A Peek into the Head of Creative role, with Hannah Pillemer
Rom-com-versations is an interview series with people from the entertainment industry discussing all things rom-coms.
Hi Meet Cuties,
This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Hannah Pillemer, Head of Creative at MarVista Entertainment. With over 14 years of experience in Hollywood, Hannah has been the executive producer on over 130 films, truly making her mark in the industry. Films you might recognize that she has been involved in are THE INVENTION OF LYING, BAD BLOOD, and FALLING INN LOVE. I admire the work Hannah has done to uplift voices that haven’t had a chance to take center stage. Let’s dive in:
💕 Naomi: What is your favorite rom-com and why?
🧡 Hannah: What I go back to every year is BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY. It's funny because that movie doesn't necessarily make my top 25 favorite movies of all time, but there's something about the character of Bridget that makes it feel timeless even though it was released over 20 years ago. It was a view of a female character that we hadn't seen before: she's messy, things aren't working out for her, she's struggling, and yet she still finds love and happiness. All of it felt so wonderfully different from everything else that was out there, and still feels that way today. Every time I watch it, I have a smile on my face as though it was the first time.
💕 Naomi: I think you could put her character in so many different settings and that "hot mess" archetype always performs. Switching into your role at MarVista, what does a day in the life as Head of Creative at a production company look like?
🧡 Hannah: At this point, my current job is very different from the reason why I went into the studio development side of the business. Obviously, I identify as a creative person and I get a lot of joy out of the creative process. The more I've risen in the ranks at MarVista, the more I find myself working to motivate and inspire my team to be creative. It's different, but it's really exciting when I see a member of the team have a lane that they're passionate about, or a type of movie that they think no one's seen yet and give them the courage to go chase it, and ultimately see them succeed. I'm getting a lot of joy out of that part of the process. There's a really fun aspect in my job as well that is really figuring out how to get things made. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle. At MarVista, we're a production company, but also a distribution company. We're owned by Fox now, so we have a lot of creative stuff that we do and that we can finance. For us, it's this great challenge where we'll have a slate of projects and we're thinking, "Could this work in the UK? Is there a Canadian partner that we can pull in? How can we do more local Australian content with Australian talent?" As you can see, there's a really unique global perspective for content now that I'm excited to have a high level view of in my current role. But in terms of just a typical day, it's a lot of problem solving and putting out little fires everywhere. Sprinkled with some really fun meetings where you get to hear pitches from new voices, writers, and directors who have amazing creative ideas. It’s that hope and that potential that you might be talking to the next great talent that keeps me inspired. As long as I have one of those meetings every couple of days, I'm okay. I think the moment that you lose that hope, optimism, and that feeling that this could be the one, it's probably a sign that you need to stop.
💕 Naomi: That is so cool. I think this question is so interesting: "How do you take this piece that we know is going to perform well in the US markets and change it to perform in the UK or Europe as well?" At a certain point, a lot of the stories are going to transcend any language or cultural barrier. It’s smaller nuances or specific jokes that need to be pivoted slightly to really make it click.
🧡 Hannah: Thank God audiences now are so much more globally minded, interested, and willing to see these views into different cultures. That part of this industry right now is so exciting. We have our first rom-com that we're shooting fully on location in India. This is one of the projects I'm really, really excited about. It’s part of a slate of rom-coms we are doing for E! that show characters, stories, and places you haven't seen before in this fun, modern rom-com package. What's great about rom-coms is that they are the most global type of content. All the other genres come with a stipulation, like, "France doesn't want that" or, "That's going to be too edgy for this market." But when it comes to rom-coms, it's a universal uniter, a common language.
💕 Naomi: You mentioned enabling other people to go be creative and start their own exciting journey of putting together a pitch and proposal for why you should do a movie together. What is the green light process like at MarVista? What are you seeing gaining a lot of popularity today that might not have seen the spotlight five years ago?
