I SURVIVED BEING AN ASSISTANT AT A HOLLYWOOD TALENT AGENCY. HERE'S WHAT IT TAUGHT ME ABOUT DIRECTING.

by Jeff Fisher

I still get PTSD driving past that old Agency building on Wilshire Blvd.

It was 1994, and I was making $325 a week as an assistant at one of Hollywood’s major talent agencies. My mornings looked like this: arrive, make sure the call list — two hundred names deep — was updated, and get ready to roll calls for what felt like the rest of my natural life. The occasional stapler got hurled across the office to get someone’s attention. The vibe was The Devil Wears Prada meets Succession — with a healthy side of Game of Thrones.

And the assistants there ran the full spectrum. There were mini-nightmares on their way to being Full Tilt Boogie-nightmares, who were clearly going to either run a studio or end up in prison for tax evasion. There were people who didn’t survive their first week. And then there were the friends you needed in the trenches with you.

I got lucky with the other assistant on the desk. We worked on a “two assistant” desk, usually reserved for agents with some serious clout. Let’s call her Alicia — because she had the demeanor of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless with a healthy dose of Elle Woods’ gumption. I was pretty sure she was going to be President of the United States one day.

The agency represented A-list movie stars, major directors, giant TV clients. My boss had some big clients—and some movie stars at the twilight of their career he’d represented forever. He also packaged independent films — which meant occasionally placing, say, Michael Biehn a few years after The Terminator into a fast-money job on something like Beastmaster 3. Then when a sexy, big-budget studio feature came in for Biehn, his primary agent would blow a gasket trying to get him out of that movie. Point being: at this agency, you had to make sure you kept your side of the street clean, and didn’t piss off the wrong people. And, in my case, you absolutely, under any circumstances, did not sign your boss’s name on anything.

I would learn that lesson the hard way.

“GET O.J. BOOKS!”

My boss had also been O.J. Simpson’s agent for years. And then June 17th happened. The White Bronco. The arrest. And an already high-stress environment got cranked to about eleven.

When O.J. got arrested, he asked my boss for help getting books to read while, uh, he was waiting.

Turns out, at the time, the L.A. County jail only accepted books in sealed boxes directly from publishers. No Amazon Prime in 1994. My boss was heading overseas to shepherd another client’s directorial debut, and before he left, he handed me the assignment: “Get O.J. those books. Go talk to the Lit department. They’ll know what to do.” So I went and talked to a friend of mine who worked for the lit agent my boss suggested.

That friend came back after talking to his boss, looking like he’d been asked to handle plutonium. Bottom line: “We’re not touching this.” But he slipped me a draft letter. The kind they would send, if they were going to send one, which they were absolutely not going to do. It referenced several agency clients with current bestsellers — Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses and others — to establish credibility with the publisher. Totally standard stuff.

Then the calls started from Phuket. Remember, 1994. International cell connections were a notch below two tin cans and string. My boss kept calling: “What’s going on with the books for O.J., Jeffrey?”

I explained the situation. The lit department wasn’t willing to send the letter.

“You send it,” he said. “Sign it as my assistant and fax it off.”

Um. I knew better. I knew better the way you know you shouldn’t microwave aluminum foil. Like I said, I had watched what happened when agents got crossed in this building, when anyone made an unauthorized move. The last person you wanted to upset was a high-powered motion picture talent agent in the 1990s.

But he was giving me a direct order from halfway around the world, and we were out of options.

I signed it — Jeff Fisher, Assistant to [Boss’s Name] — and faxed it to the publishing house.

THE DAY HOLLYWOOD TRIED TO EAT ME ALIVE

My boss came back from Thailand, and the office went immediately from our boss is out of the country to full blast catch-up mode.

While Alicia was in with the boss, I was at my cubicle on overflow calls, getting packages out, putting through a call from Charlton Heston passing on The Birdcage: “They have my character wearing a dress at the end. Come on, man!” There was a ticking-clock offer for Tia Carrere riding the heat of True Lies and the casting director needed an answer NOW. Pia Zadora was owed a call back and was fairly certain I wasn’t giving my boss the message.

And then I looked at my phone display and saw the name of the head of the entire agency — flashing. Let’s call him “The Big Cheese.” Weird. He never called my boss.

Another in-the-trenches friend was his assistant. She didn’t say hi…she said, “I have (the Big Cheese) calling for Jeff Fisher.” Wait. What? How and why did the Big Cheese know my name? Everything clenched.

“Um. This is Jeff.”

“Is this Jeff Fisher?” The Big Cheese’s voice boomed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I ask you a question? Is it your personal mission to embarrass both me and this agency?”

“Um. No, sir. It sure isn’t…”

“Did you fax a letter to Random House asking for books to be sent to O.J. Simpson in prison?”

“Um. Yes, sir.”

“Do you know the definition of the word stupid? Because that’s what you are. S-T-O-O-P-I-D. STOOPID! Now pack up your desk and get out.”

Click. Okay, that just happened.

ONE BAD DECISION AWAY FROM SLINGING PIZZA IN THE VALLEY

I walked into my boss’s office. Alicia eyeballed my clammy post-call look and knew something was up. I told my boss and Alicia that the Big Cheese had just fired me and why.

My boss stood up. “Stay where you are, Jeffrey.”

He walked down the hall to his friend’s office — the guy who was #2 at the agency. And I went back to my desk and...kept working. Shelley Winters needed a comped room at the Las Vegas Hilton. Chuck Heston had another offer and I needed to messenger over the script — preferably this role wore pants for the entirety of production. I did my best to sound like a functioning human. I’m pretty sure I sounded like Peter Brady in that episode of The Brady Bunch where his voice is changing.

