Just watching Chris Nolan direct was amazing. He is one of the most lovely people, which as you know doesn't always go hand-in-hand with great directors. But with Christopher Nolan, and there's only a few I think like him in Hollywood, that's absolutely true.
Suzanne ToddIt takes a number of different skill sets, I think, to try and be a good producer. You have to be very creative, but you also have to be incredibly financially minded. I jokingly say the job is kind of part cheerleader and part dictator. It is both of those things, because you have to make sure that people are doing what they need to be doing, but creatively you really need to be helping each person in every job across the crew. Cheering them on, keeping them inspired into doing their best work, and you have the director's vision in the forefront.
Suzanne ToddThe problem for me is that I just don't often come across material that speaks to me and my TV education. Before we all had DirectTV and Netflix and Amazon, there's literally 15 years where I saw nothing. Now, I get the pleasure of binge-watching, so now I feel like I'm much more in a TV state of mind, because I binge-watched so many incredible TV shows that now I'm actually a little bit more excited about working in the space.
Suzanne ToddThe crazy thing is, I sent out 200 letters and I got one job interview, and I actually got that job, which was working as a development assistant at Joel Silver's company. I always say that to people when they ask "What do I do?" and I'm like, "Look, I didn't get ten responses, and I didn't get five interviews, but I got one interview, and I got the job," and that was all I needed.
Suzanne ToddI only worked on that one movie, but then quickly realized that the path of being an assistant director was not gonna get me to producing. It's a different path coming up through production management and then line producing. So I basically was in the position where I was going to take any job that felt creative, like the one I got, which was reading scripts and writing coverage. So even though I was taking a job where I was making less money than the job immediately prior, it seemed like the right thing for me.
Suzanne ToddI don't think actually that kind of ego check or "I could do better" mentality probably serves better in Hollywood, because it's definitely not a meritocracy. You can look at any number of careers and sort of see that they don't really make sense if it was only based on your movies working either creatively or financially. There are people that move ahead without that, and there are people that don't move ahead even if they did have that.
Suzanne Todd