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FUTURE LEADERS AGENTS

Jackie Chan is repped by CAA internationally

Marnie Podos

WHY IT’S DIFFERENT IN ASIA

alent management in Asia is handled very differently to the world of agents in North America and Europe. Neither East nor South Asian film industries have a culture of talent agents procuring or packaging work for their clients and charging a percentage of their earnings. Instead, most national film industries have talent management companies, which have a full team working with the bigger talents, overseeing all aspects of their careers, from film, TV and endorsement deals to managing their day-to-day affairs. Generally, newer talent works for the management, rather than the other way round. East Asia’s biggest talent stables include South Korea’s IHQ, KeyEast, JYP Entertainment and SM Entertainment; Japan’s Amuse, HoriPro and K Dash Group; China’s Huayi Brothers and Fundamental Management; and Media Asia’s Rich & Famous and Emperor Entertainment Group in Hong Kong. Bigger Asian names tend to have separate representation through US agencies for their international projects: CAA handles Jackie Chan; WME reps Priyanka Chopra and South Korean directors Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho; and UTA handles Li Bingbing and Mark Chao. Mainland China’s talent industry has been going through rapid changes. Increasingly, the bigger stars are leaving management stables to form their own companies, such as Fan Bingbing Studio, which is in the process of being bought out by Zhejiang Talent Television & Film.

Marie Prouzet FRANCE Talentbox m.prouzet@talentbox.fr Clients include Nabiha Akkari, Lou Chauvain, Vincent Tirel

Marie Prouzet is the newest recruit at Talentbox, the Paris-based agency created by former Studiocanal France CEO Camille Trumer in 2011, following his acquisition of talent and publicity agencies CinéArt

48 Screen International May 2016

US talent agency giant CAA launched in China in 2008, introducing the Western model, which involves handling directors and writers in addition to stars. Some smaller outfits have emerged in recent years, such as Easy Entertainment (see page 43), which also deploy this model. Despite continuing attempts to get Sino-US coproductions off the ground, English-speaking actors are still scarce in China and even big-name Chinese-speaking talent is in short supply due to the boom in local film and TV production. In South Asia, stars in the Hindi-speaking film industry historically had personal ‘secretaries’ managing their affairs and acting as gatekeepers, but as Bollywood has become more corporatised, talent management companies have also emerged in Mumbai. The most established include Percept Talent Management, GloboSport and Reshma Shetty’s Matrix. Bollywood stars also like to take control of their own careers. Bigger names such as Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar have all set up their own production companies and tend to board projects as investors and coproducers rather than just actors. In 2012, CAA also launched in Mumbai in partnership with local agency Kwan, which was founded in 2009 by former GloboSport executive Anirban Das Blah and producer Madhu Mantena. Datta Dave and Chaitanya Hegde’s Tulsea (see page 45) is one of the rare local shops that focuses on the careers of Indian writers and directors. Liz Shackleton

and Moteur!. Prouzet was studying political science when she caught the agenting bug through a chance internship at a talent agency. On completing her studies, she took the classic route of working as an assistant to a number of top French agents including Annabel Karouby, Christel Grossenbacher and MarieLaure Munich. “I worked for five agents over a period of five years. It taught me a lot. I saw a lot of different working methods and also got to work with a huge and varied range of talents,” says Prouzet. Today, she represents more than 20 young talents including rising actor Lou Chauvain — who is soon to be seen in Diasteme’s The Summer Of All My Parents

United Agents mpodos@unitedagents.co.uk

Clients include Nikolaj Arcel, Rory Stewart Kinnear, Levan Akin

“I love original voices,” says literary agent Marnie Podos, who came to agenting via a PhD in English and jobs as a runner and at a production company. “I’m attracted to a variety of styles, but the bottom line for me is great storytelling that balances aesthetic credibility with commercial instincts. “As an expat [she was born in the US], I’m naturally drawn to talent that could work on both sides of the pond. I also look for clients who radiate energy in a room, it’s such a big part of the job.” The Danish film-maker and screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel, co-repped with UA’s Natasha Galloway, is one of the jewels in Podos’s crown. Arcel has been writing and directing features since 2002 and gained international attention with his 2009 script for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This was followed by the Danishlanguage A Royal Affair, which he wrote and directed; the film was nominated for the best foreign-language Oscar in 2012. The US-based Arcel has been courted by Hollywood ever since and is now shooting his Englishlanguage debut, the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower, which stars Idris Elba. Also on the books is a stable of emerging writers including Lynne Ramsay’s regular collaborator Rory Stewart Kinnear; In Blood And Sand co-writer Daniel Dale; playwright Chris Urch, who is writing the untitled Alexander McQueen biopic; Ed Whitworth, whose credits include long-gestating features Reykjavik and Powell; and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, whose script The Good Nurse is creating buzz in the UK. “I like having a strong conversion rate,” says Podos. “You sell your clients most effectively when you believe in what you’re selling.”

— and web-star Vincent Tirel, a member of The Golden Moustache web collective and co-director of the web feature Les Dissociés. “I like people with a theatrical training. It gives them a solid foundation and produces actors with a strong repertoire of skills,” says Prouzet. “I’ve also got a handful of web talents, who are very popular in France. “Finding talents is relatively easy. You just need to take the time and go out and meet them. What’s really hard is that when you work with young talents, you’re often starting from zero. You’ve got to get them known and convince people to meet them and that can take time.”