?
Usually some combination of: a fee or payment, access and cooperation (interviews, personal materials, time), the production’s rights to use the person’s name, likeness, and story, releases and contractual protections, and, sometimes, economic participation like a share of profits. Each of those is a separate point. A subject might get a fee and no profit share. They might get access terms and a release and nothing else. They might, as reportedly happened here, be offered a profit participation and then not take it.
None of it is automatic. All of it is negotiated. Paying someone who appears in a documentary isn’t illegal, but it is a choice with consequences, including the credibility question of whether a paid subject is telling the truth or telling the filmmaker what they want to hear. That tension is part of why these deals are negotiated carefully, and documented.
You can hire an actor to play a real person, but “it’s a reenactment” is not a shield
Now the second idea, and it’s the more legally interesting one.
You Can See Everything hires an actor, Christopher Abbott, to portray a real person, Billy Evans, in recreated conversations. Is that allowed? Generally, yes. Documentaries use reenactments all the time to depict events that weren’t filmed. There’s nothing inherently improper about dramatizing something your cameras didn’t capture, and using an actor to do it.
But here’s the trap. Using an actor does not make the portrayal immune from legal scrutiny. If the audience understands that an actor is standing in for a real, identifiable person, the fact that it’s an actor doesn’t change the underlying reality: you are depicting a real person, saying and doing specific things. The portrayal is still subject to the same questions any depiction of a real person is.
And two of those questions matter a great deal: are you presenting a reenactment as if it were actual footage, in a way that misleads the audience about what really happened? And are you putting words, actions, or implications onto a real person that could be false and damaging?
Defamation doesn’t disappear because you used an actor
That second question is where reenactments get dangerous. Defamation is still possible even in a dramatized scene performed by an actor. If a reenactment depicts a real person saying or doing something they didn’t, and it’s presented as fact, and it’s false and damaging to their reputation, the use of an actor doesn’t make the problem go away. The audience knows who is being depicted. The harm, if there is harm, attaches to the real person, not the performer.
The same is true for the related concerns around a real person’s privacy and portrayal. Dramatizing a real individual, convincingly, can actually sharpen these issues rather than soften them, because a well-acted reenactment can leave an audience with a vivid, specific impression of what a real person supposedly said and did.
So the rule isn’t “use an actor and you’re safe.” The rule is: a reenactment has to be supportable. You need to be able to stand behind what you’re depicting, because depicting it through an actor doesn’t lower the bar. It just changes who’s standing in the frame.
What this means if you’re making the film
Put the two lessons together, and you get a clear-eyed view of what’s actually happening in a project like this.
First, on the money: if you’re making a documentary and a subject asks for a cut, understand that this is a negotiation, not an obligation. You decide, deliberately, whether to pay a subject, what you’re paying them for, and what you get in return, access, cooperation, releases, protections. Being the subject doesn’t entitle anyone to a percentage. Treat profit participation as the serious economic deal point it is.
Second, on the depiction: if you’re going to recreate real events or conversations, especially with actors playing real people, be rigorous about accuracy and about how clearly you signal to the audience what is documented versus dramatized. Reenactments are a legitimate tool. They are not a defamation shield. Know where every depicted fact comes from, be careful about what you invent, and watch the line between dramatizing a true event and creating a false impression about a real person.
The bottom line
A documentary subject is not automatically entitled to a piece of the profits. Profit participation, like a fee, like credit, like access terms, is a negotiated right, not a reward for showing up. And an actor playing a real person is a normal, legal tool, right up until the portrayal becomes inaccurate or misleading, at which point the actor changes nothing about the risk.
You Can See Everything happens to put both of those lessons on screen at once, a fight over whether a subject gets paid, and a real person recreated by an actor. Same business, two misunderstood rules. Which is exactly why, on either side of the camera, it pays to understand how these deals and depictions actually work before the film comes out.
FAQs
Not automatically. Appearing in a documentary, or being its subject, does not by itself entitle a person to a fee or a share of the profits. Whether a subject is paid, and on what terms, is a negotiated part of the deal, not a right that comes with being the person on screen. A production can agree to pay a subject, or decline to, and the subject’s leverage is usually tied to the cooperation and access they provide.
Yes, a profit participation can be negotiated into a subject’s agreement, but it is a deal point, not an entitlement. Paying a subject is legal, though it raises a credibility concern, whether a paid subject is telling the truth or telling the filmmakers what they want to hear, which is one reason these arrangements are negotiated and documented carefully. A subject who wants a cut of the profits has to negotiate for it, and the production has to agree to it.
Often, yes. You generally do not own the facts of your own life, so a filmmaker can depict a real person or real events without necessarily buying life rights or getting permission first. But skipping permission means the production is relying entirely on its own legal footing, and must be rigorous about where every fact comes from and about defamation, privacy, and right-of-publicity concerns.
Generally, yes. Documentaries routinely use reenactments, including actors portraying real people, to depict events that were never captured on camera. There is nothing inherently improper about dramatizing something your cameras didn’t film. The legal risk comes not from using an actor, but from what the reenactment actually depicts and how it is presented to the audience.
Yes. Using an actor does not make a portrayal immune from legal scrutiny. If a reenactment depicts a real, identifiable person saying or doing something they didn’t, presents it as fact, and it is false and damaging to their reputation, the use of an actor does not eliminate the defamation risk. The audience knows who is being depicted, so any harm attaches to the real person, not the performer.
Usually some combination of a fee or payment, access and cooperation (interviews, personal materials, time), the production’s rights to use the person’s name, likeness, and story, releases and contractual protections, and sometimes economic participation such as a share of profits. Each of these is a separate, negotiated point. None of it is automatic simply because the film is about that person.
