35 minute read
Academy Journal, 2019 - 2020
The Academy Journal
LA alumni tell their stories
In his opening monologue to the film L.A. Confidential, the legendary Danny DeVito, playing a nefarious 1950s tabloid journalist, opined: “Come to Los Angeles! The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see. There are jobs aplenty … and who knows, you could even be discovered, become a movie star, or at least see one. Life is good in Los Angeles. It’s paradise on Earth. That’s what they tell you, anyway.”
Now, in 2020, we all know that there is more to life in Los Angeles than walking Hollywood Boulevard looking for celebrities. And while the beaches are beautiful and the weather is warm, saying LA is paradise is like saying Mr. Curran’s “hassle” papers are easy. No, the entertainment industry is a tough business, and jobs are
anything but aplenty. However, based on their LA training — make that their Lawrence Academy training — several generations of Spartans have found their way out west.
Today, throughout the entertainment industry, corporate rosters and film credits are dotted with those who began their Hollywood dreams in Groton, Mass. In these next few pages, we seek to shine a spotlight on a few of the Lawrence Academy graduates thriving in Los Angeles. Their stories are told from the vantage point of interviews conducted in Spring 2019. And yes, we’re bragging. Yes, we’re saying we knew them before they went to Hollywood. But far be it from us to keep these Spartans’ success “off the record, on the QT, and very Hush Hush.”
– by John Bishop
by John Bishop
He graduated from Lawrence Academy nearly 50 years ago; earned a degree at the University of Redlands and attended Boston University and Temple University; and spent 40 years in the music and entertainment industry. When Richard Ellis ’70 speaks, there’s a lot of experience behind his words.
When we caught up with Richard at The Larder in Brentwood — a trendy bistro in an upscale neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles — the semi-retired entrepreneur and executive preached tenacity as students look toward the future, college, and careers. “Get passionate about something and do it,” he said. “Don’t let anything stand in your way. Everybody will say, ‘No!’ You’ve just got to pick yourself up and keep going.”
Richard, now based in Encino, delivers advice earned through a lifetime of work on behalf of artists and companies from around the globe, including RCA Records, Warner Music Group, Time, and Sony Music Entertainment. A native of Philadelphia and Galveston, Texas, who tried his hand at wrestling and debating at LA, Richard used an “ability to forecast trends and fuse marketing and innovation to connect entertainment and brands with young consumers” to forge a successful career in helping artists achieve their dreams.
But, perhaps more importantly, he employed a tireless work ethic. For Richard, currently head of Richard J. Ellis Associates and 12to20, and also the founder of myKaZootv, getting traction in entertainment marketing commences from the word “go” — what he calls “the launch” — which begins with messaging. “I’ve helped organizations large and small. I’ve helped web businesses launch. I’ve helped artists to launch,” he explained.
“To me, it all comes back to, ‘Who is this artist? Who is the organization? What are the bullet points that makes it make it great?’ And then, where do you find your audience and how do you deliver that message?”
It sounds simple, but it’s hard to keep that up over many decades, which is exactly what Richard has done for companies, causes, and artists as diverse as Taylor Swift, Disney, Dodge, Cosmopolitan, The Jonas Brothers, Avril Lavigne, MADD, SADD, and Rock the Vote. Meanwhile, “semi-retired” seems a less-than-fitting moniker for the LA-loving, LA-based alum (“The weather makes everybody happier…”) now producing television and films, and advising tech start-ups.
Now in his mid-60s, but taking a moment to film a selfie-style video aimed at current Lawrence students from the ASCAP Music “I Create Music” Expo in Hollywood, Richard said, “I’m having a ball,” but added, “I certainly didn’t know I was going to end up in the music business when I was there, but now, 40 years later — I had a pretty good career. I wish you all the best of luck, and you should take your shot. You just never know what’s going to happen.”
