Interview (Part 5): 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 5, Emile offers advice to writers on breaking into the business:

Scott: You mentioned giving notes. I dug up an interview with David Cohen.

Emile: Yeah, former client and friend.

Scott: He had an interesting quote. He said, “The thing about Emile is that he’s a tough audience. Any of his clients will tell you it can be demoralizing when he doesn’t get what he demands, but he’s one of the best note givers I’ve ever worked with.”

Emile: I think that’s kind of him. That must have been a long time ago. Yeah, I have a really strong point of view. I’m not saying that I’m right. But you will always know how I feel.

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time.

If I convince a writer that to do this with me and let’s work on it together, it is a back and forth. I’m not like Pharaoh, and saying, “This is the way.” But if I do feel like this the material is off the path of what we set out to do, nobody will have to guess how I feel.

I hope writers are looking for someone with a strong point of view, that’ll challenge them. Ultimately, it’s going to be their call, but they’re going to get a strong point of view between now and then.

Then I’ll be relentless in pursuit of getting it made. That’s the real, I think, commodity that a producer needs to have, is this relentlessness, because there are so many all is lost moments on the path to production.

Army of One fell apart three times, and it could easily have wound up as a script on a shelf. But that’s just not my DNA. That’s not how I was built. There are few things that I feel so strongly about, that I want to commit so much free time, my commodity, my equity time, too, and I’m going to see it through. There’s always a solution. I remember screaming at my Jeremy on the phone, “what would Scott Rudin do” every time we would hit a wall. It was our battle cry.

There’s always a creative solution or a production solution. It’s all about being fearless, leading with your chin, and a relentless commitment to getting the movie made, and it will get made. Any producer worth their salt will tell you that.

Scott: You mentioned point of view. That brings to mind they talk about it a lot of the time a writer having a voice, a specific kind of point of view. How important is that for you to work with writers who have a voice?

Emile: Really important, incredibly important. I’m trying to make elevated genre movies. Any of my developments could be a B movie. Any of the movies that I’ve loved my whole life could easily have been a B movie Jaws could have been a B movie. The Great Escape could have been a B movie.

They’re elevated because of the execution, and all starts with the writer. It all is the writer. You can’t make a great movie from a bad script.

Scripts are only good because of voice, because they feel real and authentic, and because writers were able to elevate the genre. They were able to redefine an action sequence, or give you a very typical boy meets girl scenario, but they do it in a way that just feels so real and so authentic and so lovely.

Again, it’s all about feeling. It’s all about emotion. That doesn’t happen unless the writer builds in his moments that are authentic and real. I’m not going to be able to make the movies that I want to make with the artists that I want to make without working with writers that have real voices.

For me, making movies are not about pieces of business.. If I wanted just to make money, I’d still be an agent. I made a lot of money doing that job, and I could continue to do that until I was in my mid-60s without trouble. I was excellent at it.

But I wanted more out of my life, and I needed more out of my life. I didn’t do this because I wanted to. I did it because I had to. I had to. I would have regretted it my whole life. So I’m not going to be able to achieve what I want to achieve without working with real voices.

I’m not going to be able to elevate genre. I’m not going to be able to make the best version of the movie without the best writers to help me execute that. I don’t think that Army of One would ever have gotten made without Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph, and I tell them that daily.

Scott: I’ve got one last question for you, which is a pretty typical one, which is, what advice you can offer to aspiring screenwriters about how they should learn the craft and breaking into Hollywood?

Emile: It’s a really good question and I’ve been asked it a lot over my career. My answers are, I think, very consistent over the last 19 years of being asked that question, which is, first and foremost, write, write, write.

There are two kinds of people in the world, people that talk about writing and people that write. That’s A. B, be smart about your writing. Recognize that that line turns into a paragraph, that turns into an outline, that turns into a script, that turns into multiple drafts of that script. You’re talking about a massive time commitment, so really think about that line. Make sure you want to live with that line for a long time and you’re incredibly committed to that line.

Then you see the path through the line. You see that, “This is a movie that, Universal would make because you know there are so many movies before,” or, “This is a movie that Sony would make because Sony’s made the Social Network, so I can afford to make this movie because Sony will make it.”

Be a producer. Be a marketing executive. Before you get past a paragraph, how is this movie going to be marketed? What does it look like on a one-sheet? Let me study the trailers of the movies that are like this movie. I’m telling people this is the next Fugitive, well, let me look at The Fugitive trailer.

This is The Talented Mr. Ripley. Well, let me look at the Ripley trailer. Study it, be a student of the business. Forget about the writing itself. Then, once it’s passed through those tests of, “I see the path, I’ve put my marketing hat on, I’ve put my producing hat on,” “Let me put my writing hat back on now and recognize that I’m going to be living this for a long time so I better love it.”

Then, after that, be smart about who you’re in business with because the moment that you are in business with that producer, that’s going to be the most important decision you make in the life of your project because they’re going to be curating it from then on in. You better really have belief in that producer and that producer’s ability to get it over the goal line.

Be smart about who’s representing you because they’re ultimately going to be fighting to get you in the rooms that you would never get in. They have to understand you and believe in you. A strong team. As a young writer you want a manager, you want an agent, you want people that are going to be true advocates for you.

Get used to “no” because you’re going to get pretty shit on a lot. If you’re sensitive to the word no you should go home and sell insurance because this is a town that you’re going to hear that every day.

I hear it every day. I heard it about my clients. I hear it about half of my projects. I pitch to writers all the time that respect me, but they say no all the time, more time than they say yes.

If all of a sudden I don’t believe in the idea because I heard no 30 times, then I have no business being in this business because it’s not about the 30 no’s, it’s about the one yes. You have to have believe because all it takes is one yes. Don’t be dissuaded. Be committed. Be smart about your time. Be a tactician.

It’s not enough to be an artist. If you want to be an artist be a novelist, be a playwright. It’s not a medium for pure artists, although there’s a lot of art in the medium. It’s a great time. Know that this is a great time to be a maker in Hollywood. It may not be the best time to make three against six selling your script, but if it was about making money, you should be in a different line of work. There’s easier ways to make money. That’s my two cents.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Twitter: @emilegladstone.