Curated playlist

Film producers from Los Angeles

Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg plays a banker in his own script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He began that screenplay as a film school thesis.
LeBron JamesLeBron James led Cleveland back from a 3-1 Finals deficit, a first in NBA history. It ended a 52-year title wait.
Christian BaleChristian Bale once lived on black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna each day. The English actor began that regimen with nothing but cigarettes and whiskey. By the end he had lost 63 lb and weighed 121 lb. The script for the psychological…
Matthew Robinson (writer)Matthew Robinson sent Ricky Gervais a script with no introduction. It became The Invention of Lying.
Kate HudsonKate Hudson reached the end of a long awards season in 2025 with a striking comparison. Her first brush with acclaim, she said, had felt like a "shock entrance, or invitation, into this world." This time was different. When you have been…
Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg walked into Universal Studios without a pass, and the guard waved him in.
David LynchDavid Lynch began as a painter who just wanted his canvases to move. That wish led him to film.
Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
Leonardo DiCaprioLeonardo DiCaprio owes his first name to a kick. His pregnant mother felt the baby move while she stood before a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. That child grew up to be an American actor and film…
Nicolas CageNicolas Cage was 15 years old when he told his uncle, the director Francis Ford Coppola, "I'll show you acting." He wanted a screen test. What he got was silence in the car. His uncle had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene…
Bryan BurkBryan Burk co-founded Bad Robot Productions with J. J. Abrams in 2001. He became its Executive Vice President.
Jennifer AnistonJennifer Aniston, the American actress, once approached a television executive at a Los Angeles gas station and asked him for reassurance. She was depressed. Four of her television shows had failed, and she wanted someone in the business…
William WylerDirector William Wyler once made Henry Fonda do forty takes of one scene. His only note was the word again.
Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
Robert RedfordRobert Redford died in his sleep at his home in Sundance, Utah, on the 16th of September 2025. He was 89 years old. After a private funeral, he was buried on his own property there. The man who ended his days in a place that carried his…
Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger broke into a locked gym on weekends as a teenager. He later became California's governor.
Howard KazanjianHoward Kazanjian proposed filming Return of the Jedi as a fake horror movie called Blue Harvest.
Gary KurtzStar Wars producer Gary Kurtz filmed combat in Vietnam as a Quaker who refused to carry a sidearm.
Diane KeatonDiane Keaton was born Diane Hall, but she gave up that surname before her career took off, because another actress was already registered under it. She chose her mother's maiden name instead. The new name would be credited in films across…
Steve BinderDirector Steve Binder destroyed every other take of a song so NBC had to air it.
Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…
Quincy JonesQuincy Jones taped a sign to the entrance of a recording studio in 1985, and it read "Check Your Ego at the Door." Behind that door waited most of the major American recording artists of the day. Jones needed every one of them to work as…
Olivia HarrisonOlivia Harrison fought off an armed intruder with a fireplace poker and a heavy table lamp. It happened in 1999.
Shia LaBeoufShia LaBeouf, the American actor and filmmaker born in 1986, walked the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival on the 9th of February 2014 in a tuxedo with a brown paper bag over his head. Across the bag were written the words "I am not…