#41 - Andy Horwitz: Assisting Christopher Nolan's Producer on The Dark Knight, Getting Kathryn Bigelow into Brazil, Producing American Hustle & How A Movie Script Gets Bought

Today’s guest began his filmmaking career under the tutelage of legendary Producer Charles Roven where he was a producer’s assistant on Hollywood blockbusters such as Get Smart, The International and of course, Christopher Nolan’s, The Dark Knight.

Following his apprenticeship, he was swiftly promoted through the ranks of Atlas Entertainment, soon becoming a leading producer for the company working on projects such as American Hustle, Triple Frontier and Suicide Squad.

Now heading up his own exciting new venture, Big Swell Entertainment it’s a pleasure to have him here.

My guest is Andy Horwitz. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mike Intro: Hello, Mike here. Today's guest, Andy Horwitz, was not just an all round great vibe, but had some amazing stories and career lessons too. In the episode, we discuss how Andy got an early job as a producer's assistant on The Dark Knight, his challenging PA task of getting Catherine Bigelow into Brazil, dealing with rejection, who he would hire as a producer's assistant for himself, his method of buying film scripts, and much more.

That's enough of me. Let's get going.

Hello and welcome to Red Carpet Rookies. My name is Mike Battle, a film crew member turned screenwriter working in London. Each episode, I bring you life lessons and stories from the people behind your favorite movies and shows to help demystify the business for aspiring filmmakers and fans alike.

Thanks for joining me. Let's get started.

[00:01:32] Andy: I'm very good. How are you?

[00:01:34] Mike: I'm very good. Thank you for being here.

[00:01:36] Andy: I'm happy to be here. I'm a fan of what you've been doing. So happy to be here

[00:01:41] Mike: Thank you very much. Now, Andy, I ask all of my guests the same first question, and that is, what did your parents do and did it affect your career choices moving forward?

[00:01:49] Andy: Yes, I mean my it definitely affected my career choices. My Dad is a also a television producer actually focuses in television. I haven't I haven't produced television, but he's a television producer. He has always, his whole career been primarily on the physical production side of things. So what we would call a line producer, um, or running production for, uh, networks and studios and production companies

currently right now, he runs production for a show called the talk, which is on CBS.

It's a very similar to the view, but it's CBS versions of the view and he runs production there. Um, I also have a grandfather that was in the very sort of the peripherals of the film business. He was on the, uh, foreign sales financing side of the film business. So he was a, he had a division of a bank that would loan money for films and TV series and concerts and theaters.

And, uh, it was actually one of the pioneers of what we call the foreign sales business today, in terms of how to sell movies overseas, uh, to make sure that your, your loan or your investment is going to come back to you. Um, and then my mom has nothing to do with the film business. She, uh, she works, uh, in, has always her whole career.

I mean, she raised three boys and, um, was, uh, has worked in, uh, food services her whole life. So completely outside of it. I also funny enough have a brother who is a screenwriter in the business as well. Uh, he's only 14 months older than me. So we grew up a very tight, uh, bond and still work together to this day and, uh, made stuff together when we were kids and in college.

And like I said, still to this day. So, uh, he works on the screen on his side of things. And he also works with me a big swell on the doc series on script inside of the company.

[00:03:29] Mike: Family business. Lovely. Now, one thing you often hear from people who are in the business, often famously actors who have children who then want to be actors, they say, Don't do it. Don't do it. Was that the same with your dad and your granddad?

[00:03:41] Andy: No, they were actually very, very supportive. They, uh, I think they knew that there was no, there was no other thing for us. I think that was the only thing that we were interested in.

My brothers and I loved movies. My dad was one of those guys, and so was my mom, that would take us to see everything when we were kids from, you know, when we were little kids.

So they were taking us to see. Uh, you know anything we wanted to see included rated r movies and whatever violent movies and horror movies and so We just always grew up seeing everything and loving movies and loving tv and just being so fascinated with

Who the directors were and who the producers were and what the behind the scenes of it all was And I I don't know if I would say that that's because of what my dad did for a living I think we would have been into it regardless.

I think we just wouldn't we just we have loved movies forever so no, they were always super super supportive and um

The one thing that they did tell us early on is that if you are going to enter this business

You are going to do it on your own, you know, like they did and so We did we did it completely on our own and uh didn't use nepotism or family help to get jobs in this business and um, and you know, I think I actually

think that that's what has motivated me in any ways to work as hard as I do is that there was, there was no real support system in place in terms of like what I need help finding a job.

