Kate McKinnon drops out of The Dropout, Hulu’s Theranos show

Two years ago, it was announced that Kate McKinnon would be playing Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu limited series, The Dropout. She was also going to be one of the show’s executive producers. It seemed like the perfect casting decision; McKinnon looks enough like her and excels at playing weirdos. But alas, nothing gold from pre-pandemic times can stay. On Thursday evening, Deadline announced that McKinnon dropped out of The Dropout. No context was given as to why she decided to not go through with playing the wunderkind-turned-fraudster, but contractual breakdowns have become somewhat of a fixture in the COVID era, with schedules being shuffled by the halts in production.

A source told Deadline that even with this last-minute snag to production plans, the limited series is still in the works. There must be another blue-eyed blonde available in Hollywood, right?

And if you were dead-set on seeing McKinnon play a real-life kook, don’t worry. She’s still tapped to play Joe Exotic’s nemesis Carole Baskin in NBC’s upcoming Tiger King-based TV show, Joe Exotic.