Screenwriting 101: Stephen Susco
“I got my first job when I was still a film student, my third semester. It was a pretty big job even though we got paid minimum, it was an established director Ted Demme and New Line Cinema was producing it, so it was firm. And the whole thing was packaged by CAA. My new writing partner and I said, ‘This is it. CAA is going to represent us, they’re huge, it’s going to launch our careers, and we’re set.’ And I remember right after we got the job, CAA called us in for a meeting. So we put on our best suits and sat in the waiting room, and looked at the atrium, we’re just overwhelmed by CAA. The third assistant came down and introduced himself, the second assistant brought us in to the first assistant, and we finally got brought in to meet the agent. And it was probably a three or four minute meeting. We went in and he sat us, and said, ‘Look, we don’t who the fuck you guys are. So we’re not going to really do anything for you. All I can tell you is after you leave my office, you should go try to find another agent. And years from now when you’re big and we have you back, you can tell us to fuck ourselves, have a nice day.’”
— Stephen Susco