THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 82 NOVEMBER 6, 2019
STEVEN BROWN // 35
Talent Agent, ICM Partners
The New Jersey native has helped
his clients, many of them women
of color, land some of Hollywood’s
biggest genre film and TV projects.
After her turn as Black Canary in
Warner Bros.’ Birds of Prey, Jurnee
Smollett-Bell will head to Jordan
Peele’s HBO sci-fi series Lovecraft
Country, while client Lashana Lynch
(Captain Marvel) will next be seen
in Bond film No Time to Die (and
on the cover of this magazine). But
the agent, who joined ICM in 2009,
says the job satisfaction is rooted
in the work that comes before a
deal is inked. He cites the trajec-
tory of The Politician star David
Corenswet, who auditioned for the
Ryan Murphy show as a guest star,
booked a series regular role and
will now lead and exec produce
Murphy’s new series, Hollywood.
“You get so many close calls and so
many ‘nos’ until you get that ‘yes,’ ”
says the Syracuse grad, who lives
in L.A. with his chow chow named
Gryffin. Another standout moment
came while walking the Croisette at
Cannes with longtime client Ruth
Negga ahead of the premiere of her
Oscar-nominated movie Loving. He
remembers: “Maybe it was the jet
lag, but I definitely cried more by the
end of the movie than I did the first
time I saw it.”
WEIRDEST WAY I’VE MET A CLIENT
“Boxing.”
MELISSA DARMAN // 34
TV Lit Agent, Ver ve
Working at an agency that has
signed the WGA Code of Conduct
has its perks: Darman is one of the
few lit agents in town who can still
work with writers. Despite telling
herself she’d never get into the
representation business (“In my
mind, every agent was Ari Gold,” she
says), the Syracuse grad became
agent No. 11 at Verve in 2014 after
stretches at ICM, ABC and Lionsgate
TV. The Boston native helped secure
screenwriter clients J.D. Payne and
TAL ENTTINDYA MOORE / 24
Moore always dreamed of performing but “being trans and a person of
color, I just didn’t think that I would be allowed in those spaces,” says
the actor, model and activist. That all changed when they (Moore’s
preferred pronoun) broke out on FX’s Pose. They’ve since used the
newfound fame to launch a production company that amplifies issues
related to transphobia and bullying, in particular against black trans
women. Moore can also been seen in Universal’s Queen & Slim (out
Nov. 27) and Netflix’s family film A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster
Hunting, the latter of which is the first project in which Moore is not
playing a sex worker, which, she adds, “is really important to me.”
LAST SHOW I BINGED When They See UsPatrick McKay one of last year’s
most coveted assignments: show-
running duties on Amazon’s Lord
of the Rings series. She’s also been
instrumental in securing showrunner
gigs for many of her scribes, includ-
ing Karl Gajdusek on season one of
Stranger Things, Captain Marvel
writer Jac Schaeffer on Disney+
series WandaVision and Robin Shorr
on Disney+’s Gina Rodriguez show
Diary of a Female President.
THE PERSON I’D SWITCH JOBS WITH
FOR A DAY “Bob Iger or Beyoncé.
Depends on the day.”RYAN FELDMAN // 33
Motion Picture Lit Agent, WME
At the Toronto Film Festival in
September, Feldman was running
around with the directors behind
two of the fest’s buzziest films:
Joshua and Benjamin Safdie, the
brothers behind the Adam Sandler-
starrer Uncut Gems; and Trey
Edward Shults, the writer-director
behind A24’s heartbreaking drama
Waves. Indeed, Feldman, a UC
Irvine grad who started out in theParadigm mailroom, has built a list
packed with the next generation of
auteurs: The San Diego native also
works with horror helmers Ari Aster
(Hereditary, Midsommar) and Mike
Flanagan (creator of Netflix’s The
Haunting of Hill House) and Sam
Levinson, the mind behind HBO’s
Euphoria. “They all have very dif-
ferent sensibilities, but they’re all
writer-directors who create some-
thing with some level of truth,” says
the agent, who wed in 2018.
FOOD/DRINK I LOVE BUT WOULD NEVER
ORDER AT A BUSINESS MEAL “Elote,“I would really
love to be in
Star Wars,” says
Indya Moore.