NAVIGATING HOLLYWOOD: How I Blew My First Big Agency Meeting

After years as a development executive, Manny Fonseca is now on the other side of the table as a full-time writer and Podcaster. Now living the life of a writer, Manny is navigating a whole different side of Hollywood. You can follow him on Twitter: @mannyfonseca

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For those of you that aren't aware, there are seven major agencies in Hollywood: WME-IMG, ICM, CAA, GERSH, PARADIGM, APA and UTA. While some are more known for their A-list actor clients, all of them, to a certain degree, rep writers. Getting a meeting and securing an agent in one of these is a strong pathway to getting into the studio system and have your scripts turned into theatrically distributed movies with top-tier talent.

Ugh. This is gonna be a rough one people, so strap in and hang on for the ride.

Now, due to the fact that I don't want to commit career suicide, I won't tell you which agency it was, but I will tell you it's often referred to by its 3 letter moniker.

Back when we were developing Whittier, my partner in crime, Big Dick Barny, had a good idea of who he ultimately wanted my agent to be. Although he never told me, as I wasn’t there yet. Once Professor X came on to develop Whittier, (see WHITTIER FINDS A DIRECTOR Part 1 and Part 2) and it looked like we were getting closer to getting it made, Barny launched into action. He sent Whittier over to his connection at the agency.

In the email that Barny sent to The Colonel, he told him about where we were with Whittier and Professor X and also that I was working on a new spec that was "sort of FAST & FURIOUS meets UNCOMMON VALOR."

The Colonel eventually passed on Whittier specifically because of the horror issue mentioned above, BUT he said he would love to read Misfits whenever I finished it.

Now, if you’ve been following along, you’ll know that Whittier eventually "fell apart" with Professor X and I turned my attention to writing my first book BURST! Once the book was to a point where I was ready to send it out, I turned my attention to finishing Misfits, getting notes on it and then rewriting it. After doing some serious work, I felt like I had gotten Misfits in great shape. I sent it off to Barny and he forwarded it to The Colonel.

The thing most of you should have learned at this point is that waiting around with idle hands is never a good thing. I wasn’t going to put all my eggs in The Colonel’s basket so I had to get my hustle on.

Tockman ("my" literary agent) had me jumping through hoop after hoop that STOLE days from me which, as you’ve read, was for naught. I had to keep working the film angle and try to get my foot in the door with some other agents.

I'm good friends with four repped, working writers in Hollywood. As it turns out, three of those writers are repped by the SAME agent. Obviously, that greatly reduces my ability to spread my eggs out to multiple baskets. I hit up AWESOME CHICK and BAD ASS DUDE to see how they felt about their agent and both of them couldn't say enough nice things.

The love was just shy of "take a bullet for" status.

I told them that I was going to "cold email" their agent and asked them to put in a good word for me. For the record, and I feel like I’m pretty much preaching to the choir here, but there is absolutely nothing worse than cold contacting ANYONE, let alone someone who can potentially change the course of your career.

There have been people I've met that have amassed enough experience to just send off an email willy nilly, but not me. I ache over EVERY SINGLE WORD because I don’t want to sound stupid. There have been times where I’ve taken days crafting an email, writing and rewriting it.

At least, in this case I had my "in."

It ended up being better than I expected. It just so happened that she graduated from the same college I went to film school for. A year before I got there.

As it turned out, she was mainly a TV agent and was willing to read any pilots I had. At this point, I had finished Whittier, finished BURST! and finished Misfits, so I had JUST started turning my attention to TV pilots. This might sound like an excuse or just plain stupid, but I’m not a TV guy. I’ve tried and tried and tried, but my pilots (at least I feel) come out weird or too grand for a first time TV writer.

Remember a couple of articles ago when I told you that screenplays were my perfect length? Well TV pilots are just part one of a 13-part story or God forbid, 22 parts. That’s TOO much for me to handle. I like my 100 pages and out. My ideas are a one-night stand… one and done. Moving on to the next one! Even if I didn’t have strong faith in my pilots, I still sent them. Who knows, right? Maybe my writing could land me gig writing on a TV show.

No, the agent didn’t pass. Even worse. (I promise you, there are nights where this STILL bugs me).

I never followed up!

How fucking stupid is THAT shit?! An opportunity occurred and I didn’t even drop the ball, I missed it all together.

Don’t get me wrong, it was on my to do list. Taunting me week after week, "EMAIL HER! EMAIL HER!" But I never did and as time passed, it started to feel like a first date that had gone okay and I had said that I would call but I never did. So what? After 2, 3, 4, 5, now 6 months I was going to email and expect help?