As you walk into Michael Rweyemamu ’88’s office, just outside of Los Angeles, on the famous Warner Bros. lot — and after your eyes adjust to the brightness of the corner office promontory over Burbank and the Hollywood Hills — your attention quickly turns to the dark-hued poster of Batman overlooking a city. The contrast is striking, perhaps stressing the dichotomy of working for a world-class entertainment company and overseeing some of the hardest tasks associated with that entity. But for Michael, who is Warner Bros.’ senior vice president of North American sales and commercial operations, that juxtaposition is part of the job of “telling the story.”
“Sales is nothing but storytelling,” he said. “You have to structure what you’re telling clients around the story and emphasize the points that are important to them. I try to make sure my personal tastes don’t interfere with a craft that our directors have put out into the world. I could enjoy a film, absorb it from my point of view, but that’s just that: my point of view.
“Here’s a good story that I like to tell,” Michael continued. “I saw Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman film The Dark Knight when it first came out and thought, ‘it’s really good. It’s a really good movie.’ But that’s just my own opinion. Then it goes and sets records for a comic book movie before Marvel came along.”
As he explained the difference between having an opinion and thinking about the bigger picture, Michael mentioned WB’s many horror films and characters. “I don’t watch horror movies … We have great horror franchises that we push out. And I’ve never seen any one of them,” Michael admitted. “So, I’m honest with clients: I say, ‘I just don’t watch them. I just can’t, but I still need you to buy it.’”
That’s where Michael’s team takes over. “If you buy movies through Apple, my teams make sure that whatever title is released through our pipeline — say it’s Aquaman — is available to you where you want to consume it. We do that on a global basis.”
Far from a traditional high school horror story, Michael has fond memories of his time in Groton, noting that the people he encountered at Lawrence Academy made his transition from the nearby Fay School in Southborough easier. “It was a really welcoming community where I felt embraced right away,” he said. “You don’t know quite how it's going to play out until you show up there.”
And Michael did more than show up: He competed. He studied. And he found mentors. “I loved Gags [Dick Gagné]. He just ‘got’ me,” Michael gushed. “He pushed me … but he was really subtle about how he did it, and he would kind of push you in the right way.”
But, Michael explained, Gagné’s shove in the right direction was appreciated then, and now. “He will always be meaningful to me in my life, and I’m always going to be grateful for having him in my life just because I’m not where I am without his voice in my ear,” he reflected.
In turn, Michael has sought to be a voice in the ear of current students and young alumni. “Risk is something that you’re always going to encounter in your life,” Michael said, speaking about the many risks he encountered, from his time as a boy in Tanzania, through his time at LA, and now in LA. “And it’s an important element of your own personal growth and also professional growth. It’s really the only way you can move forward in order to make the big leaps that you have to have in your life and career. It something where you need to make sure the opportunity is there. But take the jump.”
Amanda Champagne Meadows ’01
There’s a bit of an alter ego vibe when you encounter Amanda Champagne Meadows ’01, West Coast editor at AMI (US Weekly), away from her professional life.
When she joined fellow alumni at the 2018 LA Circle Event in Hollywood, Calif., she looked like a stylish but demure college professor when she walked into the quiet space at Medeira Kitchen wearing a wide-brimmed black hat. But most days, the self-described “seasoned TV host, live event MC, producer, writer, and reporter” exists out in front and in and around Hollywood, where she models the latest styles on the awards circuit, at a festival, and on the beach.
On location, she might be “jamming harmonicas with Chevy Chase or surfing with big wave rider Ian Walsh;” however, it’s all part of the gig for Amanda, a bona fide social media influencer, whose Instagram bio notes, “Venice beach bum by day, celebrity journalist by night.” Scrolling down her 'gram, a vintage VW van settled between palm trees appears in nearly as many photos as the events she covers.
A savvy journalist with a degree from USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, Amanda is fully able to adjust to whatever environment she’s covering.
Whether at the X-Games, the Academy Awards, or a space shuttle launch, she is ready to report, thanks in large part to her time at Lawrence Academy. “Literally,” she emphasized when the Academy Journal tracked her down in Santa Monica, sitting down with fellow alumni Kristin Achtmeyer ’02 and Adèle Borden ’08 at Misfit.
