The Hollywood Reporter - 06.11.2019

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 84 NOVEMBER 6, 2019

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June, she took a croissant-making

class in Paris).

CHILDHOOD TV SERIES I WANT ON

STREAMING “The Joy of Painting by

Bob Ross”

MATT MEYER / 30

Agent, Paradigm

While an undergrad at University

of Illinois, Meyer worked as a music

promoter for Life in Color (formerly

Dayglow). “Every weekend, I would

fly around the country — do shows

in Arkansas on a Friday night, then

a show in Michigan, then come

back for class,” he recalls. The

tempo hasn’t changed, but now the

music agent is shaping the careers

of some of industry’s top acts

(Meyer took client Halsey from viral

sensation to one of the most influ-

ential hitmakers and championed

Machine Gun Kelly’s transforma-

tion from party-rap “wild boy” to

an in-demand crossover artist).

Along the way, the Chicago native,

who has confirmed more than

$100 million in shows, has built a

stable of genre-busting superstars

that also includes Playboi Carti, Lil

Dicky, Hayley Kiyoko, All Time Low,

Yungblud, Shoreline Mafia, DIESEL/

Shaquille O’Neal, Why Don’t We and

Charlotte Lawrence.

TALENT I’M DYING TO WORK WITH

“Aaron Sorkin, but more to grab a

meal with. I have always loved his

movies — Molly’s Game, The Social

Network and especially Moneyball.”

JAMIE PILLET / 30

Talent Agent, Abrams Artists

Once a child actor herself and

repped by Abrams, Pillet has

become a go-to agent for emerging

and Texas. And while some kid

actors leave their agent at a certain

point, the married Pillet is working

to change that mentality. “I always

say, ‘I don’t stop until you retire,’ ”

she says. “There’s something truly

magical about starting someone’s

career and finishing it.”

FOOD/DRINK I LOVE BUT WOULD NEVER

ORDER AT A BUSINESS MEAL “Fries with

Buffalo sauce on the side.”

MEREDITH ROTHMAN / 32

Manager, Anonymous Content

Despite growing up in West L.A. as

the daughter of an agent, Rothman

wasn’t sold on a Hollywood career

and instead opted for an art history

degree from USC. “I worked at a

gallery while I was in college and

it dawned on me that studying art

was very different than working in

the art world,” she remembers. “I

wanted to work with artists.” She

transitioned into talent manage-

ment, eventually landing at Mosaic,

where she stayed for five years.

Rothman jumped to Anonymous in

2018, with a client list that reads like

a who’s who of young Hollywood—

from KiKi Layne (the first script

Rothman sent to her was for Barry

Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk)

to Euphoria actors Alexa Demie and

Angus Cloud, and Last Black Man

in San Francisco writer-star Jimmie

Fails. She’s already busy but says

that “starting to produce is defi-

nitely a future goal of mine.”

TALENT I’M DYING TO WORK WITH

Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Trey

Edward Shults

MACKENZIE ROUSSOS // 34

TV Agent, UTA

“I probably roll calls from my

car more than any agent in Los

Angeles,” jokes the mom of three,

who lives on a farm in Bedford, New

talent, scooping up and nurturing

young talent on TV (Young Sheldon

star Iain Armitage), in film (Shahadi

Wright Joseph, who was in Us

and The Lion King) and onstage

(Andrew Feldman and Ben Levi

Ross of Dear Evan Hansen). The

University of Buffalo alum scours

YouTube (she signed Armitage

when he was 5 off his review

videos), along with the acting

workshops she teaches in Alabama

Lewis Pullman^ / 26

“I was on the tractor division,”

says Pullman of the required job

he took at his small North Carolina

liberal arts college. “I figured if

acting didn’t work out I could be

on the road crew, working the back

hoe.” Pullman — the son of actor

Bill Pullman and performer Tamara

Hurwitz — grew up splitting his

time between Los Angeles and

Montana, and opted for a degree in

social work, spending his summers

doing short films. It was after school

that the parents of a high school

friend, Little Miss Sunshine film-

makers Valerie Faris and Jonathan

Dayton, asked him to audition for

Amazon series Highston. Since

then, he’s booked roles in Hulu’s

Catch 22, Bad Times at the El

Royale and the upcoming To p G u n

sequel, Maverick.

ONSCREEN CHARACTER I MOST

IDENTIFIED WITH AS A KID “River

Phoenix in Stand by Me.”

Margaret Qualley / 25

Somehow the daughter of actress

Andie MacDowell managed to grow

up out of the spotlight. Born in

Montana and raised in Asheville,

North Carolina, Qualley trained as

a ballerina at the North Carolina

School of the Arts before landing

an apprenticeship at the American

Ballet Theatre in New York. At 16,

she quit dance, first for modeling

and then for acting. After landing

her first big role in Damon Lindelof’s

HBO drama The Leftovers and

garnering raves for dancing in a

viral perfume ad for director Spike

Jonze, she truly broke through

this year with roles in Quentin

Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in

Hollywood and FX’s Fosse/Verdon,

the latter of which earned her an

Emmy nomination.

PERSON I’VE BEEN MOST

STARSTRUCK BY “Brad Pitt, but don’t

tell him about this because we are

friends now.”

Taylor Russell / 25

“I thought I’d be a dancer, but I have

really bad knees so that couldn’t

happen for me,” says Russell, who

quickly turned her attention to act-

ing. She appeared in TNT’s Falling

Skies before a part in Netflix’s Lost

in Space. But it was 2019’s hor-

ror Escape Room that got Russell

noticed. “I’ve never screamed at the

top of my lungs for a couple months

straight,” she says. Next up, Russell

is poised for a breakout playing an

introverted teenage girl in A24’s

coming-of-age drama Waves, hitting

theaters Nov. 15. “There were a lot

of commonalities between her and

when I was a teenager, so it felt really

personal to me to play her,” explains

the Canadian actress. “It was like

a love letter to the 16-year-old in

me who was so hard on herself, and

didn’t necessarily know her power.”

I HOPE I DON’T GET TYPECAST AS

“A sassy black girl without full-

fledged emotions.”

“Peacock — because

how else will I watch reruns

of The Office?”

— Annie Lee, Gang Tyre

“I’m a big fan of Apple’s

commitment to artistic excellence

on the music side of the business,

so I’m excited to see what they do

with film and TV.”

— Sadao Turner, Westbrook

Disney+

44%

Apple

TV+

17%

YouTub e

5%

HBO Max

29%

Peacock

5%

The new streaming service

I’m most likely to subscribe to ...

TAALL EENNT