I actually used

friends of mine to help me get my first job in the business and not my family. Um, and that's mostly because my family had never been in the side of the business that I wanted to be in, which was the sort of the big studio movie side of the town. Um, but, uh, but no, they were, they were always super supportive. 

[00:05:20] Mike: To get on that movie production ladder you first went to film school I guess which was one of the ways that helped you get in What was your reflections on your time there? And also how has that changed because I have a feeling that from other interviews that I was listening to you You think maybe it's not quite as handy as it used to be

[00:05:35] Andy: It depends what you want to do in the film business. I think for me, I always wanted to be a producer. When I was a kid, I was producing all of my brother's movies that he was writing and we were doing together. And when I was in film school, I was producing everyone's movies in film school. But I also,

I liked film school because it allowed me to sort of learn everybody's jobs.

I got, I took editing classes and screenwriting classes and directing classes,

uh, cinematography classes. And so because, and that's because I knew as a, as a good producer, you have to understand what everyone's doing. You have to understand.

Why they need what they need and and what all the things are that they're talking about and to be able to really talk the talk

with your department heads because they will pick you apart if you have no clue what you're doing.

And so, you know, in retrospect, I look at my time in film school and I look at and I do appreciate my time there, but I also look at what film school costs

and I look at my career trajectory in terms of where it started and I.

Can confidently say that

film school had absolutely nothing to do with the job that I got out of, out of film school.

It was, you know, and I don't know, and I've hired

in my career now, hundreds of people, and I have never once cared where they went to film school or if they went to film school in this business. It's really about.

You know who you know and what you've done and that's really it. I don't know anyone that's going to hire somebody because

they went to USC as opposed to a community college.

That to me is not a real thing anymore. You know, yes, I do think it's important to have a degree, which is always nice in case this film school thing doesn't, because this film business thing doesn't work out. You at least have a college degree and you've gone through all the general classes to prepare yourself for the real world.

But, um, I think these days. You know,

depending on what you want to do with your career,

film school makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, I think it makes sense if you want to be a screenwriter because you could really hone your craft,

um, and, and write and you can use those things that you're writing potentially for life outside of film school and those scripts exist and they may be great and they may not,

um, if you want to be a director, I actually think at some point too, it's, it's yeah.

Pretty valuable, um, just in terms of being able to go make stuff. You have the resources and the infrastructure to go make things,

which is so important as a filmmaker. To come out of film school and say you want to direct things and have absolutely nothing to show for yourself as a director

is a really hard thing to do.

you know, if you don't have the resources and the infrastructure to go do those

Film school is helpful for that. It will provide those things for you

at a cost, you know, at a very expensive cost. And so,

you know, I think that when you start this business,

you start in this business, you are making no money for a very long time.

And

that

salary that you make.

In your entry level position in this business, which usually will last at least two or three years Your first two or three years in this business

is going to make it very difficult to pay back

You know potentially 150 to 200 thousand dollars in student loan debt. It's it's gonna

And a lot of and it crushes a lot of people It's actually what takes a lot of people out of

because they realize they've got so much debt in their life at this Point

that it's just going to take too long to make a substantial amount of money in this business and then they bail and so

You know,

those are my my sort of, you know, my thoughts on film school today.

I think it continues to evolve

Um, I think it's

it's right for some people but not for everybody

[00:08:45] Mike: Great answer. Thank you very much for that, Andy.

Now, you had a

early job, I guess, one of your first jobs, I imagine, with quite a special person. Your first big Hollywood job was as

Dark Knight producer Charles Roven's assistant. You can't get much bigger than that.

How did you get that job?

[00:09:00] Andy: Yeah, I mean I you know chuck is what is and was a mentor to me I worked with him for 15 years He will always be an incredibly important person, uh in my life and in my career and and You know, when I, when I got that job, that was, I, I graduated film school and, you know, decided that I wanted to work for a producer because I was realistic in my expectations that

nobody was just going to give me a movie to produce right out of film school.

And so I knew I wanted to be a producer's assistant. I wanted to be on the front lines with a producer that's doing what I want to do.

And so I sent out.

Probably 50 resumes at least when I graduated from school and I got zero calls back. None. I couldn't get an interview. I couldn't even get in front of somebody.

I couldn't,

you know, and I couldn't figure out what was going on and started and I started to get really scared and worried because,

you know, I was living in this little apartment in L. A. Now and I.