🧡 Hannah: That's a great question. In terms of how to get something greenlit at MarVista, I think we are a pretty unique company in this regard because we do so much content and so much volume. We're going to be doing almost a hundred movies this year. For us, we take a high level slate management approach and we develop our stories with a purpose. What that really means is we know who we're targeting, why we're making this project, what the distribution path is, and what the basic budget parameters look like. Then, we hyperfocus our development to make sense for those lanes. For example, if you think about the legs of a stool, we have the US market, the LatAm market, the Canadian market, and the European market. What's the type of content that we think can check the most boxes? What's the type of story that we feel can work with the biggest reach? Then, we'll reverse engineer the creative into that world. The green light process can be incredibly fast. We green light a couple of movies a week at this point. Of course, sometimes there's more scrutiny depending on the level of risk. I always joke with people who are just starting at MarVista and tell them that the slate is like being on a boat going down the river. You can get off the boat, but the boat keeps going.
💕 Naomi: Are there any specifics or a release date for some of the movies you are excited about that we can share with our audience?
🧡 Hannah: One to really shout out in terms of rom-coms specifically is we did our first premium rom-com since I've been at MarVista called DAUGHTER OF THE BRIDE. It's going to be in theaters and on demand starting in February. Shortly thereafter, it will have a premiere on the Fox network in June. It stars Marcia Gay Harden and Halston Sage as a hilarious mother-daughter duo. What I love about this movie is that it's really a mother-daughter story at its core. It's about these two women who are commitment-phobes and believe that all they need is each other and they don't need a partner in life. The daughter unwittingly ends up setting her mother up with the love of her life. Mom gets engaged and her daughter is left planning her mother's wedding while going through a complete quarter life crisis, asking herself, "How did I get into the situation where I'm planning my mom's wedding?" It's a really great movie, but ultimately it's about growing up and having your own life.
💕 Naomi: I'm sure there's a lot of comedy in her planning her mom's wedding where she's thinking, "I need to be this perfect daughter, but also what is going on?"
🧡 Hannah: There's this great scene where they shop for the mom's wedding dress and all the staff assume it's the daughter getting married. They're measuring her, and she has to correct them that she’s not the bride and antics ensue! The other thing I love about this movie in particular is our director, Annette Haywood Carter, who I’m a big fan of. She directed the movie FOXFIRE, which was Angelina Jolie's first movie in the nineties. I support this group of women at the DGA who are nurturing the next generation of director talent and I employ basically anybody that they send to me because they've got such great taste. Annette was on one of the lists and I jumped at the opportunity. I had an amazing meeting with her and learned that she essentially took a 20 year hiatus because she was so frustrated by the lack of opportunity at the time for women directing. She raised her daughter, and then she realized that she actually missed this work. I couldn't believe that she wanted to make a movie with me. She did a beautiful, amazing job with DAUGHTER OF THE BRIDE. There's so much about this movie that I'm proud of, but I'm really excited for Annette to get this movie out, show how she's evolved as a director, and for her reemergence into the world of filmmaking again. In terms of the E! slate, I believe our first premiere will be in the Spring. It's going to be a fun one. It's set in the UK and has sort of a royal twist.
💕 Naomi: I do feel like audiences today are really into escaping to another place. Like you said, everything is so global. People love seeing Indian weddings or hearing English accents. There's something really nice about sitting on your couch after a long day of work or school and going to a completely different place.
🧡 Hannah: I completely agree. Amy Winter at Lifetime said this to me a couple of years ago and it resonated so much, "People want to look through a window, not in a mirror." I think that is what rom-coms are supposed to do. They're supposed to show you a world you haven't seen before, a place you haven't been before, or a fantasy you dream about. You want this sort of aspirational version of life, and showing different cultures and locations around the world is another way to experience something that you haven't ever seen before.
💕 Naomi: I want to backtrack a little bit to how you started your career. How did you decide that being in the creative space was the right path for you? What was the moment that you knew and what was your early career like that put you on the path to leading creative at MarVista?
