When Anna Nicole Smith passed away in 2007, the investigation and legal cases pulled Dr. Sandeep Kapoor into a media circus that threatened to ruin his life. He was implicated in connection with the prescription drugs given to his former patient. He was acquitted of all six counts against him.

In Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, the film follows Kapoor’s story of how a private doctor got thrown into the limelight. Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) portrays Kapoor, who had to put his life in the public eye to try to clear his name. Abbie Cornish, who can be seen in Prime Video’s Jack Ryan and Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, portrays Anna Nicole Smith.

“But then the crazy thing in getting to know [Sandeep] was, he still has an office here in LA,” Penn tells Nerd Reactor. “And I remember going in and being like, ‘Wow, it’s a small office.’ He has a very small patient list. … It would not have been uncommon, especially in those days, because he had a small client or patient list to get invited to his patients’ bar mitzvahs or sweet 16s or birthday parties.

“So I didn’t recognize that he was running and still is running this 1950s-style, very human medical operation. And once I understood that, I was like, oh, so it wouldn’t be weird for even your celebrity patient to be like, ‘Oh, what are you doing this weekend? Do you want to come to this parade or this party?’ And I think that was one of the first things that really unlocked who he was and the decisions that he was making.”

Kal Penn discusses the mistakes Kapoor made, and how as a viewer, he would be perplexed as someone looking in from the outside.

“He makes a lot of mistakes, as you know from the film,” the actor said. “And I think we depict that pretty well, where he’s making bad decision after bad decision, which he did in real life. You’re just kind of watching this going, ‘Why would you do this? Why would you omit key information from your own defense lawyer in the service of you being innocent?'”

Defending Kapoor is Ellyn Garofalo, portrayed by Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Stranger Things). The trial attorney has represented many high-profile defendants, and in Kapoor’s case, she wanted to defend him both in the court and in the court of public opinion.

“But she is the one that’s trying to parcel out the truth and also create an image for him to sort of help with the case,” Hamilton tells Nerd Reactor. “I mean, it really is an interesting study in the underworkings of what people do before they have to go to trial.”

Director Thane Economou wanted to focus on how a person can get sucked into the whirlwind of Hollywood.

“This is not someone who was at the center of the whirlwind,” the filmmaker tells Nerd Reactor. “This is not someone who was heavily implicated. This was to me the story of what if a mild-mannered quiet man has just a tangential brush with the whirlwind of fame and excess and Hollywood and just gets sucked into it.”

Economou told Kapoor that he wanted to show the mistakes, and the doctor was open to it.

“I said, ‘Listen, every single mistake that you made, I’m gonna put it in the film. I’m not gonna sugarcoat things,'” Economou said. “And he said, ‘Yes, I’m down for that; I’m open to that. I want people to kind of see the full breadth and three-dimensionality of the stories.'”

As for working with Cornish, Economou was amazed at how she captured Smith.

“With Kal, it was always him and I joking around on set and reworking dialogue with Abbie,” Economou explained. “Because she was in hair and makeup, we’d always have the set ready for her. And we’d be working on something else and we’d hear Abbie coming. And then she’d walk on the set, and I swear to God, it was like Anna walked on the set. And we would just jump right into the scene.”

The film opens in theaters Friday, October 16, 2026.

About Trust Me, I’m a Doctor

Synopsis: Trust Me, I’m a Doctor follows Dr. Sandeep Kapoor after his life is turned upside down when he is implicated in the death of his former patient, model and reality television star Anna Nicole Smith. Set against the height of the early 2000s tabloid era, the film chronicles Kapoor’s fight to clear his name as paparazzi descend on his office, police raid his home, private journals are leaked, and every aspect of his personal life becomes public. With the guidance of respected attorney Ellyn Garofalo, Kapoor must navigate a high-stakes drug conspiracy trial while confronting the intersection of celebrity, justice, politics and personal redemption.

The film is directed and written by Thane Economou and stars Kal Penn, Linda Hamilton, and Abbie Cornish.