How to succeed in Hollywood
January 20, 2009
Part of the fallout of the last post was an obvious follow-up question, something that I should have thought about while I was writing but didn’t:
“Well if asking you for help is pointless, how does one succeed in Hollywood?”
Though this question is loaded with assumptions, the underlying point is a good one. How do you do it? How do you make it out here?
The first thing I am going to tell you is that I can’t tell you how to make it in Hollywood, because there isn’t only one way to make it. What I did is very different than what Nick Schenk did, which is also very different than what Michael Martin did. There are almost as many ways to make it as there are people who have made it.
I would also be very careful asking anyone else their advice. I got a ton of advice about “making it” in Hollywood over the past five years, and almost all of it was either ill-suited for me, complete bullshit, or totally wrong. Lots of people like to offer advice about things, yet very few of them are qualified to do so. Remember that when you listen to some assistant who got her job because her dad is friends with a producer about what it takes to “make it” in Hollywood.
Beyond that, there are so many different definitions of “making it.” To some people, “making it” is selling a script. To others, “making it” is becoming a mogul. And there’s everything else in between.
Most of the books I have read or the advice I’ve seen about “making it” in Hollywood is all about how to format your screenplay or where to network or who to know or how to write a cover letter. That’s all fucking bullshit. I don’t know how to do any of that. There is one commonality that I have found with people who come from nowhere to really do something cool in Hollywood, and for some reason, this aspect seems to be left out of almost all the books about “making it” in Hollywood:
The underlying art itself HAS to be good. That’s where it all starts. If you love your art, you work your ass off at it and try to make it as good as possible while treating it with respect, you’re probably going to end up OK.
Everything else comes as a result of that. For the vast majority of people working in Hollywood, it starts with the art, because at its core, Hollywood is the center of the ENTERTAINMENT business, which is based on the writing, acting and production of content.
It’s easy to get noticed. It’s easy to get someone to read your script, or to get a meeting with a big producer, or to get someone to pay attention to your acting. Getting noticed is not the problem anymore. The world is STARVED for something to notice.
That is exactly why most people can’t “make it.” The problem now is that most of the content out there SUCKS and can’t garner an audience and thus does not deserve to be made into something larger. It’s like I told people at SXSW a few years ago, the message that no one wants to hear: Getting the deal is easy, it’s having the content worth getting a deal that’s hard.
It’s really easy to look at Hollywood from the outside and think it’s all about the connections and the parties and the fame and the paparazzi and the image. And to some extent, that is true. There are definitely a few people who’ve made their whole careers on just being famous for no other reason than they’re famous. Is there a way to cheat the system, to finagle and network and schmooze your way to success? Of course. If that’s your goal, if that’s If you want that path to fame, go for it, but I don’t have any advice to give you on that front. It’s not my path, especially not in Hollywood.
I guess it all boils down to motivation. Why are you trying to “make it”?
If it’s for any reason other than because you just fucking LOVE doing it and you can’t imagine doing anything else, that’s where you need to be. Because if you love it, you’ll devote yourself to it, you’ll cherish and nurture your gift, and you’ll work your ass off to improve it and make it what it needs to be.
But so few people who want to “make it” in Hollywood are doing it for the right reasons. Or they start for the right reasons and lose track of why they’re doing it. Or they kinda like art, but really like the scene, and don’t want to put in all the pain and hard work and sacrifice that great art requires. But if you don’t do it for the right reasons, you probably aren’t going to develop what it takes to make it. I wrote about this in another place:
“Dude, it’s NEVER been about the money for me. Money is important, but if it was about the money, don’t you think I would have taken the tv deal NBC threw at me five years ago? Or the tv deal Comedy Central threw at me two years ago? Or don’t you think Nils and I would have taken the millions–plural–we were offered for the script? Or any of the dozens of other things I’ve turned down that I’ve never written about?
This whole fucking thing started as emails to my friends. Me trying to make my friends laugh. It still all boils down to that–making my friends laugh. Now I just have a lot more friends reading my stuff. It’s how I write, and it’s what I tried to do with the movie–write something funny that makes all of us laugh.
That’s why I get up in the morning, that’s why I fight all the battles I fight, that’s why I do it all–because I love laughing and enjoying this stuff and sharing with other people who also enjoy it.
Yeah man, the money is nice. And you better believe I want to make a lot. That’s why I pay so much attention to the business aspect. But I know very well that it can never be about the money, because then the art will suffer. It has to be about enjoyment and fun and the art that creates that emotion.
Why do you think I didn’t…ever peg a dollar figure to the success of this movie? Because it’s success should be measured by how many people LAUGH AT AND ENJOY it. I damn well think it will make a shit ton of money, but I phrased it as me thinking it is something special–because it’s the fact that it is a special movie that is what will be the cause of it making money, not the other way around.
Of course, that’s the supreme irony–if a lot of people do laugh at and enjoy it, if you don’t think about money and just worry about art, THAT’S when you start seeing real money. Funny how that works.”
And another thing I wrote:
If your goal is just a result–whether it be best-selling author or NBA champion or NASCAR driver or famous starlet ot whatever–you will almost certainly never reach it. But if your goal is to do what you love the best you can, ONLY THEN will you be able to have all the awards and designations that come to someone who does those things.
When I started, of course I wanted to have all the things I have now. But it wasn’t WHY I did it. The desire for that shit doesn’t get you up in the morning, it doesn’t push you through the hard parts, and it doesn’t turn good to great. The only thing that does that is a love for creating your art, and a burning desire to say what it is you need to say.
And if your response is “I just want a chance” my answer is this: What the FUCK are you waiting for? You don’t need permission. Whatever it is you want to create, go do it. Once you have an audience that likes consuming your art, then come back to me and I will teach you the next step. I can answer your question specifically and exactly, but it would be a waste of time right now. Like I already said, thinking about the prize will make you miss the target. Worry about what your target is, and hit that first.
The two best quotes I have read about what I am talking about come from two people I greatly admire:
“Don’t aim at success–the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
-Viktor Frankl“I never set out to make money. I really wish I could say otherwise, but it just hasn’t been the case. I have met people who have made a fortune with intent, and they are few and far between. Invariably, they are wealthier than I could ever imagine because they have become good at what they set out to do, and that has been their only goal in life.”
-Gordon Ramsay
EDIT: I am going to be going on my book tour starting tomorrow, so I probably won’t be posting for a week or so. But when I get back I will have very good news about our MPAA rating.