“When I look back at my time at Lawrence, I can’t fully explain the experience; it would take so long to put into words just how much my time there impacted me and my decisions,” Amanda admitted. “I’ve been studying entertainment, working entertainment ever since LA. My first internship was during Winterim of my senior year at a production company in Boston.”
Amanda, who won the Head’s Award in 2001, still revels in that senior year experience, as well as an earlier sophomore year trip to Florida. During that journey, she “somehow” found herself in the Boston Red Sox press box. “It was the same day that they announced that Joe Torre from the New York Yankees had cancer, which was very sad,” Amanda explained. “However, I got to be a part of a moment where huge news was breaking, feeling the adrenaline and excitement of knowing something that’s breaking information.
“So that was the first time I got a taste of ‘celebrity news’ or entertainment news,” she continued. “Also on that Winterim, I got to meet the publicist for the Red Sox, and, at the time, I didn’t know what a publicist was.”
These days, Amanda is very familiar with publicists, as she sets up interviews and RSVPs to essential events. But recently, she herself was interviewed and took over the role of LA PR rep when she spoke about her alma mater: “I went to Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass. It’s an amazing school where they really encourage you to ‘find your voice.’ It's there that I realized I had a deep love for media,” she told Sincerely, Sydney. “The school allowed me to create my own curriculum senior year, where I focused solely on video and film production, theater, and creative writing.”
Watch!
And the rest is red carpets, press junkets, and photoshoots.
“I really can’t complain,” said Amanda, with a Hollywood smile.
Breaking News!
Castle Rock is a television series that debuted on Hulu on Oct. 23, and it has been quite the experience to work on. Everything and everyone from Stephen King’s novels comes to life in this town of Castle Rock, Maine. We used Orange, Mass. as our exterior town and Devens’ New England Studios as the interior sets to recreate this fantasy town. We shot all over the Devens area, which was fun and brought back many high school memories of where my friends lived: Stow, Acton, Clinton. We also ended our show filming in my hometown of Concord, which was surreal to say the least. Never did I think I would be working on a project in my hometown at my old library! Our story this season follows one of the main characters in King’s novels, Annie Wilkes, played by Lizzy Caplan. It was a dream to work with this cast. Tim Robbins also plays a major role, along with Paul Sparks, and they were a fantastic cast to take care of. For the past six months, I’ve been covered in fake dirt and blood, but that is the world of Stephen King, and it was exciting to be a part of it.
Perhaps the most intense one-on-one interview I did in Los Angeles was with Kristin Achtmeyer ‘02, who met me straight from set in a library-themed pub, The Misfit, in Santa Monica. The award-winning costumer, still wired from a long day of shooting, answered the question, “How does one get from LA to LA?" with a very straightforward response: “You’ve just got to do it.”
“Honestly, I told myself when I finished Dickinson College, ‘If I’m not going to go out to Los Angeles this summer, I'll probably never make it.’ So, I just headed west and jumped right in,” Kristin said. “It was a slow start, but I got in the groove, eventually.”
Kristin’s patience paid off. Her IMDb (Internet Movie Database) page goes on forever, but recent entries include Pretty Little Liars, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and The Hunger Games (Mockingjay, Parts 1 and 2). By the way, there’s an Emmy Award on her shelf, for her work on American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
And while her list of credits and accolades goes on and on, so does the daily sheet for a top Hollywood costumer. “A typical day is, probably, 5:00 a.m. on set and then shoot,” Kristin explained. “We normally shoot 12to 14-hour days, and then you go home and sleep and then do it all again the next day. People laugh because we work 6-8 hours before we have lunch. Then we work another eight hours after that — all for about five minutes of camera time,” she added, chuckling again.
However, as intense as Kristin is in her description of her work, it’s clear that working on sets remains fulfilling to her. Asked what personal trait is most helpful in keeping continuity in costumes, she answered without hesitation: “My photographic memory.”
“I love making sure it’s always the same,” Kristin admitted. “They have to have continuity … but maintaining that is challenging. On Hunger Games, we’d be
shooting one scene — maybe be two minutes in the film — for a whole 12 hours. So, mainly, I am on set with all the actors and get them dressed in the morning, and then I stay with them to make sure everything stays the same.”