I had, you know,

had this degree and I made all these great things in film school and I

won awards in film school and I had short films and film festivals and I thought when I graduated that everyone was going to be lining up to hire me

and, uh, boy, could I not have been more wrong.

And so

I started to call some friends of mine that were a little bit older,

that were already working in the film

world in, in different.

Versions, assistance, production assistance.

and then I started to reach out to when I was in film school, I was driving down to LA every weekend and I was being a production assistant on

independent films and reality TV shows and commercials and music videos.

And so I reached out to those people and some of those production jobs were available,

but I knew that if I took one, I would get sidetracked because that was not going to be a path to becoming a producer for me.

And so I called a friend of mine that I went to high school with, a guy named Chris Osbrink,

and Chris was the assistant to the director named Pete Siegel.

And Pete Siegel, um, was in

soft prep on Get Smart, which is a movie that we, that was one of the first films that I was a part of at Atlas.

And So he said, Hey, I think our producer, this guy, Charles Rove, is looking for a second assistant. I will give them your resume.

And so that was the game changer, , which was that it was somebody that his current that Chuck's current assistants knew and trusted and was working with that was then handing them someone's resume.

So that was very different than was Being one resume of a hundred that was coming to an email address that everyone was sending resumes to.

And so that to me, I think is what got me to the interview. That was my, my very first interview out of film school was Atlas and for Charles Rovin. And so,

you know, I remember sitting in that lobby and it was 2007 and I was like, I was dressed like this, you know, I was like, and I remember sitting, there was two guys next to me also interviewing for the job.

And they were wearing suits and they had, I remember very vividly, they had briefcases and I thought, do I, should I have a briefcase? Like, what would I use a briefcase for? Should I have just brought one because I look more professional and I didn't. And so in that lobby, I convinced myself that I was not going to get this job because I just was, these people are older than me and they probably have more experience and they were wearing suits and they had briefcases.

And, um, and so I went in and I did the interview with his assistant and I think I did so well because.

I convinced myself I wasn't going to get the job and I think it made me more comfortable. I think it took the pressure off. I'm like, well, I'll, I'll just have a, I'll have an interview under my belt and I'll learn.

And then the next one I go, I'll do better. I'll, I'll bring the briefcase and I'll wear the suit. And, um, and so I just, I got along with this distance really well. And I was really young at that time. I was, I just turned 23 years old.

And, um, and I remember these.

Super fancy offices. At that time, Honorage was a very popular TV show.

And I thought to myself, I'm like, wow, I'm on a set of Honorage. I felt like that.

And so I, um,

had a good interview. And, uh, and then I went home and I was like, okay, I got that interview. I'm not going to get that job, but let's keep sending more resumes out and trying to find more people. And then two weeks later, I got a call,

from his assistant saying, Hey, Chuck is in town and he wants to meet you.

And, um, but he's only got, Yeah. You know, a 45 minute window on a Sunday evening, you know, he was just, and I I'll never forget. I went to his house on a Sunday evening

and, um, there was another guy coming out of the house. So I knew I wasn't the only person he was meeting with

and

he was sitting there

so exhausted.

You could tell it was the last thing he wanted to be doing in his, on his one day off. He probably had

just gotten back into town from, from doing a tech scout for the dark night in London.

And was, uh, essentially spent the first 20 minutes of that meeting convincing me why I didn't want the job and why it was going to be so difficult and how hard he is to work for and how demanding he is and all of these things.

And I, I didn't give a shit. I was like, listen, like this is, this is exactly what I want. I don't want an easy job. I want a job that's going to teach me how to do what you do. And.

I, you know, I'm at the point in my life where I didn't have a girlfriend and I didn't have any, I could, I could give everything to this thing right now.

And, and so I think he liked, I guess he liked the things that I've said and he hired me. I was shocked. I was really shocked. And, and so yeah, so I started with him in March of 2007. And I remember like, truly feeling like I was in the line then and just like, Completely out of my element and

really was just one of those guys that was just like,

tell me what you need me to do and I'm there and as a second assistant, that's like as low as you could possibly get on the totem pole.

That's like you're booking travel and you're filing papers. But what I really got out of that second assistant position was you listen to all the phone calls, so you're on every single phone call that he has with Chris Nolan with the studio with, you know, writers and directors and. Line producers. And so you're sitting there as like, I'm sitting there as a 23 year old kid.