You think writing a cold email is hard, try writing a "sorry I never called you" email.

Okay, so I told you that rather long embarrassing story to a) educate you in the school of "don’t do what I did" and b) to get to this next part.

About a month after sending Misfits to The Colonel, I was having lunch with Barny. We both had the same mission in mind… to find me an agent. I was frustrated with how things were going with Tockman and how he was handling the book (at this point in time, he had gone completely MIA). I also told Barny about sending my TV pilots to the "take a bullet for" agent mentioned above. Of course, I get around to asking him if he’s ever heard from The Colonel.

"No, but fuck it, let’s just email him now."

While that wasn’t necessarily true, it wasn’t necessarily UNTRUE either. This is why I love this business." The Game. I love the game of Hollywood to the point where it makes me giddy at times. Let’s face facts, it should be no surprise that competition improves attraction. Like life, no one wants you until someone ELSE does. Then? Everyone wants you.

The Colonel responded with what should have been a red flag, but it just made me love this business even more. I literally have a smile on my face thinking about this moment again.

The Colonel sent the following email in response:

Nothing wrong with that, right? It happens and I took no offense. It was what it was, I was just happy he was going to read it at all, given the fact that he didn’t fully connect with Whittier.

I call his office and get his assistant. Not an odd thing in this business. I did NOT expect to talk to him directly. I tell the assistant who I am and the assistant says:

"Yeah, hi Manny, let me see if I can get him."

My brain immediately went into overload. Get him? I was just calling to make an appointment!

"Hey Manny..."

"Hey, I just wanted to say--"

"Yeah look, I don't know what happened, but I told Barny that I wanted to meet with you a month ago and it never happened. I sent you an email."

"I never--"

"It's all good, I loved your script. I think its going to be a perfect fit for (INSERT A-LIST CLIENT) and want to bring you in to talk about it.

"Um that's gr--"

"I'm going to put you back on the phone with my assistant and you can set up the meeting."

"O--"

"Great! See you soon." Click.

Next thing I knew the assistant came back on and we scheduled the meeting. It was so fucking Ari Gold from Entourage that it gave me an emotional, Hollywood boner. I had just gotten Ari'd! Add the fact that I knew he was perpetuating the lie excited me more. Plus, it was kinda cool thinking about the fact that I was WORTH being lied to.

There's nothing more important than protecting the precious egos of your insecure clients. The dude wanted to make me feel important! COME ON! How awesome is that?!

After Cheryl came home and was essentially "broken," I decided that I needed to take better care of myself. I got an Apple Watch and started to bust my ass. In the process I lost 50 pounds. I hadn't seen a "1" in front of my weight since the 90's. That also meant I was swimming in a lot of my clothes, especially the SINGLE suit I had brought to Hollywood with me. There's no way I could go to my first big agency meeting in a literal "fat suit" that I bought 16 years ago off the rack.

This called for a tailor. So I went to a local tailor to find the perfect suit. The best part, was I had lost so much weight, I was able to pull a style I had wanted to for YEARS: The three piece. I could FINALLY rock a vest, jacket, and pants.

It didn't end there. I had been shaving my head for so long and finally decided to grow it out. Not that you care, but I have a thick, disastrous mop on my head when I grow it out. Finding someone to tame it is one thing. Finding someone who can ACTUALLY do something new with it, was another. Luckily I found an AWESOME stylist, after tons of research, that gave me my first new hairstyle since my awkward days of high school.

I went to her and told her that I needed to make an appointment at noon on the day of my meeting. I told her I wasn't going to be able to take a shower, so she needed to get me as clean and ready to go as possible. She was totally on board.

I needed to know what I was in for, so I called Awesome and told her what had happened with the emails and the eventual phone call. When I got to the part about him jumping on the phone, she stopped me.

"Wait! You got him on the phone?"

"Um, yeah... is that a good thing?"

"Hell yeah! That's exciting!"

Then I got to the part where he thought it would be a good fit for his A-list client.

"Holy shit, Manny! I'm so excited for you. It's sounds like you're golden!"

Seriously... analyzed to the point that I was worried about the time of the meeting. The only option he had was late afternoon and I was worried that I would have the "dreaded after lunch meeting" where they're completely tuned out. She told me that was better because it's the end of the day, and they're a little more inclined to chit chat with me. The longer they talk to you, the better it is.