The clothes may stay the same, but in Hollywood, the setting — and the location — is continually changing. However, Kristin confirmed, she’s sought work around the country. And when we spoke last spring, she was excited to hear back on a local project.
“I try to go back for work in Boston,” she said of her occasional homecomings. “There are a lot of shows there now. I’m actually hoping to get on a show soon.”
Kristin’s wish was granted: Shortly after our interview, she began work in Boston on the Stephen King show Castle Rock. (see insert)
“In this business, you just have to go for it,” Kristin reiterated. Her advice to fellow Spartans interested in the industry is to “start imagining what the world looks like in what you’re reading and creating those images in sketches, and thinking outside the box of what that looks like. That’s what I do every day, and it’s fun!”
Chris Hazzard ’03
“When I was at Lawrence, I was probably the only student in the musical who'd seen the previous 10 years of musicals,” said Hollywood screenwriter Chris Hazzard ’03 when we met in his home in Studio City. “My dad did the show as well. So, I went to all of those.”
“Dad,” of course, is Peter Hazzard, long-time Lawrence Academy music teacher extraordinaire, now retired. However, far from being overshadowed by a legendary educator — a sincere worry for faculty children at some schools — thinking back over those years on the elm tree-shaded hillside, the younger Mr. Hazzard thinks it was a pretty great way to grow up.
“I always thought that high school kids were cool and knew about lots of stuff, and I was impressed with ‘The Work,’” he said, adding, “Everybody had full backpacks and big books and were talking about things I didn't know about; in fact, it seemed like the goal was to be a smart high school student, playing sports and being in the plays and all that stuff.”
After matriculating at LA, Chris embraced “all that stuff” and then hit the real world with skills that he still employs every day. “A work ethic and the ability to handle a large workload, no question, are helpful,” he explained when asked what he brought with him from LA to New York University and the University of Southern California. “I had friends who had a hard time adjusting to how much work college was, and I think that LA was a great setup for that.”
Chris confided that his homework at Lawrence was a perfect introduction to long-haul Hollywood projects: “In ninth grade specifically, some of the nights of homework were the most I probably did in all of my educational career,” he stated with a smile and a shake of the head. “Whereas, for a lot of people, college was this new level, especially on projects that you had to really
think about, or come up with an idea for and then build your project or your paper around that.
“I think those skill sets are directly relatable to a career in the film industry and specifically writing, for sure,” he noted. “Lawrence, in my mind, was very much about ‘The Work,’ you know? I think that to do well at LA, you just had to do ‘The Work.’ ‘The Work’ was celebrated, whether that was the poetry competition, the play, or athletics.”
“The Work,” for Chris, included SABA (“Students Against Boring Assemblies”), where a captive audience at Friday assemblies couldn’t ignore him and his friends as they took the stage. “We did that for all four years,” said Chris, who joined classmate Jared Mezzocchi ’03 to follow in the footsteps of alumni including Myles Kane ’97, Michelle McAteer ’99, and Conor Maguire ’01.
“It's probably generous to say that we wrote every sketch that we did in SABA, but we did a lot of thinking about whatever the big issue was at the time. We did sketches that people really liked, and we did some the people liked less,” he added. “That was, at the time, not exciting, but it was good to see that something can work and the next thing you do might not work.” So, as a creative playground for Chris’ vocational playground, LA worked well.
“Take advantage of LA as a place to really explore,” he advised. “You can try lots of things … and use the community to get better at them. It’s an opportunity you seldom get elsewhere.”
After a stint in acquisitions at Fox Searchlight, Adèle Borden ‘08 has started a new job as a narrative assistant in the film department at Participant. “They’re the production company behind Roma, Greenbook, Spotlight, and more,” she explained. “Generally speaking, they produce indie-spirited movies with a social cause in the middle.”
In her role, she assists in the development, production, and post-production of feature films on the Participant slate. Next to come out is Todd Haynes’ film Dark Waters, starring Mark Rufallo and Anna Hathaway.