I'm like, I'm literally attached to the hip of this guy who's having the highest level phone calls you could be having

with the highest level movies that are happening in town at the moment

and thinking, this is amazing. This is exactly what I want. I'm learning everything. I'm learning so much and consuming it all.

I'm watching how he talks to people and how he does business and what he says and how he says it. And I'm just starting to get like comfortable and I'm doing really good filing papers and listening to phone calls and booking travel And then my first assistant gets fired about three months later And so I was there for about three months and all of a sudden I am now finding myself in a position where i'm now the first assistant And the first assistant is someone that is much more involved in his life.

They deal with his schedule They deal with him all day. They're dealing with his emails. They're dealing with you know, they're they're

Literally, uh,

part of him, you know, they're an extension of him. And so he, I remember he comes into the office and he says, listen, like, I,

have never only had one assistant before and I need you to step up and I need you to be the first assistant.

And I don't know when I can hire you a second assistant because I'm so busy. I have no time to meet with anyone. And let's just see how this goes. And so what I did at that point is I just reinvented the entire way that office ran and I had to reinvent it because that office ran with a double assistant approach in terms of second assistant does this and first assistant does this, but I also saw that it was very antiquated.

It was very old school. And, you know, at that point we were still printing out every email and filing them and actual hard copy files. We had an entire wall. It's a whole wall of files then and so

obviously now you file digitally you don't do that and so those are the kind of things that I was revamping the office in terms of like, there's a better way to do this, and if I can revamp the whole office, and, and make this a one person job, not only am I going to find myself in a position of job security because I'm in control of everything, but It will make my life easier and if Chuck doesn't even notice, meaning that his day is not even affected in any way, shape or form and things are actually running better, then it's all going to work.

And so that's what I did. I, I literally,

I became the only assistant and I ate breakfast lunch and dinner at that desk for a year and a half. I was in there from eight o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier until eight or nine o'clock at night, sometimes 10 o'clock at night. It was a 24 seven, seven days a week, you know, it was every single day, all day long.

And I kind of loved it as hard as it was and as stressful as it was. I got to be a part of a big part of, you know, the dark night, get smart. This movie called the international, the bank job. And, you know, in a span of Two years we made five movies and I got to be a really a big part of all of those and so

After I was there for about two and a half years Doing that I got promoted.

He promoted me to the company's very first creative executive And then from there, it was just, you know, running up the ladders as fast as I possibly could.

[00:17:45] Mike: Amazing answer. Thank you very much. Now that you are sitting yourself in the

big leather movie producers chair, if you have someone coming in to interview for your assistant position, what makes someone like that stand out?

[00:17:59] Andy: I mean, I can tell you about my current assistant right now. He's amazing. His name is Mark, and he was a guy that,

you know,

really cares about his job, the job that he's doing. And I could tell that because when I left Atlas to start Big Swell,

You know, it took me a bit to, uh, get the infrastructure together, to get the company together, to raise a little bit of money, to be able to pay people and to do that.

And when I left Atlas, Mark was actually my intern at Atlas when I was there.

One of my, one of our interns. Then when I left to go start my own thing,

he called me up, you know, a week later and he was like, listen, I want to come work for you. And I said, Mark, I don't have any money right now to pay in a system.

I haven't raised any money yet. I don't have any infrastructure. I have no overhead money. And he said, I don't care. I just, you know, I believe in what you're doing and I think it's a great idea and I have a lot of respect for you. And so he worked with me, you know, for, for a few months without getting paid at all because he just believed.

And so that to me, you know, obviously now and, you know, a year later he's, he's been getting paid and, and he's doing really, really well, but that is someone that was able to show me. That he gives a shit that he's not just here for a paycheck that he actually wants to Be a big part of this business and be a big part of my company And you know, I think for me being able to see that someone really cares that it's not just a job

And that they actually do have ambitions to grow within the company and not,

you know, get their assistant experience and then move on to the next thing, which is what you encounter a lot in this business, mostly in the agency side, but sometimes with the entry level provisions too.

And for me, what I've noticed, what was successful for me was not doing that, knowing that I'm joining a company that I believe there's room for growth.

And instead of continuing to move laterally every two or three years, like a lot of people do in this business, I'm going to hold tight. And it may not be easy, and I may not love it, but I will continue to climb this ladder to get to a much higher level.

