Amanda Seyfried Ruled Ineligible for Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Actor Awards Over 'You Can See Everything' as Oscar Decision Looms

Amanda Seyfried has been ruled ineligible for acting nominations at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Actor Awards for her Elizabeth Holmes reenactments in the documentary You Can See Everything, The Hollywood Reporter reported, while the Critics Choice Awards cleared her for best supporting actress and the Academy's decision is expected in early December.

Nov 14, 2026 - 09:16

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Amanda Seyfried has been ruled ineligible for acting nominations at the Golden Globe Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards and the Actor Awards for her performance in You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary in which she returns to the role of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, The Hollywood Reporter reported in an exclusive on Nov. 12. The Critics Choice Awards, by contrast, have deemed her eligible for best supporting actress, and her status for the Academy Awards will not be formally settled until early December.

The split decisions put Seyfried at the center of an unusual question for the 2026-27 awards season. According to The Hollywood Reporter, no performance featured in a documentary has ever been nominated by a major awards group, and if the Academy clears her, she could become the first person nominated at a major awards show for a performance in a documentary.

Why Three Groups Said No

Each of the three organizations that ruled her out applies rules that keep documentaries away from its acting categories, according to a Nov. 13 summary of the eligibility guidelines published on Yahoo Entertainment. The Golden Globes exclude documentaries from their motion-picture categories, with an exception for the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award, and treat docudramas containing more than 25% documentary footage or audio as documentaries.

BAFTA's performance categories are open to fiction films, and its guidance tells films entered in the documentary category to stay out of the leading and supporting acting categories, the same report said. The Actor Awards, presented by SAG-AFTRA and previously known as the SAG Awards, require motion-picture entries to be scripted features, and their production criteria expressly exclude documentaries, even when such films include scenes performed by professional actors.

The Hollywood Reporter said SAG-AFTRA encouraged distributor A24 to file a formal appeal to try to qualify Seyfried for the Actor Awards, but insiders told the outlet that no appeal will be forthcoming because the studio is focused on securing an Oscar nomination. Cosmopolitan and WION, citing The Hollywood Reporter, carried the same account of the rulings on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14.

The Oscar Question

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' general-entry submission deadline, which covers the acting categories, was Nov. 12, after which executive committees of the Academy's branches began reviewing submissions. Under the Academy's documentary rules, films submitted in that category "may also qualify for awards in other categories if they meet the specified requirements," and its acting rules give the Actors Branch Executive Committee "the right and responsibility to resolve all questions of eligibility," The Hollywood Reporter reported.

The Hollywood Reporter said A24 has been given assurances by representatives of the Actors Branch Executive Committee that there is no reason to believe Seyfried will not be approved, adding that the committee has previously deemed eligible performers in documentaries who received onscreen credits, as Seyfried did. WION noted that those assurances are not a formal eligibility confirmation. Nominations for the 99th Academy Awards are scheduled for Jan. 21, 2027, with the ceremony set for March 14, according to Yahoo Entertainment.

What Seyfried Said

In what The Hollywood Reporter described as her first one-on-one interview about the film, Seyfried said she is prepared to campaign. "Now that they're going to let me loose and show up, I'm down!" she told the outlet. "A campaign is a lot. It's time-consuming. It takes all your energy. And I'm totally willing to do it. A24 is great. They're excited, and I'm very proud of the film, so I'm fully ready to engage in that."

She also addressed the film's genre. "The reenactments were definitely a challenge. But it's not like I ever considered that I would be up for any kind of accolade," Seyfried said, according to Cosmopolitan's account of the interview. "I don't really know if we can fully consider it a doc—it's very genre-bending." Speaking about how other performers have reacted to the reenactments, she said, as quoted by The A.V. Club, that actors she respects have "experienced it almost as if it's her," calling that "the most incredibly flattering thing I've ever experienced."

Seyfried received an Oscar nomination for 2020's Mank and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, came close to another for 2025's The Testament of Ann Lee.

How the Film Was Made

You Can See Everything begins with Holmes inviting a crew into her life 34 days before she reported to prison, according to Yahoo Entertainment, which said A24 describes the project as developing over three years. The film runs two hours and 55 minutes and opened in U.S. theaters on Oct. 16. It blends traditional documentary techniques with reenactments featuring Seyfried, who also appears as herself in unscripted conversations, and Christopher Abbott takes part in reenactments as Holmes' partner, Billy Evans, WION reported.

Fielder told Rolling Stone that he contacted Seyfried two years after the initial filming, getting her number through Emma Stone, Yahoo Entertainment reported. According to that account, Fielder said Seyfried received no scripts in advance and had no approval over the footage, and the reenactments were developed to reconstruct encounters the directors had not filmed. Seyfried first played Holmes in Hulu's 2022 limited series The Dropout, a role that won her an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie, followed by Golden Globe and Critics Choice wins in 2023.

The documentary has drawn a commercial and critical response rare for the form. The Hollywood Reporter said it holds a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, recently became only the fourth documentary to top the domestic box office, has grossed more than $80 million worldwide and was still playing in nearly 2,500 theaters. It swept the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, and Fielder and Oppenheim have been holding post-screening Q&As in the U.K. for Academy and British Academy members, the outlet reported.