Adèle, who got her BA at Wesleyan University and MFA at University of Southern California, has already found roles and experience at Amazon Studios, the Creative Artists Agency, the Sundance Institute, Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B, and John Wells Productions. Adèle has produced a handful of shorts and music videos with Wesleyan and USC alums and, somewhere in the middle of all that, did yoga training to teach on both land and stand-up paddleboard.
“When I was at Wesleyan, I started getting involved in short film productions, and made a lot of friends who were working in film,” Adèle explained. “When I graduated, I spent a year traveling around Southeast Asia and India, taking photographs and figuring out my next step. I ended up moving to New York and started working in production — commercials, luxury fashion films, photoshoots, that kind of thing.”
“But as I spent more time producing short films with friends on the side, I realized I wanted to get into longer-form content,” she continued. “So, I applied to graduate school, thinking the best thing I could do was build a strong foundation and establish myself on the West Coast. I moved to LA to start at USC’s Peter Stark Producing Program in 2016. And after graduation, I decided to stay in LA and where I had the opportunity to start full-time at Fox Searchlight, a company I had interned with.”
With all of that in mind, one might get anxious for Adèle, wondering aloud how she keeps things in order and in check. “You really have to love the work,” she said of the pace in Hollywood. “Otherwise, this would be a tough job. It’s long hours at the office, and even more at festivals, where you go 10-14 days straight, no nights or weekends off.”
“But, it’s really exciting,” she added with a smile.
To keep things in balance, Adèle had to learn to shift into a lower gear, too: “I teach yoga on the weekend, and try to make time for local hikes and excursions.”
“Work is really important to me.” she added, “but I also love being active and healthy and finding a community around that.”
But Adèle loves being part of the Hollywood community as well. “I didn’t realize until I started working in film and went back to school just how many people it takes to make a movie,” she said.
“There are so many people in the post-production, marketing, distribution — it goes on and on,” she continued. There are so many moving pieces, and I’m happy to be a small piece of that.”
However, after reading all of the above, do you think Adèle
Me neither ...
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Update at Press Time...
SAM! IF YOU LET ME BE, I WILL TRY THEM. YOU WILL SEE.
– Dr. Seuss
While at Lawrence Academy, Lynne Hartwell ’08 jumped into the entertainment business and, ever since, has tried pretty much everything involved in putting entertainment on a screen: casting, design, research, writing — you name it. These days, the bespectacled Boston sports fan is a production manager on Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham. However, even after achieving such an enviable position, Lynne remembers well her first foray into production.
“My very first producing experience was actually during my time at Lawrence,” she remembered. “I was a member, and eventually president, of the Elias Fund Club on campus. (Editor’s Note: The Elias Fund is a nonprofit organization funding community development and education for Zimbabwean youth.) In the spring of 2007, we held a music festival at Nara Park in Acton, called Elias Fest: Voice of the Voiceless. The headliner was State Radio, and I had a pretty big role in helping to get the festival together … I fell in love with planning and executing an event like this with the major payoff of the live show. We raised a lot of money and had a really great day.
“I’m still not sure how a bunch of teenagers pulled this off,” Lynne added, “but I think it’s safe to say it really helped build my confidence as a producer, even though I may not have realized what I was doing at the time.”
What Lynne was doing at the time was building a résumé that led her from LA to LA. Following stints with Dreamworks and Titmouse, she now has more than three years at Warner Bros. under her belt. The Emerson College graduate fondly remembers working for another Lawrence Academy alumna in her first real internship.
“My very first internship in entertainment was as a production intern for Styleboston. I was
Lynne reports that Green Eggs and Ham made its debut on Nov. 8. Produced by Ellen DeGeneres, with voice acting by Adam Devine, Diane Keaton, Ilana Glazer, and Michael Douglas, Entertainment Weekly says, “The show promises laughs for the entire family.”
hired by Heloise Borden ’05, who was working there at the time,” Lynne recalled. “I did a lot of answering phones and email correspondence, but I was also able to pitch my own segments, two of which aired. I worked on location for several shoots, including an interview with Stanley Cup champion Tim Thomas (my pitch!)”