🧡 Hannah: The journey is always so rambling. There were moments where I thought, "What the hell am I doing?" It wasn't until I turned 30 that I really saw and understood the path I was on. If you ask my mom, she would say that she always knew I was going to be in film because I was obsessed with movies. One of the first movies that really impacted me was called MY BRILLIANT CAREER starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. The story is of a woman who wants to be a writer, but the time that the story is set in, that's just simply not an option for women. There's this guy who's madly in love with her, but she keeps rebuffing him. What's so great about this story is that in the end, she ends up alone and she chooses to pursue her writing career. As a viewer, you are wanting her to be with this guy and it doesn't happen. Something about this movie just captured me so much and it's still one of my top five favorite movies ever. My mom exposed me to a lot of different media at a very young age, including very dark, crazy movies. I quickly realized the power of how movies and stories can make you feel, which really impacted me. I did go to film school, which helped me in my career. Film school just confirmed that this is what I want to do, but it was deeply solidified after I assisted Lynda Obst, who is an iconic producer who did SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS and INTERSTELLAR. She was the first one who said to me, "You should really be in development." I didn't even know what that meant and didn't even really understand that that was an actual job. She got that fire going in me, then I found myself in a great position at HBO with an amazing mentor, Tara Grace. That was the moment where at 30 I knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to be like Tara. She was fantastic and gave me a crash course on how to be an A-level executive, which I took with me to MarVista.
💕 Naomi: It's been incredible to see how you've scaled and grown this team. I've only known the team for the last two or three years, so I can only imagine how much has changed in the last 10 years since you've been there.
🧡 Hannah: Yeah, you're totally right. What was so amazing about HBO 10 years ago was that they were working with the best of the best, but the film team's philosophy was centered around empowerment, so they would really support, nurture, and help create the best possible environment for these creatives to work in. Even though MarVista is by no means HBO, I think a lot of Tara's and Len Amato's philosophy at the time we've tried to reproduce in our small world.
💕 Naomi: We found that when you give someone a creative sandbox, an MFA student, for example, can come up with the most brilliant idea even if they haven't written something for film before. I have one last question for you: We talked a little bit about finding new and diverse voices and bringing them center stage in entertainment. A lot of this happens through the business model that MarVista is championing, which is this volume based business model. Who is a filmmaker, writer, creator that you've worked with that you see as being that diamond and what made their voice stand out to you specifically?
🧡 Hannah: There's two that come to mind. The first one is a filmmaker named Maureen Bharoocha, who actually went to grad school with me. We connected when she was making shorts for Sprinkles Cupcakes. She really wanted to direct and after seeing her shorts, I had no doubt that she would be great. She has this amazing way of looking at the world that is super funny, but also has a lot of heart. At the time, I hired her to do a Lifetime thriller, and it was the best experience. She actually brought a writer into our fold, Ellen Huggins, who we work with often now. Since then, I've just watched her really take off in her career. For me, She's really someone who has an incredibly amazing talent. She brings a really unusual and unique background and point of view given her upbringing, who she is, and her family. Her motto is "Make cool shit." She's also an amazing connector of people who has referred so many other female directors; she's just a champion of women in the industry in particular. Not only is she so talented, but she does the work every day to get other people in and lift them up. The other individual is another dear friend of mine named Prarthana Mohan. Again, it was one of those situations where we were friends first and she humbly showed me a feature she did called "The Miseducation of Bindu." I thought it was freaking amazing, so I hired her to direct this really fun and a rather risky Christmas movie for us at the time called CHRISTMAS IS CANCELED, which is on Amazon now. The confidence she brought to set as someone who was a fairly new director, dealing with big talent, like Dermot Mulroney and Hayley Orrantia, was remarkable. She showed up, knew exactly what she was doing, was prepared, but also wasn't scared to take risks and have a lot of fun. Doing comedy is really hard, especially comedy on such a tight schedule, and she nailed it. She has actually done another movie for us that we shot in Ireland that is yet to be released. It's a Christmas movie starring Justin Long, and it's amazing. I'm really excited for that one to come out next year. I think what these two ladies have in common is saying yes to a creative opportunity and showing up, willing to do the work. They both have a bigger purpose in mind and are both so humble.
I hope you enjoyed this rom-com-versation! Stay tuned for my next Rom-com-versation.
xx, Naomi