Paula Wagner is a film producer and film executive who was, for a time, frequently described as "the most powerful woman in Hollywood". She has produced movies such as Mission: Impossible, The Others, The Last Samurai, Shattered Glass, Narc, Elizabethtown, and Ask the Dust, as well as Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Wagner was a talent agent at Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, spending 15 years representing some of the top Hollywood actors. She develops films, theatre, and television through her production company Chestnut Ridge Productions. Her Broadway producing credits include Pretty Woman: The Musical, and The Heiress.
Paula Wagner has worn a lot of hats in the business on her way up the ladder, from Broadway actress to Powerhouse Agent to running a movie studio to producing movies. Could there be a better person to talk to about movies to musicals and vice-versa? Paula and I talked about that, of course, as well as . . .
- The skills she learned as an agent that help her be a better Producer.
- What Hollywood does well that we could learn from and what Hollywood can learn from us!
- Eye-poppin’ idea that could save the movie industry (and it’s so simple).
- Why Pretty Woman was made to be a musical and why it’s doing what she thought it would (gross over $1mm a week!).
- Coming up in the entertainment industry as a female Producer and how that has changed. Or not.
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