Alicia and I whispered worst-case scenarios back and forth over the cubicle. How was I going to pay my $400 rent? Should I have never sent that letter? Who knew the Juice was such a reader?

There was another assistant nearby — let’s call her Esther — who had Velma from Scooby-Doo meets female Schleprock energy, and she had some very insightful suggestions. “You could move home.” Or, with complete sincerity: “My second cousin has a pizzeria in the Valley. They need a busboy.”

At that moment, neither option sounded great.

Another hour passed. My boss emerged with the senior partner and they headed down the hall toward the Big Cheese’s office. When my boss passed, he reiterated: “Just stay there, Jeffrey.” Esther gasped.

Another hour. Then my phone rang again. Big Cheese’s assistant. He was calling for me. Again.

“This is Jeff,” I said. Forget Peter Brady — I sounded like Kermit the Frog in freefall.

“[Your boss] explained what happened,” the Big Cheese said. “We all make mistakes. I’m sorry.”

Um, what just happened?

I’m pretty sure I unclenched my sphincter for the first time in three hours.

The head of one of Hollywood’s most powerful agencies had just...apologized to me? A $325-a-week assistant?

A dieting (and I’m sure hungry) Star Jones had recently eviscerated the announcer who’d omitted her married name from her show intro (“My name is Star Jones Reynolds!”) on The View and I was sure I had one of those beat downs coming my way.

But, instead: “I’m sorry.”

That call actually meant a lot. This guy dealt with enormous personalities and enormous stakes every single day. That he made that call anyway said something about him. I’ve never forgotten it.

PLOT TWIST

Here’s what I didn’t know at the time.

A few days later, I was at Pavilions — a grocery store in West Hollywood — and I picked up a copy of Newsweek. “The Juice” was on the cover. As I waited in line, I started flipping through, and there — thumbnail-sized but unmistakable — was my letter.

The publisher had leaked it. Newsweek had run it as part of their O.J. coverage, implying the agency was helping Simpson obtain books about violent crimes. The Cormac McCarthy reference, meant only to establish our client credentials, had been sensationalized (I know, shocking) to sell magazines. Yeeesh.

I hadn’t just made an internal mistake. I had created a PR nightmare during the most watched criminal case in American history. No wonder the Big Cheese lost his cool.

LESSONS FROM CHRISTMAS IN JULY

Fast forward about fifteen years. I’m directing my first movie for Hallmark. It’s July. The script was actually really good and I wanted to deliver. I had to make summer look like the last week in December.

The go-to snow maker in town was already on a bigger-budget production. We went with the third backup, who was available. I had asked — many, many times — whether we could do a test before the first day. I was assured it would be fine.

Turns out, it wasn’t so fine.

First day of shooting. It’s the house exterior — first thing on the schedule — and the snow machine sputtered and died. Only two of our actors were in town, and the only other scenes with the two of them inside were the big moments toward the end of the movie.

I pivoted to the interior scenes with those two characters. Small catch: those scenes all happen after the house has been fully decorated for Christmas. So now I’m asking my production designer to deck out an entire house for the holidays on day one, and asking two actors who have never worked together to shoot their most emotionally loaded scenes with almost no prep.

We got it done.

The actors were super talented. The crew was awesome and fast. And somewhere in the back of my mind was that day at the agency — the morning I learned that disaster is not the end of the story. There is always a pivot. There is always a solution. Keep rolling calls.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: O.J. got those books. Alicia and I got it done.

THE TAKEAWAYS (YOUR SNOW MACHINE MIGHT BREAK TOO)

→ Never sign your boss’s name on anything. I’m only half joking. Know the limits of your authority — and if you’re going to cross them, make sure you have the order clearly on record.

→ When everything’s on fire, keep doing your job. Shelley Winters still needed that suite at the Las Vegas Hilton. Keeping your hands moving keeps you sane, keeps you useful, and — when your boss comes back out of those closed doors — keeps you looking like someone worth fighting for.

→ Disaster is temporary. The pivot is a permanent skill. Snow machine breaks — you go inside. Budget gets cut — you get creative. Lead actor snowed in at O’Hare — you rearrange the day. The ability to pivot without panicking is one of the most valuable things you can develop in this industry.

→ Know who your people are — and be that person for someone else. My boss walked into that office and fought for a $325-a-week assistant when he didn’t have to. Alicia kept me sane when she could have abandoned me. Those things matter. Pay attention to who shows up for you, and remember to show up for someone else when your turn comes.

→ Keep the faith that the one call will come. One phone call turned everything around that day. I still know that’s true. Learning to actually believe it — while you’re waiting, while it’s not certain, while Esther is suggesting the Valley pizzeria — that’s the skill I’m still working on.

The goal isn’t to avoid the bad day. The goal is to know what to do when it arrives.

Navigating your own Hollywood moment — a bad meeting, a deal gone sideways, a career pivot you didn’t see coming? I offer one-on-one coaching and consulting sessions at reeltalkwithjeff.com. Reach out — let’s figure it out together.

Jeff Fisher is a director and writer whose credits include Paramount Pictures’ “The Stranger in My Home” and “The Image of You,” Hallmark’s highest-rated film of the year “My Christmas Love,” and reality hits spanning from “The Simple Life” to “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.” Visit www.jefffisherdirector.com to see his work and www.reeltalkwithjeff.com for more industry insights. @jefffisher_insta

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