Wigs, Turtlenecks and Wide-Eyed Stares: Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes Lookalikes Take Over Washington Square Park as ‘You Can See Everything’ Leaves a Mark at the Box Office
New York City has a long history of turning internet obsessions into live events, and lookalike contests have become a viral sensation, especially in Washington Square Park. A crowd, a famous face and a strong sense of humor are all it takes. This weekend, the city found its newest subjects of awkward fascination.
The pair are comedian Nathan Fielder and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who share the screen in the A24 documentary ‘You Can See Everything.’ Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the film follows Holmes and her partner Billy Evans before her prison sentence. It reached theaters on October 16, and it has become a bigger cultural moment than most documentaries.
On Sunday, the film’s strange pairing spilled out of the theater and into the park. A dual Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes lookalike contest drew a crowd of costumed fans to Washington Square Park at 1 p.m.
WATCH: Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes Lookalike Contest Takes Over Washington Square Park Fans in turtlenecks and blonde wigs packed Washington Square Park in NYC on Sunday for a Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes lookalike contest decided right in front of the crowd. Winners Joe Sivick and Nicole Travolta and organizers Maddy West and Katherine Gehring talk about the day. Video: Ken Lopez | Licensing @FreedomNTV [email protected]
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) October 25, 2026
The event was first detailed by Time Out and billed as a free contest with a $50 cash prize. The collage-style poster was signed “Liz and Nathan” and insisted, with a wink, that everything was 100 percent truthful. Organizers also planned a ticketed afterparty at The Alligator in Williamsburg, a bar with a fitting link to Fielder, since an early episode of his HBO series ‘The Rehearsal’ was filmed there.
The setup was simple, with separate categories for the best Holmes and the best Fielder. Contestants showed up, posed, pleaded their cases and let the crowd decide.
Dozens of people gathered at the park’s arch dressed as the film’s stars. Those playing Holmes wore blonde wigs and black turtlenecks and stared wide-eyed, while those portraying Fielder swung headphones around their necks and carried laptops. The costumes captured both a famous black-turtleneck look and the filmmaker’s perpetually bewildered expression.
It was the kind of scene that only feels natural in New York. The crowd cheered, and the contest was decided right in front of them.
Comedian Nicole Travolta won the Holmes category, and music publicist Joe Sivick of Brooklyn took the Fielder prize, as voted by the cheering crowd. Sivick later said the win meant everything to him. Photos from the day showed contestants making their case, capped by the Williamsburg afterparty.
The contest didn’t come out of nowhere. In September, A24 released a teaser for the documentary in which Fielder asks Holmes whether she is deceiving him, and she answers with a wide-eyed, unblinking stare. That exchange became a viral reaction meme, with Holmes’ face used to represent someone being deceitful and Fielder’s to represent the person being deceived.
The film has pulled in critics too. TechCrunch described it as creating a constellation of colliding personas that interrogate the nature of authenticity, noting that Fielder, who once made a TV show about a business scam, is well prepared to probe Holmes’ psyche. It also gets at a stranger angle, since Amanda Seyfried won an Emmy for playing Holmes in ‘The Dropout.’
‘You Can See Everything’ is also performing well at the box office for a documentary. It ranked second on the October 23 to 25 weekend with $19.5 million, up about 25% from the previous frame, and its domestic total has passed $45 million. One report even placed it in the Best Picture race alongside ‘The Odyssey.’
The lookalike contest is a sign of how deeply the film has landed. When fans start dressing up as the people in a documentary, it has become more than a movie.
The teaser trailer ‘YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING,’ a documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. In theaters this October. https://t.co/LHRvYLXULH
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 7, 2026
Part of the fun is the contrast between the two figures. Fielder is known for deadpan stunts, including the ‘Dumb Starbucks’ prank from his early work, while Holmes is the convicted fraudster at the center of the film. Putting them side by side in a public park, with a crowd voting on who looks most like each, is delightfully absurd.
If the turnout is any indication, New York is not done with this pairing yet.
Which part of this lookalike contest do you find most entertaining?
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