LAURA GORDON: As a woman who's working in a traditionally male job,
you're always trying to be enough.
You're trying to be good enough.
You're trying to fulfill that schema
that you're not really sure who created.
You have this archetype
of the obnoxious Ari Gold figure,
who's the agent who's really aggressive.
So, as you're becoming an agent,
you need to navigate, who am I gonna be?
And I didn't necessarily have that...
that icon on TV to look to.
MATTHEW BELLONI: The gatekeepers manifest in many different ways.
At the bottom level, it's the representatives.
In order to be successful, you have to have an agent.
You can think of an agency like the top of the funnel.
There's the entire universe of creative people,
and they all want to get an agent, they want to get into that crowd.
The agencies take those people and funnel them through
to where only a few are then presented
to the decision-makers for who gets hired.
And the agent can make a difference.
MAHA DAKHIL JACKSON: If you're in an agency,
you know everything that's happening at every production company
and at every studio.
Therefore, you have information.
And information is power, knowledge is power.
And when that information is harnessed correctly,
that's when we can get creative and put projects together.
LINDA LICHTER: So, the agent's job is primarily information--
who's got what, what's hot, what's not,
who's hot, what the studios are looking for,
and try to assemble the pieces and sell them to somebody.
The lawyer's job is primarily the negotiation
of those deals in combination with the agents,
and then the documentation of those deals.
LAURA: There are so many things that keeps this job so exciting.
You're a little bit of a manager, you're a little bit of a lawyer.
You're a little bit of a therapist.
You can be a little bit of a stylist at times.
LORRIE BARTLETT: It's like being on a rollercoaster, right?
Like, it's exhilarating.
I think as women, we've always just had to work harder.
Um, we don't get things handed to us.
You are always showing people that you're good at your job.
[photographers shouting]
MINNIE DRIVER: I made a huge error very early on,
in being swayed by the voices of men
to leave a female agent
and to go over to their side.
And I thought that--
and this happens I think with so many women.
We throw other women under the bus
in order to feel that we will be protected
by those men, and then, of course,
was utterly discarded not long after that.
ADELE LIM: I have had nothing but the loveliest experiences
with my agent.
The issue isn't with my specific agent.
I think it's more of a systemic industry thing.
LINDA: When I first started as a lawyer,
I was the first woman they had ever hired.
I was a creature from another planet.
I was somebody they did not know how to relate to in many ways.
My supervising partner had assigned me this client
to do work for, and the client called him up
and said, you know, "I must not be a very important client,
because you gave me the girl."
And he had take-- he took the client away from me.
In the very first staff meeting we had,
the other senior partner went around the room
and introduced the new lawyers that had just joined the firm.
And, "Here's this guy, here's where he went to law school.
"And here's Linda Lichter, here's where she went to law school.
Linda, why don't you stand up?"
And I said, "Can't everybody see me? Here I am."
And Monty said, "No, we wanna-- we wanna take a look at your legs."
And there was like this intake of breath...
[gasping]
And in that silence, I said, "Monty, in order for you to do that,
I'd have to stand on my head."
And the whole place-- I shut the whole place down.
They were all hysterical. Monty turned bright red.
And I was in, right? I was cool.
LAURA: It's hard to be left out
when men are getting together,
because so much of business gets done
in social environments.
There have been times where all my male colleagues
go to dinner and they don't invite the women.
I remember an executive producer telling me early on,
they want to hire who they want to sit at the bar
and have a beer with.
And I think that was what planted that seed of like,
oh, I need to learn how to play golf.
That didn't really work out.
It was way harder than I thought it was,
and I knew I wasn't gonna be any good at it.
It's all about attraction and leverage, really.
Because the leverage is, I can give you this.
What can you give me?
Not everybody can pull off the charisma part of it.
And that's where key machines come into play.
That's where producers come into play.
That's where, you know, agents come into play.
And the individual desires of each gatekeeper
are the desires that control the abuse.
RACHAEL HOROVITZ: Everyone you're dealing with
has got an agenda for themselves.
So, your agent has a career that they're managing
with much more focus than they're managing your career.
KIERSEY CLEMONS: I specifically had managers that were acting
as kind of these gatekeepers.
And so, the people on my team that wanted to help me
couldn't really access me.
It got to the point where they were just like,
"You're too good for this, and you're too good for that."
And it would be things I wanted to do and things I liked.
But then, the stuff that I specifically said
I don't want to do, if it involved a lot of money,
all of a sudden, that's what I deserve,
"That's what you want."
LORRIE: We are, in fact, presenting artists.
We're not presenting insurance policies.
It's not one size fits all.
So, I think an agent has to be creative
on behalf of the client.
Turn male roles into female roles,
roles that are written white, make them someone of color.
DIANA WILLIAMS: When you get that list from that agent
that only has white male names on it,
you pick up the phone and you call that agent,
you say, "This is unacceptable."
It is ridiculous that there are so many people
in hiring positions, people who are gatekeepers
who are quite limited in their vision.
And those are the people that need to be out.
How can Hollywood be progressive
and talk about paying women fairly,
when you don't talk about equity,
or talk about paying, you know, Black and brown folks appropriately
when you don't talk about reparations?
How can you be progressive and be an ally,
and I never hear you speak of equity?
LINDA: There's a reason why the State of California
has now passed a law that says you cannot ask people for quotes.
Because what that did, is that if somebody
was at a low level because they hadn't negotiated
or they hadn't been able to get the kind of fee
that they should have gotten, they're not stuck at that level forever.
They can go in and say, "Pay me what I'm worth."
Part of what I see as my job is to say, "This is what you deserve.
"This is what you should get because of who you are.
"And let's go for it, let's not be afraid to ask
for fear of getting smacked."
LAURA: We need to bring up voices
that haven't had the same opportunities of entry.
And that's on me, that's my responsibility.
REBECCA KEEGAN: Once you've made it through the gatekeepers,
the next battle is getting your script into development,
and that's a whole new kind of struggle.