What happens to a lot of people in this business is they,

they're at a place for a year or two, sometimes three, and then they feel like they need to move on to the next place. And then they the next place two years later, and then the next place two years after that. And when you do that, you're just moving laterally around the business.

You're not actually moving up. And so, uh,

you know, finding someone that actually believes in what we're doing and wants to, uh, and it's convincing in telling me that they want to grow within the company and be there for a long time, that's super important to me, people that actually care

[00:20:25] Mike: Well, that's exactly what you did, obviously. You stayed at Atlas for over a decade. And moving on a few years, you obviously became a producer. And I'd love to hear about one of the projects you worked on, which was Triple Frontier. And I'd love to hear about the story of you trying to get Catherine Bigelow into Brazil.

Is that right?

[00:20:43] Andy: So, yeah. So when we still went, I mean, triple frontier took us, we were at Atlas. It took us about nine years to make once we started that process, that project. And when we still, when that project came into Atlas, I was. It's just creeping my way off the desk. So I had like, just gotten promoted. I had just gotten promoted,

but I hadn't left the desk yet.

I was training the person that was coming in and that's when that project started. So technically I started that project as an assistant. By the time the movie actually got made, I was the senior producer on the project and actually ran, ran the production for it. But with the first job that I had on that, I'll never forget that I was an assistant.

At that point, it was Catherine Bigelow directing and Mark Bull writing the script.

And Paramount was going to make a movie. And so we had started what we call very soft prep, which was, they went on some tech scouts around the world and they, their first tech scout that they were going to was Brazil. And so because they needed work visas to go on a tech scout to Brazil, the only consulate for some reason that was able to stamp their passports, a Brazilian consulate was in New York.

And so they had to leave in two days. And so.

I, as an assistant, took all of their passports, I had this stack of passports, there was, I think, six of them,

I got on a red eye in L. A.

with all these

passports, flew to New York, which is a six hour, five and a half hour flight, landed, had to wait three hours for the consulate to open at 10 a.

m.,

in between that time, I remember I had, like, Three or two or three hours to kill. I was so exhausted. I had all these passports. I was like hugging these passports because they were so important. If I lost them or something would happen, it would have been so bad. I went to, I sat in Central Park for like two or three hours waiting for the consulate to open, fell asleep,

got up, went to the consulate, got the passport stamped,

got back on a plane and came back to LNA.

And so, uh, I was, I was definitely in the air between both flights longer than I was on the ground.

And, um, and yeah, that was the very, my very first task on triple frontier when I was just an assistant. And then throughout my time there,

that movie almost got made and it didn't get made and then it sort of did, and then it died for five or six years.

And by the time it actually got made, I had risen to a level high enough that, um, the Netflix was completely comfortable with me being the senior producer on the movie. uh, yeah, I was, I'm super proud of that movie. It means, I mean, it means a lot to me.

[00:23:00] Mike: How do you stay passionate about a movie like that when it goes through so many life cycles? I mean, Tom Hanks was attached at one point, all these actors, Catherine Bigelow ultimately didn't direct

[00:23:11] Andy: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I mean, what you, you kind of don't, you know, you start to sort of forget about them and you have so many things that you're doing as a producer. And for me, in between that time, when I was an assistant, when I actually made it, you know, I think I made seven or eight movies, you know, in that period of time and was, um, was doing so many other things.

And so. You know, that movie came back around when I was doing Suicide Squad. And when I was on the set of Suicide Squad, J. C. Shandor had heard about the movie and came to the set of Suicide Squad to meet with us to talk about it. And so that was the first time I... And then what really got me passionate about that film...

Again, because again, it had disappeared like for five years. And so we sort of had not forgotten about it, but 

Paramount was just sitting on it. They wouldn't let us do anything with it. And so,

when JC came to set

and we had a meeting with him, he started talking about the movie and I got really excited, but what actually really made me care so much about that movie was my military advisor on Suicide Squad, a guy named Kevin Vance, um, Who is an incredible human being and has become a very, very close friend of mine.

We became very close on that movie. And so it was in my brain because I just met with JC and I was just, Kevin was on set and I started talking about it. Kevin is an ex Navy SEAL, um, special forces had gone above and beyond, you know, he's done incredible things in the military, a true hero, but an incredible human being.

And I started telling him about what Triple Frontier was about.

And I could see that like, he really,

that story really resonated with him.

And especially like the veteran community

and ex military guys, especially ex special forces guys, that when they graduate, you know, when they're done with the military, they've got all these skills that they don't know what to do with.