Like many of the former Spartans we encountered in California, Lynne is a workaholic: driven by both a love for the craft and the belief that you make your own luck. In fact, that’s exactly what she told current students and alumni.
“My advice to you is to start making stuff now,” she said earnestly (but while still wearing rose-colored glasses) in a video from Burbank. “Start writing, start a podcast. Figure out what you like, what you’re passionate about. It will help prepare you for college and for whatever you’re starting out in the industry. And if you do that, who knows – maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have a favorite project in Hollywood.
“I can't really pick favorites, but Green Eggs and Ham has provided me with a lot of personal growth in my career,” said Lynne. “There’s something really special about the show and I hope people enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it!”
Meg Lewis ’10
The impetus behind “LA in LA” really comes down to one alumna, who shared — at a Los Angeles LA Circle event in January 2018 — that she was working on the production of a film called A Quiet Place, which she thought had a chance to be a winner as it made its way to the festivals.
Later that year, as I watched the film’s meteoric rise from spec script to John Krasinski-backed blockbuster, I relished the opportunity to return to Hollywood to pick Meg Lewis ‘10’s brain.
I wanted to ask the young former Spartan, who is a creative executive at Paramount Pictures, “How did you get there from here?” So, in April 2019, Meg and I sat down with Lynne Hartwell ’08 (profiled on pg. 28.) inside a Los Angeles gastropub named Messhall Kitchen, a building that at one time housed Cecil B. DeMille’s Brown Derby restaurant.
Speaking of her employment at Paramount, and of A Quiet Place, Meg admitted, “We didn’t know how big it was going to be. It was always good. But it was really interesting when John Krasinski [Jim Halpert from The Office] came on. Before then it was ‘spec script’ with a great concept. (Two writers had an idea, wrote the script, and sold it). That’s when Paramount came in. And then John attached, and he took it and made it his own thing and made it into what the movie is now.”
At a fundamental level, Meg always seemed to know where her path would lead: “I was always interested in working in film and entertainment,” she said. “I guess in high school I just didn’t know what that looked like beyond ‘watching a lot of movies.’ I wanted to be an actor for a long time … Then I went to a summer conservatory program and hated every second of it. But I still wanted to work in entertainment, so I looked for other avenues.”
One of the first “avenues” was I-95, the highway that leads from Massachusetts to
Florida. “I ended up being a film major at the University of Miami,” she explained. “While I was there, I started interning, and I spent two summers in Hollywood. I learned, ‘Oh, there’s a whole gigantic business that sustains all of this.’ And that felt way more applicable to my interests and how I work.
"That’s the path I followed: the marriage of the business side and the creative team. I work out of an office, and I work for a studio. But you get to be creative, and you get to read scripts, and you get to give story notes and look at the footage,” Meg added. “So, you’re still getting to use those creative muscles.”
However, it wasn’t just creative muscles that got Meg from LA to LA. It was self-confidence, and finding strength in the community.
“The sense of community was so strong at Lawrence, and I could be involved in theatre and dance and still play sports and have other friends who had other interests,” said Meg, likening the close-knit but multifaceted community she found in Groton to a perfect warm-up for Los Angeles. “It can sometimes be stressful how small Hollywood feels, with what seems like everyone knowing everyone else’s business. But it’s also nice to experience the other side of that – the easy camaraderie that exists between assistants you came up with, and the close-knit sense of community it helps create.”
Who’da thunk it? LA being a lot like at LA …
Update at Press Time ...
A few months ago, my boss parted ways with ABC Studios. Since then, he has started a new production company, PKM Productions, where he is signed to an overall deal with Amazon Studios to develop and produce global content for the Prime Video platform. I am thrilled to say that I will be making this transition as well. And I am very excited for the new journey!
While at Lawrence Academy, Alex Vassilakos ’12 did her culminating Ninth Grade Program project on Disney Princesses, a fact that wasn’t lost on us as we drove the Ventura Highway for a Friday afternoon visit in Burbank, Calif. Now an executive assistant to the president of ABC Studios, Alex presents a commanding aura of royalty when she enters a room, deploying a shock of auburn hair (like Belle), a wide smile (Ariel), and an engaging countenance as she sits down for coffee.