She gave me the complete run down about her agency meetings through the years and what I should expect to be asked. She answered every question I had and really put me at ease. I thanked her profusely for spending so much time with me.

God love her, because I know I can get over analytical and Cheryl would always be the one to go down that rabbit hole with me. I appreciated that she played that role for this and told her so.

Now that I knew what to expect, I planned out everything to the point where I was OVER prepared for the meeting given that I knew what I was going to be asked. My pitches for everything I was currently working on were locked down, I knew where I wanted to be in 5 years and I even knew, given the opportunity, what my ultimate dream jobs would be (HINT: it's a trilogy that involves a crazed clown, a cape, and a cowl).

I worked everything to no end and pretty much couldn't do anything else for the two weeks leading up to that meeting, which meant that I spent a lot of time thinking on the treadmill.

I got up early (who am I kidding? I barely slept), worked out and then got ready as much as I could without putting my suit on. That's when I discovered that my white shirt had shrunk in the wash!

AAAAAHHHHHH!!! Seriously?

Luckily there was a Ross on the way to getting my hair cut, so I left early, picked up a new shirt and went to get my hair did.

I had planned to wear the vest, tie and jacket, but was going to forgo the suit pants for stylish jeans. After all, I WAS a creative and have been told that I could get away with this in the past. My thinking was I was gonna go for a Joel McHale or Chris Hardwick look. Hey, I wasn't going to be rocking a hat like Michael Moore or the hockey jersey of Kevin Smith, so I'd be good, right?

I've read Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant's book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit MANY times (it's my bible) and their #1 advice for pitch meetings is to DRESS WELL.

The advice even comes with a comical picture of Sammy Hagar followed by a serious picture of William Faulkner.

After not being able to make up my mind, I handed the decision off to Cheryl.

She made the call: It was to be the stylish jeans. Her reasoning? "You're not going to a wedding. You're a writer." Done. Jeans it was.

Of course, as it works with L.A. traffic, when you plan for it, it's not there. So instead of it taking 2 hours, it only took about 45 minutes. Ally and Cheryl dropped me off at the agency, wished me luck and left me to wander the streets looking for a place to get something to eat... the one thing I HADN'T done that day.

Once it was time, I headed for the agency and announced myself. I made sure that, as being professional dictates, I had arrived 10 minutes early. I got to sit in their swanky lobby, staring out the glorious windows, waiting for the assistant to come get me.

He came down and lead me to The Colonel's glorious corner office with an even more glorious view. There was a massive marble desk (yes, MARBLE) and a couple of chairs with a small table (also marble) between them, across from the marble monstrosity. Seriously, not joking, it was huge. The one thing the office didn't have? A FUCKING AGENT!

"Have a seat, The Colonel will be right back. Can I get you something to drink, coffee? Water?"

"A water would be great." Then I plopped myself in one of the chairs across from the desk.

I'm not sure how long I was sitting there, but it felt like forever. It totally threw me off my game. I was ready to shake hands and start chatting, now I'm sitting there, staring out the windows like DeNiro in Awakenings. Finally, I hear him...

"THERE HE IS!"

I turn and in walks The Colonel. "AND HE'S IN A SUIT," he exclaimed!

I get up to shake his hand. The only thought in my head being that I hoped he had washed his hands. I'm snapped out of that thought when, in a disappointed tone, he says, "Oh, but you're wearing jeans!"

Joke time: "Hey! I'm a creative! Come on."

"No, no...it's good. Sometimes we get writers in suits. Rare, but it happens," he says as he sits behind his large chunk from a Greek Coliseum.

"I was thinking about your script and maybe (A-LIST CLIENT) is too old?"

About this time, the assistant comes in with my water. Not a bottle of water, but a glass of water. I say thank you, take a sip and go to set it down on the marble table next to me only to find NO COASTERS!

I'm not sure if he was, but that's where my brain took me. This was a test where he was watching me wondering what I would do, all while thinking: "That's right bitch, do you dare?"

I had no choice. I dared.

Once my "test" was over, he launched into the lie again... "Email. A month ago. Told Barny I wanted to meet you. Yadda yadda." I smiled politely and told him, "Hey, it all worked out. I'm here."

"So how do you know Barny?"

"We used to work together for Cobra Commander." (SEE WORKING IN DEVELOPMENT).

I have spent quite a few years working in the industry. In that time I have interacted with more than a few people at various levels within Hollywood. Some past their glory days, some on their way up, and some who are basking in decades of glory.