And,

you know, oftentimes they struggle in the real world, and they struggle financially, and they struggle mentally. And so when I was talking about it, I could see that.

The movie meant something to him if we were to get it made, and it started to make me care about it a lot more, and I think the messaging of what that movie is about,

in terms of, you know, how it deals with, with, um, you know, our veterans,

uh, became very important to me, and so that, from that moment forward, it was, you know, a lot of energy and time spent getting that version of the movie made with J.

C., is

and bringing the whole thing around full circle, Kevin actually ended up being my military advisor on Triple Frontier. And so I got to bring him with me,

uh, to Hawaii and to Columbia, and, and he was an incredibly important, massive part of, of that movie.

[00:25:35] Mike: Very cool. He sounds like an interesting guy.

[00:25:37] Andy: He's awesome. He

[00:25:38] Mike: He's awesome.

You mentioned working as a producer on Suicide Squad there. And for the listeners who often don't understand what a producer is, At this period in your career, you were working on American Hustle as a producer and Suicide Squad. Could you talk about what the day to day of that would have looked like?

[00:25:53] Andy: Yeah, I mean, on both those movies, I was what was called a co producer. So co producer is sort of like,

technically it's looked at as a junior producer, most of the time.

The one thing that I will, I am very appreciative of Chuck for,

Is that he gave me the opportunity to even though that may have been my credit

I was doing so much more and that's only because it was out of necessity chuck was doing a million things as well You know on american hustle.

I was not I was nowhere near Working at the same level that I was at suicide squad american hustle I was just happy to be there and I was a sponge and I was on set every day and I was doing

Nowhere near sort of the level of producing that I was doing on

Suicide Squad, but when I got to Suicide Squad,

I had realized that there was like the real position for me to like, kind of like help run the show and be a big part of the making of that movie.

And

I also got along really, really well with our whole cast, everybody. And so when you have a cast like that, that's this ensemble group,

to have a member of the producing team be integrated within that group

and connected to them in the way that I was.

And still am, you know, years later,

it really allowed us, it was really helpful to get the movie done because, you know, a lot of what I'm doing on that set is, you know, meeting with people every day, solving problems,

dealing with scheduling issues, dealing with production issues.

you know, on that movie, we worked eight and a half weeks of nights. And so that was like working all night and sleeping during the day and having weird weeks while weekends were like Tuesday and Wednesday.

Um, and so,

you know, me doing that on that movie gave, uh, you know, Richard, who was one of our other producers on it, and Chuck, the ability to get other, to do other things and keep other movies afloat while I was dealing with, with a lot of what Suicide Squad was going on.

And so, It was a great, great experience with me. A producer really is kind of like, they're the, both the business and the creative mind of the movie. And we are the, we're essentially hired by the studios to take care of the movie and make sure that it

stays on schedule. It stays on budget. It stays, you know, there's no issues happening in the movie with, with, um, creative issues between the director and the actors.

Um, if any of those things happen, if you issues with any of those things, we are the ones that solve those problems. And so we are in the middle of.

Everything that's happening from every dollar that's spent on the movie to every creative decision that's made to the communication between the movie and the studio who's paying for the movie.

you know, we are, we are in the nucleus of all of that and, and really kind of have to organize it. and, uh, you know, are, we, we usually, I could say like producers are usually like the first people in and the last people out in terms of the movie, you know, we're, we're there throughout the whole run of it.

[00:28:31] Mike: Awesome. And I guess that long standing journey there gave you all of the skills you needed to start up your own production company, which you've recently done with Big Swell. And one of the things I noticed about it, which I think some people would be interested in, is you've recently been involved with Court 17, the script.

Is that right?

[00:28:49] Andy: I have. Yeah.

[00:28:50] Mike: Fantastic. Yeah. So for the screenwriters listening, you're involved with Court 17, which came second on the blacklist. For anyone that doesn't know what that is, it's a list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, as voted for by lots of assistants and people like that.

Could you talk about how you came to be involved with the project, because

that's the sort of thing that people want to hear from someone like yourself, Andy, where, how do I get my script into the hands of someone like you?

[00:29:13] Andy: Yeah, Court 17,

is an incredible project. I'm so excited. The moment this writer's strike is over, we will be selling that movie. I have an amazing actress attached to play the lead, and I have an amazing director, and I just, um, it's, it's burning a hole in my pocket right now during the strike. But, uh, but the way that movie came to be,

and

You know, was, was, was really a relationship based situation in a sense that I have a very good relationship.

