Christopher Abbott Reveals How His Surprise 'You Can See Everything' Role Came to Be

Christopher Abbott is finally pulling back the curtain on his surprise role in You Can See Everything, the hit documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, and the actor says the whole thing came together with remarkable speed.

Abbott, who is currently drawing acclaim for East of Eden and is booked to play Professor X in Marvel's upcoming X-Men reboot, appears alongside Amanda Seyfried in several parts of the film. He portrays Billy Evans, the husband of Elizabeth Holmes, while Seyfried plays Holmes. The pair were enlisted to recreate the filmmakers' interactions with the couple, capturing moments that unfolded off camera as well as scenes set after Holmes was sent to prison and unable to take part in filming.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter at a FYC event for East of Eden on Friday, Abbott said Fielder and Oppenheim "just called me and asked me to come mess around. I got to see some of the footage they had shot before I did it, so it was a very quick run-and-gun thing, for me at least. I've been a fan of both of them for a long time so I kind of said yes before they even told me what they wanted to do."

As for his approach to playing the real Evans, Abbott admitted he had only "heard about some of the craziness" and that he "didn't really know of him until they showed me the footage." Still, he saw an opportunity worth taking. "I didn't dive deep. I had just enough time to maybe try to do some version of mimicry or find little nuances," he said. "He's an interesting subject."

The appearance was kept so tightly under wraps that even Zoe Kazan, the East of Eden co-showrunner and a longtime friend of Abbott's, had no idea he was in the film. Kazan was on the show's press tour with him just as the documentary was beginning to generate buzz.

"I've known Chris since we were in our early 20s coming up in the New York theater, and I went to see You Can See Everything with two people who've also known Chris for a long time, really well. And the three of us screamed in the theater when he came on screen, none of us knew," Kazan said. "We sent him selfies with the poster afterwards. But I was really shocked."

You Can See Everything has since broken box office records and stirred considerable Oscar buzz, a reception Abbott called "amazing, especially for that type of film. Documentaries don't get that type of attention." He chalked up the response to the material and the men behind the camera: "not only was the subject sort of juicy and accessible, they're both really good filmmakers so they made it very cinematic."