Every person who I have encountered, when they find out I've worked for Cobra Commander, have asked me the same, exact question verbatim:

"Cobra Commander? Yeah. What happened to that guy?"

Now, in the early days, I was far less political about my answer to this question. I used to simply tell people he was a "talentless asshole, who mistreated women." The problem, I learned, is that right after I answered the question, an anecdote would occur about how they had dealt with him in some way or fashion.

Reality sunk in.

When you work for a guy who had been THAT big, for THAT long... and given what I said earlier, that Hollywood was a very small town, everyone is bound to have had dealings with him. So I curbed my answer to the most political, yet "truth telling," I could possibly muster.

"Ya know? He's a spanker, and we live in a 'time out' world. He just couldn't keep spanking people and expect results. Times changed. He didn't. And when you don't adapt, you get left behind."

The Colonel gave me a knowing nod and then, as expected, conveyed HIS anecdote about his dealings with Cobra Commander "back in the day."

On more than one occasion I have had this conversation with women who had "dealings" with Cobra Commander "back in the day" that resulted in them being put into some very uncomfortable situations. It's never fun to hear THOSE anecdotes because it usually results in a downtrodden tone and look of sadness in their eyes.

These anecdotes are always followed by an uncomfortable chuckle and a change of topic.

We chit chatted for a couple more minutes and then it was time to get down to business. For those of you that are worried about talking too long about nothing, don't worry, the shift from chit chat to business will be dictated to you. Case in point:

"So where's Misfits at right now? You know, everyone's looking for this kind of script."

Then your brain jumps into "Oh! We're doing this now?" mode. A shift that can often be unexpected and jarring. As it was for me.

REMEMBER: I had just come off of a year of developing Whittier with Barny and Professor X, so my thought process was pretty much in that mode. My response was a writerly response and not a "business" response. Looking back, I had forgotten to switch hats to "producer."

"Well, I just finished the rewrite and we sent it to you."

"Who's reading it?"

Again, I'm in Whittier mode, so I'm thinking the answer to "who" meant directors, because that's what we did with Whittier. I wrote it, gave it to Barny and then he sent it to directors.

Here's where I fucked up. I forgot the lie. He wasn't asking about creatives, he wanted to know who his competition was. He wanted to know who was courting me and how much he'd have to fight for me.

Now, I realized this in the moment and the only thing that went through my brain was:

I couldn't lie. If I said "Yeah, ICM, WME, APA, GERSH...they all want me" his first response would be "Who?" I didn't know names, and even if I did, it would be easy to check to see if I was telling the truth.

Small town, remember? Especially when you've been in the business as long at The Colonel has. So what did I end up saying in response?

Oops.

This shifted, in my opinion, the entire conversation. What followed was a rapid descent into absurdity.

"So what's Barny want to do with this?"

I gave, what I thought was a complete and honest answer. "Honestly, we have had those conversations about Whittier, but haven't had any of those conversations about Misfits yet."

In my head, that should have changed the topic, as "no conversations yet" should have appeased The Colonel and made him move on to other stuff.. Except, it didn't.

"He doesn't want to send it to Neal Moritz's company?"

Now, I knew the name. I could see it on the screen and see it on the movie posters, but my damn brain went blank and I could NOT remember who Neal Moritz was, so I gave the only answer I could.

The WORST answer you can give. Usually, you can get away with maybe ONE of those and I just used my first one up pretty early in the conversation. Unfortunately, it wouldn't end there.

"Why doesn't he just take it to his own company? They're making 30-million dollars movies now."

Sadly, I knew the answer to this question, but I couldn't tell The Colonel the truth. When Barny got hired into his company, he took along all the scripts that he was currently developing, Misfits being one of them. They were given to the reader they had working at the time who was a temp with a bachelor's in theatre.

She not only passed on Misfits, but RIPPED THE FUCKING SCRIPT APART. In my opinion, it was obvious that she had military in her family because she was DEEPLY offended that we would imply that a "rag tag gang of street thugs" could pull off what the U.S. military couldn't: rescuing one of their own.

Her offense was so obvious, that I thought it deserved a non-biased read, but you can't say that. A pass was a pass and bad coverage was bad coverage. You just gotta eat crow on that one. No one likes a whiner.

It would be a huge no-no to tell The Colonel about the "pass" or complain about her biased coverage, so I gave him the only answer I could think of:

I re-iterated that Barny and I hadn't had any of these conversations yet, but that didn't seem to matter. He asked me a couple more questions that, really, only Barny as a producer could answer. These also resulted in a series of "I don't knows."