He's one of my best friends in the business with a manager

named John Zerzoni who runs a company called Bellevue.

And John and I have been friends for probably close to 15 years we've done many deals together. We just are like, not only very close friends but also work really well together, and he is a.

You know, he sends me lots of things, like he sends me lots of scripts because he's so good at finding young writers and developing scripts for them and getting them to the place where they'll not only get on the blacklist, but usually get sold somewhere. And so,

so John brought me that script when it went out as a spec script, so he took that, he found that script

initially, um, Elad Ziv is the writer who's an amazing writer who came up with that idea for what that movie is, spent a lot of time working on it.

And then he got it to john and john got it to me but not just me but like 10 other producers as well

And it was one of those situations where you know out of many many producers that it was sent to

A lot of them raised their hand that they wanted to produce the movie and so You know, this was at a time when I had like i'm not joking.

I had launched the company like Like days before this movie came to me,

so I hadn't even announced it yet. I literally hadn't even done the announcement for the company yet. And, um, and this project came to me and I jumped on it immediately because I just loved what the movie is. It's a sports movie that deals with, you know, mental health and professional sports, but it uses a unique approach in terms of the storytelling device of sort of the time loop Groundhog Day, like aspect of it.

and it deals with a sport that I love watching and tennis happens to be a very international based sport. So it's not really just a sport that works here, but it works well all over the world. Which means you have audiences all over the world that are attracted to that sport that will watch the movie.

And so

that project came to me and I raised my hand right after I read it and I said I love this and John called me and said, listen, as a friend, I just have to let you know that a bunch of other producers that have raised their hand. And so a lot the writer was going to start meeting with those producers and get a sense of like who he felt like was the best producer for the movie,

just based on his, his gut and how he felt about what they said and so when I met with a lot.

I was straight up with him. I said, listen, I've,

produced lots of things and I've made, you know, I've done, I've done a bunch of movies, but I had just, I've just launched my own company and now I'm doing this on my own. And

I gave him some notes on the script in terms of like, how I felt like we can make it better before we sent it out.

And I told him about the approach that I would want to take, which is essentially, let's go find.

Creative elements to attach to it, whether it's an actress or a director, and put a package together before we take it out to the buyers.

and then we bonded on, on a number of things. You know, we bonded on, most importantly, I'm a huge Buffalo Bills fan, uh, and the NFL is one of my favorite teams, is my favorite team,

and I've been a fan forever.

He is also from Buffalo, New York, and is a massive Bills fan.

We became best friends right away. We actually started just communicating on Twitter before we even, we, I even read his script because he was a screenwriter who was a Bill's fan.

And so when I, so yeah, so what, so I had a great meeting with him.

I felt really good about it. We just got along so well, we were speaking the same language.

He did that, I think of at least three or four other producers. And then John and a lot called me together like two weeks later and said, listen, like

we're, we're excited that this together.

And so, and so that's what we did.

And we, um, you know, slowly but surely, we did some work on the script.

and then it ended up number two on the blacklist. And I got, we got all tall sorts of incoming calls from

directors, agents, and actors, agents. Um, we knew exactly who we wanted for the movie. It was, there was an actress that we wanted from the beginning who I was obsessed with getting for this movie and was really, really excited about her being involved.

And, um,

And we got her, which was amazing. And, and she's just the loveliest, coolest person ever. And it has been so fun to work with.

Uh, and then we, we found a director a few months ago

and

so excited about the movie and ready to take it out. And then the strike happened. And so we've been, uh, we've been.

Patiently waiting for the strike to be over so we can go find a home for this movie. But, uh, but that one was, was really, it was, it was relationship based in terms of how it came to me. It was my relationship with John, um, John finding the script, uh, me sort of,

you know, um, singing my heart out to Elad as to, like, why I felt like I was the best producer for the movie.

And, and telling him, you know, that I believed in it and I was a fan of it and... That's how it all came together. And, you know, we still have a long way to go on that movie to get into the starting line of actually being able to make a movie.

But, um, but yeah, that's how, that's how that one got to me.

[00:34:12] Mike: There you go, thank God for the Buffalo Bills.

It

[00:34:16] Andy: I mean it all that the 18 years of 18 years of cheering on a losing team was

[00:34:22] Mike: was all worth it.

