STRIP TEED OFF
s the battle of the sexes rages through our human condition, we struggle to understand the other while simultaneously clamoring to define our own community. Who are we, what are we capable of, and how can we achieve the next stage in our collective evolution as the constant refrain of us-versus-them clouds our progress? These questions are at the heart of Hustlers, and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas’ office is a hotbed of finger-pointing—but in the most gloriously upbeat way imaginable. “These are two female producers who embraced each other’s strengths,” Goldsmith-Thomas beams as she points admiringly toward her producing partner-in-crime, Jessica Elbaum. “Make no mistake, this woman …” “And this woman!” Elbaum can’t help but interject with her own declaration of solidarity, gesturing right back. Maneuvering the praise train back on track, Goldsmith-Thomas continues, “I would work with her in a heartbeat. She has great taste. We make movies for everyone; we just happen to be women.” The two producers pooled their considerable talent to bring Hustlers to lascivious life. The bad-girls-gone-worse tale depicts a cabal of opportunistic exotic dancers who prey upon their male clientele to bilk them of their cash made in the glitzy underbelly of Wall Street, circa the onset of the Great Recession. “This is a movie, in my estimation, about the American dream. It’s about power, it’s about greed,” says GoldsmithThomas. Finishing the pitch, Elbaum adds, “The rise and fall.” Their words dovetail effortlessly as Goldsmith-Thomas forges ahead. “It’s about people, who in this case happen to be a group of women, who played the game and then played too far, not unlike the Wall Street guys. Only these women probably got punished more. I wouldn’t say it’s female empowerment. I would say it’s about …” “Getting what’s yours.” Elbaum once again punctuates her partner’s sentiment
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with femme finality. Much like the characters in Hustlers, this producing pair has been alchemizing adversity into cinematic gold ever since they began charting their own respective filmmaking tracks. Goldsmith-Thomas worked as an agent for years, which is how she started her whirlwind collaboration with Jennifer Lopez. Meanwhile Elbaum had been yukking it up with comedy moguls Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Soon their destinies would converge around a true crime exposé about a gang of vigilante strippers. Jessica Pressler’s 2015 New York Magazine article, “The Hustlers at Scores,” set in the midst of the global economic meltdown of 2008, was going viral. “I had the article sent to me from Adam McKay,” recounts Elbaum. “And Jessica Pressler had sent it to him because she interviewed him right around The Big Short. So he forwarded it to me, and I knew right away that there was something there. I sat with Pressler and got the rights. We were off to the races. Shortly after, we hired Lorene to write it and then eventually direct it.” Elbaum is referring to Lorene Scafaria, the visionary helmer of Hustlers, who was also on the radar of one Elaine GoldsmithThomas. “I had heard about Hustlers, I was tracking it, I was sort of doing my legwork, so it was divine providence that Lorene loved it and I was chasing it. It was one of those things where the ‘yes’ was within grasp, because for me everything is, ‘How hard do I have to work to get the yes?’ In a business of no.” One way to pave your path with success is to
enlist the help of a true icon. “Lorene said from day one, ‘This has to be Jennifer Lopez. Ramona has to be Jennifer Lopez. She’s all I see when I write this, she’s all I see when I think about shooting this,’ and the dream came true.” Goldsmith-Thomas echoes her director’s words, reminiscing about how J-Lo was “a ll in as a producer, all in as a star, understood and embraced it as a supporting role, saw it for what it could be and immediately gave notes. I can’t stress how involved Jennifer was and how much she believed in both Lorene and what this project was saying. It’s one of the things I love most about Jennifer, because she’s super smart. She didn’t do this for money; she did this because she knew who Ramona needed to be and the many layers of this very complicated character.” Complexity proved to be a mighty sword, and its edges soon began to cut both ways. “What was tricky about this script is
“THAT’S WHY WE WANTED CARDI IN IT. NOT JUST TO MAKE IT AN EVENT, BUT SHE HAD GREAT EMPATHY FOR WHO THESE WOMEN WERE AND WAS UNAPOLOGETIC.”