At this point, I'm officially all in my head and scrambled. I was freaking out that I was saying "I don't know" too much and I felt like my confidence was wavering, which included my voice. Again, that might have just been paranoia, but the more I thought about it, the worse I thought I got.

That's when he hit me with...

"Who do you see staring in this?"

THIS was one of the questions that I had prepared for, especially as he had told me that he wanted the script for (A-LIST CLIENT). Sadly, seeing as how I gotten in my head and (A-LIST CLIENT) had been kiboshed just after "Jean-Gate," I gave the dumbest, most rambling answer ever:

"Well, we definitely need some up-and-comers. Maybe a hip-hop guy. Definitely a bunch of guys that are young and just about to break because I don't think Vin Diesel was well knowing when he did Fast and Furious, right?

It was his turn for: "I don't know."

Scott Eastwood. I should have just said Scott Eastwood. He was basically being attached to every project THAT week and I had read all of those articles, so I just should have said Scott Eastwood!

I had to get this meeting back on track, so I shifted gears to Whittier, after all I had all the answers to THOSE questions. This was another mistake as he already passed on Whittier and I could see his interest fading fast.

Then, in one shining moment, I told him that Professor X had signed on to direct Whittier, developed it for a year with me and then ultimately went on to shoot his next flick.

"Hey! That's huge!" I could see his attention coming back around, but he followed that up with: "But look, there's like five people doing horror."

And that was that... message received... "I don't give a shit about your little horror movie."

At this point, I had nothing left. My brain was fried, I said "I don't know" a thousand times, I gave a bullshit Vin Diesel answer and I talked about a script that he didn't care about. He clearly wasn't going to ask me any of the questions I had prepared for, and I had no way of gearing the meeting to those answers.

There was only one move that popped into my head: Cater to his ego.

If there was one thing I knew about people working in Hollywood, they love to have their ego stroked, so that's what I did.

"Look, from the beginning, Barny was very clear that he knew 'who my guy' was. That's you. He said that if anyone can sell this script, it's you."

Can anyone guess where I fucked up here? Wanna guess? I'll wait.

If, while I was humming, you were yelling at your screen, YOU TALKED ABOUT MONEY!" You'd be right. For those of you that read my column "GET AN AGENT, TERMINATE AN AGENT," you'll remember the advice I got from fellow Script columnist, Sammy Montana. Talking about money creates a weird pressure for managers and agents. Unfortunately, this conversation came AFTER my meeting. When Sammy said that to me, it rang super true due to the fact that, THIS happened:

The Colonel leaned forward in his chair, gave me an awkward smile and said, "Well, that's a lot of pressure."

Then, in a Frank Underwood from House of Cards move, he stood up, tapped the edge of his Washington Monument replica twice and declared, with authority:

"I'll think about it."

I hesitated in an "OH! This is done" fashion, then got up, shook his hand and left.

Once I was outside, I immediately called Barny to tell him about the very weird, very BAD meeting I just had. He quickly texted me back, told me he was on another call and asked how the meeting went.

I told him it was weird and that he asked a whole slew of questions about you that I couldn't answer so I ended up saying "I don't know" a lot.

"SHIT," he responded and then told me that I needed to "hype myself" if I was ever going to get signed. I informed him that I was never given a chance to hype myself. All The Colonel asked were about what YOU wanted to do with the movie and why YOU didn't want to do this or that.

"He asked me why YOU didn't want to send it to Neal Moritz's company, and I didn't know why, so I said I don't know!"

"I would have told him 'because he already has the fucking Fast and Furious series!'"

I stopped mid-stride and let out a yell of frustration on the street: THAT'S WHERE I KNEW THAT NAME FROM!!!!!!!

Barny told me to write The Colonel back, thank him for the meeting and tell him that I had a couple of pilots that were currently being considered by Barny's company. I did. No response.

I also talked to (AWESOME CHICK) who felt that I might have been over-exaggerating how bad the meeting really was, but given the fact that I never heard from again...

So there you have it folks! A rather lengthy description of what not to do when you get your big meeting at an agency. I feel comfortable knowing that this will not be my last meeting and confident that I learned enough from this one that the next one will go a lot smoother.

I can tell you this much, the next one will not be filled with so much pressure beforehand. As for whether I'll wear jeans again? I stand by my witty retort... "I'm a creative!"

And remember. It's ALWAYS Scott Eastwood. Until it's not. 'Cause you know. Hollywood.