[00:34:23] Andy: now we're now we're good but but it was a lot of pain for many years and that seemed to be worth it

[00:34:28] Mike: Amazing, thank you Andy. Now to wrap up on Red Carpet Rookies, I do a little quickfire questionnaire, which is my own ode to In the Actors Studio. So if you can think of answers that come to the top of your head when I ask them, if that's okay. first one is, what is one of the best pieces of advice you've ever been given?

[00:34:44] Andy: when the best pieces of advice I've ever been given that I think about every day. That was given to me by Charles Roven, uh, was that it doesn't matter how many people pass on a project or tell you no,

all you need is one yes. And none of the other no's matter at all. It doesn't matter. None of them matter.

And so I think about that and I use that in my brain. It sits in the back of my brain at all times because as a producer, we are on the front lines of getting

Beat up and passed on all the time. People tell us no way more than they tell us. Yes. And usually on every project that we take out, we get a whole lot of nos and a whole lot of passes.

And so for me, when I, when I go through that process, I remember what Chuck told me

*over and over. And I, and I tell my writers that like, listen, I know we've gotten eight passes, but we have four studios left to go to.*

*Even if three of those four pass and one of them says yes, then none of the other passes.*

*Nothing else matters. It doesn't.*

*So, you know,*

*best piece of advice I would say is what Chuck gave me, which was, doesn't matter how many people tell you no, all it takes is one yes.*

[00:35:45] Mike: *Great line. Number two, do you have a favorite film?*

[00:35:48] Andy: *Uh, if someone forced me to tell them what my favorite film was at gunpoint, and I had to name one,*

it's a tie for me. It's a tie. And they're both movies. And I don't think I can name them. I would say two. But I would say. The first one, Terminator 2, I think, is like, for me, I vividly remember seeing that movie in the movie theater when it came out. It definitely changed my life in terms of what could be done on the big screen.

And then a very different movie, but I also am a massive, massive fan of Braveheart, was one that, uh, definitely had a huge impact on me as well. Um, if someone forced me to pick one, I'd probably pick Braveheart, but, but those two are very close.

[00:36:26] Mike: Awesome. Number three, what gives you a reason to get out of bed every day for a day of producing?

[00:36:31] Andy: You know, I'm sort of addicted to producing. I would do it, you know, it's all I want to do. I love getting out of bed every day to produce movies.

I love.

bringing stories to audiences around the world. I love

sitting in a movie theater and watching an audience absorb a story that I just spent three years working on and bringing to the screen.

I think that as filmmakers and as producers, we have a big responsibility in terms of what we make and how that shapes culture and how it shapes people's outlooks on life. And to be able to spend years of my life working on movies that I think are going to have a positive impact on people.

And potentially influence them or encourage them to to do things in their life that are gonna make their lives better. Um, that makes me super happy. So I think just the ability to,

to make people feel things with, uh, with the things that we work on, um, is, is probably what does it for me.

[00:37:23] Mike: Number four, what job would you do in the industry if you weren't doing yours?

[00:37:28] Andy: Oof. Um.

You know, I kind of have always,

I would say directing, and I only say that because I think that it's similar to producing in a sense that you are like the general or the captain of the ship. I think both the producer and the director

are very much tied together in terms of that role on a movie.

And so I think if I, a logical move for me would probably be into that chair, if I, if I ever left, but I have no intention of doing that. I think producing is really all I've ever wanted to do. And,

uh, I don't see myself ever, ever leaving that, that side of the business.

[00:38:01] Mike: Awesome. What is a book, ideally career focused but doesn't have to be, that everyone should read?

[00:38:07] Andy: Book. Um.

if you're entering the business

and you're just starting out,

I would say Mailroom is probably the book to read. It was one that I read when I was an assistant. It is not necessarily representative of the business that we exist in today, but very much representative of the

how hard it is

to be to succeed in this business, and I do think that that book,

will prepare you for a lot of things that you will encounter, uh, in an entry level position in this business.

[00:38:36] Mike: Sounds like a great recommendation. And finally, if you won an Oscar, who would you thank, Andy?

[00:38:40] Andy: I would thank my parents and my wife. I think those are the three that would be the most influential, uh, and my brothers. I mean, yeah, parents, wife, brothers. Grandparents and, and Chuck Roven would be on that list as well, uh, for, for all the things that he did for me, uh, and helping me get to where I am today.

[00:39:01] Mike: Sounds like a perfect list. Thank you very much for your time today, Andy.

[00:39:03] Andy: Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.