“There are a few of us wandering around here,” said Alex, when asked if she realized how many LA grads are living and working in the greater LA area. “I see people all the time.”
Humbly, Alex credits simple timing for her own current standing in Hollywood: “It’s definitely playing your cards right and waiting stuff out,” she said with no music in her voice. “Everything’s about timing. If this job had not been open when I was looking for a job, I would have ended up somewhere else. People don't make positions for you. For example, I know that in finance, if a company really likes you, they’ll make a position for you. It’s just not the type of industry that we’re in.”
The industry she’s now in is, of course, entertainment. But a quick perusal of her senior yearbook shows a page of photos pulled together by Mom and Dad (“Dream big and reach for the stars! Love, Mom & Dad”): Alex the little ballerina. Alex the genie. Alex the Catwoman. Alex the Olympian. Turn the page, and there’s Alex in the dance show, and Alex in the play. “I knew that I wanted to be in television,” she explained.
“I knew that I wanted it to be at a network or studio, and I knew that there were places I didn’t want to work and there were places that I would love to work. ABC was at the top of my list.”
The rest, of course, is history. A good friend who was up for a job at ABC landed another position, so she recommended Alex, who, thanks to her agency work, was well prepared for her interview. “I told them, ‘I know every product you have in the pipeline. I’ve read everything. I know what’s happening,’” Alex said, adding, “It was kismet.”
Now, looking back, those fortuitous circumstances stretch a continent — from LA to LA — where Alex said she benefitted from some much-needed support. “I was just such a mess in high school,” she admitted with a laugh. “I think everyone is. I would not have gotten through that without my support system of teachers and friends and everybody around me.
“I think being at Lawrence taught me how to figure out who I was and stick to it,” she said — and that fits in perfectly with her sage advice to current Lawrence students: “Have an opinion, and have a voice. Let everybody know what you think. Not just about art and media, but about everything in your world.”
Around the Journal’s space in the Schoolhouse, the inside joke about our interview with Connor Gowland ’13 is that we never caught up with him while we were actually in Los Angeles. The guy is simply too busy to nail down!
“This is my office,” joked Connor, who filmed an advice video aimed at current Lawrence Academy students while in his car en route to another experience in LA. “I call this ‘my office’ because this is where I spend most of my time.”
A self-described “freelance editor, model, and actor” — perhaps best known to recent alumni as a member of the band The Cranks with twin sister Haley ’13 — Connor, with Haley, was named, “Most Likely to be Famous” in the 2013 Lawrencian. “I’m constantly driving to auditions and working in different towns and offices as a freelance editor,” he said, explaining that his current task list is long and varied.
“My biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants to work in entertainment or move out to Los Angeles is, ‘Don’t be worried about trying something and failing,’” Connor told current Spartans. “I’ve had so many jobs where my biggest takeaway was, ‘It wasn’t for me.’ But the greatest thing about coming out here and having so many interests is that you can try something new.”
Even before he moved to LA the city, the ability to try a bunch of things was a big part of Connor’s experience at LA the school. Today, Connor looks back at Lawrence as a place where students were not cemented into particular social roles and cliques — a place where it was okay to be part of several scenes. “I just remember transferring to Lawrence Academy and that kind of shocking me — like, going to the One-Acts and thinking, ‘Wow, everyone from the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams and hockey teams is
auditioning,’” said Connor. “It was kind of unheard of in my first high school, and I talked about it in college. People were like, ‘You did theatre and you also ran track and played lacrosse?’”
Determination, and an effort to make the most of his opportunities, remain on the front burner for Connor, who looks to take advantage of every moment in and around Hollywood. It’s a trait he said he developed at LA.
“I remember telling my friends in college, ‘When I was at LA, I’d be at school from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.’ I'm used to being ‘on’ for 13 hours a day. I was always kind of known for never having a free second, whether I was in class doing homework, working out, playing an intramural sport, trying out or practicing for a play, or getting ready for a music performance,” he explained of his high school and collegiate experience. “My days were booked to the minute all the time.”
