Interview (Part 2): Emile Gladstone

Recently I had an in-depth conversation with movie and TV producer Emile Gladstone. Previously a talent agent at ICM where he was a partner and co-head of the Motion Picture Literary department, Emile is currently in post-production on his first film Army of One, written by Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman, directed by Larry Charles and starring Nicolas Cage.

Today in Part 2, Emile provides an insider’s view of what it’s like to be a writer’s agent:

Scott: Before we move into the producing, I’d like to talk a little bit more about your agenting experience. How would you describe what your job was and what the expectations are from an agent’s side with a writer and from a writer’s side with an agent?

Emile: For writers, you should expect your calls returned in a reasonable amount of time realizing how little time your agent actually has given all his or her meetings about meetings. You should expect your material read in a reasonable amount of time realizing how much your agent has to read. You should expect a point of view on how your agent is going to help you accomplish your goals. You should expect follow through. The whole way remember this is your career. You are the chairman of your company. Your agent, manager, lawyer, etc are your VP’s. If you don’t lead the ship right, executives wont perform to the level they are able to.

My job came down to managing my time. I divided my day into offense and defense. The calls I made were offense. The calls I had to return were defense. I had staff meetings, signing meetings, saving meetings, department meetings, management meetings, client strategy meetings, and meetings about meetings every week. In between those meetings, offense and defense.

Outgoing calls were calls that I was reaching for a job for a client and pushing them into the mix on something that no-one was thinking of them for. You want your agent to reach for you. It’s not about the incoming call for a horror assignment because your client wrote the latest horror movie. You want to reach and take the moment to push the client’s career forward to, let’s say, an event movie. Beware the low hanging fruit. As a writer, you only have a few moments in your career. It’s very important to take advantage of them. That’s how you move a client’s career forward. Elbowing them into situations that they normally wouldn’t get in and not just accepting the low hanging fruit of the incoming call.

One of the most important things you can do as an agent is curate the people your client does business with. You put the right project with the wrong producer, it’s not moving forward. Being a lit agent is strategic job. A writer can work or write at most, three projects every 18 months. There’s maybe three total transactions every 18 months, whether they’re specs, pitches, or jobs. You better really be careful about where you put your client’s time.

Every success has issues and problems that need to be handled, fires that need to be put out and personalities that maybe need to be massaged and fear that needs to be overcome. There is an incredible amount of fear and defensiveness in Hollywood. That’s just par for the course

We are not in a math and science business, but in a gut business. There’s going to be fear involved. You can’t be upset at them because they’re scared and they make fear driven decisions. You just have to accept that that’s part of it and then game it accordingly and be strategic accordingly. Now, there are executives and producers that lead with their heart and their chin and aren’t fear driven.

But they’re not necessarily better. They’re just different. You just have to know who you’re talking to.

Thinking through it and being strategic about it. Agents that have gone the distance are consistently successful because not only do they have a smart point of view and good taste, but they’re really strategic in their execution and their thinking.

Scott: Now, you’re producing both movies and TV. That’s got to involve a different kind of skill set. What’s the difference from what you were doing as an agent and now what you’re doing as a producer?

Emile: I hope the things that made me successful as an agent are going to make me successful as a producer, I had a strong compass as an agent. If you pitched me five ideas, I would say, “This is the one that I think will work in the marketplace, and this is how it’s going to work. This is where it’s going to work. This is how it’s going to be released.”

I would think through it all before a writer would commit to writing the script. I may not be right all the time, but at least I had a point of view. I take that into producing. I’m more myopic now. It’s not now about 50 or 70 clients that are doing three or four projects every 18 months. It’s really about being singularly focused and having 7 or 10 projects and pushing them over the hill and being really smart and strategic about it.

It is still about making sure that I’m bringing the right material to the right people, being smart about relationships, and thinking long term about relationships and not mercenary, which is something that I think is really important for anybody in Hollywood and the executive side or the agent side.

That’s something that I’ve always taught young agents is not to sacrifice your relationship for a deal, that it’s really about fostering goodwill in the community and getting in front of problems and owning up to mistakes and being a good citizen of Hollywood. That’s really important to producing, too. Make sure you are never wasting time people’s time.

You can’t say to someone, “I have the rights to this,” when you don’t or “I’m going to get you paid,” when you really want them to write it on spec. Just being direct with people goes a long way. Thankfully, I don’t have meetings about meetings anymore. My time is mine. I spend, still, most of my time with writers.

That is the most important thing to a producer, is writers. We’re all talk without them. I have nothing to do until that writer types, “The end.”

It’s still using the same muscles that I did for 19 years as an agent, in terms of picking and choosing projects that I think have opportunities in the marketplace. Being selective about the writers I am in business with. Again, it’s all about time. Where you put your time determines your success. I am really smart with my time.

Now, when the stars align, I get to go away with a bunch of extraordinary professionals and be a part of making something. There’s nothing more gratifying in the world than that.

Emile provides a fascinating insight into the mindset of an agent based on his 19 years of being one. Playing offense. Defense. “We are not in a math and science business, but in a gut business.” Great stuff.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Emile provides background on his movie project Army of One and his take on the state of the movie business.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Twitter: @emilegladstone.