Entourage aka My Life As A Hollywood Biz Babe

“Right now I think there is a new breed of women agents, and it probably carries over to other areas of business as well, where they are fully women: they’re stylish, they’re pretty, but they are incredibly good at what they do and incredibly well respected.” Carla Gugino, actress.

I often get asked about my years spent working in '"the biz" . If you want to pull back the velvet curtain and take peak, check out "Entourage".

Drawing on the real life experiences of industry insiders, "Entourage" is a heightened reality version of "a day in the life" of a Hollywood agent, a very hot young actor ( played by real life hottie , Adrian Grenier) and his hometown entourage.

This season, the Producers took the very realistic move of having Vince fire is first and long time agent, Ari Gold, whose cocky overconfident nature serves him well in the shark invested waters of Hollywood, but also causes him to lose his most valuable client.

We open up the last few episodes of Season 3 with the introduction of Vince's new agent: Amanda ---played by the talented, gorgeous Carla Gugino. I wish I looked as hot as Carla, but physical appearance aside, she certainly depicts what I faced as a female agent working in the boys club that is Hollywood.

Jeremy Piven was BORN to play role of Ari Gold, and his scene stealing performances often overshadow the other actors. Yet Carla Gugino delivers a stellar performance as Vince's new agent, who simply sits back and watches Ari's hubristic nature play out as he tries to slither his way back into Vince's career, then calls him on his bullshit.

In the character of Amanda, Carla acknowledges that producer Doug Ellin has brought to the series a strong successful woman who can go head to head with Ari.

“She is commanding in her profession and she also has a sexual dynamic with the characters, that I think is not that common on this show.”

The series is into the second half of its 3rd season, with 8 new episodes that started April 8th and will continue until May 20th. Season Four begins June 2007.


Read: She Crashes The Boys Club

Related:
My Life As A Biz Babe
Stroking Egos

Stroking egos with one hand and stoking insecurity with the other

My former life as an agent in Hollywood can be summed up in one sentence

Stroking egos with one hand and stoking insecurity with the other

One certainty in a business of uncertainty is that talent usually lives in a state of panic, wondering where their next job is coming from, and if their agent is working hard enough for them. That makes both talent and dealmakers ripe for "poaching".

"You'll be working with a director who'll say, ‘You should meet my agent.' If the agent is any good, he's read all your scripts and can talk about where your career should be going. It's hard not to be impressed, particularly if you feel like your agent is traveling the path of least resistance and booking you into the same kind of film jobs over and over. You want the person responsible for your living to be willing to lay in front of traffic for you."

Small wonder that agents are ripe for cardiac arrest and sleepless nights. Even in failure, clients will almost never blame themselves for futility, not when there's an agent within easy reach who can be tossed under the bus.

One dealmaker recalls being fired by an actor client who was reeling after a flop. Even though the actor acknowledged his agents advised him to avoid the pic, he says that he had to look at himself every morning in the mirror, and he wasn't going to blame that guy. And it had to be somebody's fault.

And you all thought my life was film festivals, red carpets, and movie premieres.

Read: Agents Scrambled By Poaching.

Related:
Hollywood Elementary
Hollywood Confidential
My Life As A BizBabe
Golden Globes & The Spirit Awards

I Am The Hollywood Refugee

I  worked in LA , was one of  Hollywood's own
who decided one day she had to go home
My journey to LaLa Land was as strange as could be
no Dorothy,no Toto,  no good fairy
no lions, no tigers, no bears,  did I find
just star driven egos that drove me out of my mind
and left me with too little time to unwind

One better be careful when one unlocks
that ever enticing Pandora's Box
All that I saw  when I looked all around
were too many devils in that angel town

Success is seductive but I soon did learn
that my heart and my soul,
they cried out, they did yearn
for that which not fame nor money can earn
the love of another that will be true
who'll love me for me; Not for what I can do

My name says it all, it's who I'll always be
I am The Hollywood Refugee



(Copyright 2002)

Seeing The Unseen

From the brilliant, witty, masterful essayist Bill Whittle:

This is the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel," she said. This is a statement of such pristine and perfect idiocy that it surely must be emblazoned in stone across the entrance to the Physics Imbecile wing of the Moron Museum of Natural History. But mastery of physics and engineering requires some intelligence, some perseverance and some discipline: none of which are in evidence in this buffoon. Everything is a conspiracy to a mind this far gone. The 15 British sailors kidnapped at sea? All a plan by our evil (but incompetent!) government to get the next war it so desperately needs. “Gulf of Tonkin! Google It, people!” she said on national TV.

And I will, Rosie. I promise. As soon as I finish googling MAD COW DISEASE.

I will make the point yet again because I believe it is the crux of the issue: what kind of moral universe do you have to inhabit to be able to believe that your own people – airline personnel, demolition experts, police and security forces, faked witnesses and all the rest – are capable of such a thing? How much hate for your own society do you have to carry in order to live in such a desolate and ridiculous mental hell? What psychoses must a mind be riddled with in order to negate what was perfectly obvious and instead believe a theory of such monumental fantasy? How much pure constant hatred does that take?

What, in short, is the miserable black hole of self-loathing that drives a person like Rosie O’Donnell and millions like her?

Read more at Eject! Eject! Eject!

Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right

No, it's not the story of my life in Hollywood...... although it could be:>)

It's Bernie Goldberg's new book; and it's classic Bernie Goldman --- personal, provocative, hard hitting and no nonsense.

For 30 years, Goldberg was a contributer to the "CBS Evening News" and "48 Hours" . He won seven Emmys and is now a Fox News commentator. He also wrote 2 of my fave books about the media, "Biased" & "Arrogance"

From The NY Post:

Goldberg also takes on Couric's predecessor, Dan Rather, for clinging to his job in the wake of the phony George W. Bush-Air National Guard story even after four of his colleagues got axed.

Riffing on "courage," Rather's nightly, one-word sign-off, Goldberg writes: "How could a man of courage, a man who puts loyalty above almost everything else, have let them leave without going right out the door with them . . . Real courage requires real risk, sometimes even sacrifice . . . Dan, like so many other elites on the left, talks a good game. They all stand for the 'right' things. As long as it doesn't cost them anything.

In what is chillingly prescient, Goldberg warns that

"if the wimps on the Right fail to regain their courage, recover their principles, and reclaim their sense of fiscal responsibility, the crazies on the Left just might win the White House in 2008."