“You’re allowed to say no.”
Those were the words of advice from Girls creator and Famesick author Lena Dunham when I asked what she would tell young people trying to build a life and career in Hollywood.
It was the first episode of Rushfield Lunch, and the beginning of a question I’ve asked nearly every guest since: After everything you know now, what would you tell the people coming up behind and alongside you?
“Being a woman creator isn’t a trend,” she told me during that debut episode. “You’re allowed to say no to a note, you’re allowed to say no to a dinner. You don’t have to be afraid that everything is going to dry up if you advocate for yourself.”
Over the past year, the answers have accumulated into something resembling a Hollywood survival manual: say no. Knock again. Keep writing. Care enough about the work that you’d do it anyway. Stay close to the people who knew you before any of this.
Ahead, the best advice from producer Marc Platt, Universal’s Michael Moses, Survivor’s Parvati Shallow, superagent Robert Newman, chess master Garry Kasparov and more. Come back tomorrow for even more advice from Jane Fonda, RZA, Roger Deakins, Craig Brewer and another group of people who have learned a few things along their way to success.
Marc Platt: Producer, Wicked and La La Land
Few producers have known success like Marc Platt. Combined, his movies have received a whopping 41 Oscar nominations, including 10 for Wicked: Part One. His productions have also earned 36 Tony nominations and 48 Emmy nominations, while the two Wicked movies combined grossed almost $1.3 billion.
His advice is less glamorous: keep moving: “The thing I’ll go back to is being proactive. Sometimes you feel paralyzed because the world of Hollywood looks impenetrable or too big. Be proactive, ask questions, and stick to it and just when the door closes, take a breath and go and knock on the next one.”
Kirsten Schaffer: CEO WIF
The numbers are too stark to ignore.
In 2023, there were 20 women or nonbinary filmmakers who directed movies on IMDb Pro’s top 100 list.
In 2024, the number dipped to 14.
In 2025, it dropped to 11.
“We’re seeing the numbers go backward,” Kirsten Schaffer, the CEO of WIF (formerly known as Women in Film Los Angeles), told me last year.
Her answer to an industry offering fewer opportunities: don’t wait for permission to have another idea: “Keep writing, keep directing. Make as much as you can. Always have the next thing ready that you want to make so that when you meet people who can help you get it made, you know what it is.“
Robert Newman: WME Superagent
Superagent Robert Newman knows whereof he speaks. He ran marketing and distribution at Miramax for years before becoming an agent, first at ICM for 17 years and now at William Morris Endeavor. His roster of auteurs is unparalleled: Danny Boyle, Kenneth Branagh, David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Alex Garland, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Baz Luhrmann, Noah Hawley, Robert Rodriguez and M. Night Shyamalan.
For agents and executives, his advice was a useful corrective to an industry obsessed with strategy and status — remember what the job is: “Nothing matters besides your relationship with your artists and being a tireless, ceaseless advocate for them. Do anything possible to get them the resources to do their best work, protect their process when they’re doing it and be endlessly inventive about trying to have it reach the biggest possible audience.”
Michael Moses: Universal Pictures CMO
When Michael Moses told me the death of theatrical movies was greatly exaggerated, he wasn’t kidding. The Universal Pictures chief marketing officer is in the midst of another banner year with blockbusters like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and The Odyssey crossing $1 billion apiece in global gross.
In his more than 25 years at Universal, Moses has crafted campaigns for Wicked, Oppenheimer, the Fast & Furious and Minions franchises and now The Odyssey. He’s also one of the most thoughtful executives I’ve encountered in the industry, well aware of how the audience’s intelligence can be underestimated.
His rule for longevity is brutally simple — if the work feels like homework, you may be in the wrong business: “Don’t do it unless you are really passionate about it. It can be just a job, but if you’re going to last, it has to matter to you. It’s ‘that’s not homework for me. It’s what I would do whether I had this job or not.’ So, it’s the dumbest piece of advice, but it’s the oldest – if you do it for free, then you’re headed in the right direction.”
Parvati Shallow: ‘Survivor’ Icon & Author
In the Survivor world, four-time player and champion Parvati Shallow is one of the most celebrated contestants the show has produced. As chieftain of the “Black Widow Brigade,” she executed some of the most awe-inspiring acts of manipulation and gamesmanship in reality television. But for all the praise her prowess garnered, it made her the focal point of a distinct strain of misogynist temper from those who recoiled at the sight of a woman playing the game as brazenly as a man. In those Perez Hilton times, the winds of internet contempt blew strong.
Which may explain why her advice has nothing to do with winning: “Stay close to the ground and to the people who ground you.”
Scott Budnick: Producer & Activist
There aren’t many in Hollywood who have made as much of an impact as producer Scott Budnick. Onscreen, he’s the producer of the massive The Hangover franchise; offscreen, he’s been an anti-recidivism activist deeply involved in reforming the prison system who was also instrumental in helping to expand the California tax credit.
His advice: “Bryan Stevenson, who wrote Just Mercy, always talks about proximity. If you want to be involved in changing someone’s life or helping on an issue or doing something that you see and care about, then it’s just all about showing up and being proximate.”
Jeff Goldstein: WB Head of Distribution
When I spoke to the unofficial king of CinemaCon, Warner Bros. head of distribution Jeff Goldstein, he couldn’t comment on the Paramount acquisition — a deal whose future is now only murkier. But he did provide a bit of perspective, having started at WB as an intern and now spent four decades at the studio, through owner after owner after owner.
“This is my sixth transaction. But I say it the same way: Warners has been here for 103 years. Owners come, and owners go. I don’t look at a change in owner. I’m not focusing on that,” Goldstein told me in Las Vegas this spring. “I’m focusing on the work. I’m focusing on the opportunity. I’m focusing on the consumer. I’m focusing on my clients, the exhibitors and owners.”
His advice for anyone waiting for Hollywood to hand them a perfect opening: “Go after your craft. Don’t let anybody tell you no. If you’re interested in something, don’t wait to be on somebody else’s schedule.”
Susanna Fogel: Director
Susanna Fogel has navigated Hollywood in more interesting ways than I can count. Fogel has been one of the comedy world’s go-to writers and directors for years, ever since her breakthrough 2014 indie feature Life Partners (based on a one-act play she wrote with Joni Lefkowitz).
She’s flourished since then — especially in the spy genre — with credits that include Booksmart (as one of the credited co-writers) and The Spy Who Dumped Me (which she also directed), and television shows such as The Flight Attendant and the acclaimed but canceled-too-soon Peacock spy series, Ponies.
Her advice cuts through a lot of anxiety about platforms, algorithms and AI — Hollywood still needs the thing it has always needed: “There’s always a shortage of good writing even now. If you have talent, you will find your way to some sort of career in the industry. Maybe in five years that won’t be true anymore. But I still think it’s true now. So I would say just keep writing.”
Garry Kasparov: Chess Master & Dissident
Former world chess champion and legendary Russian dissident Garry Kasparov isn’t a Hollywood lifer, which is precisely why I wanted his perspective. When we spoke last fall, he argued that the entertainment industry has a larger obligation in a moment of political upheaval.
“I think Hollywood could do much more and be very proactive in supporting this dissent. This is what America is missing: the experience of dissidents, not like me, but many others. The fight of tyranny versus freedom is global.”
But the advice he offered the next generation was broader than politics — don’t outsource your thinking: “It is very important to be educated. Try to rely on firsthand information. Read the books and collect the data, and try to make your own opinion. But always try to take an active stand. Don’t be part of the crowd.”
