Nice Guys Finish Last
Hey, let’s just get this out of the way—there’s no nobility in being “the nice guy” in Hollywood. None. Getting passed over so someone with half your talent can land the role you were born to play? That’s not character, that’s a tragedy. Sure, people will pat you on the back and say, “Shake it off, there’ll be other chances. The cream always rises to the top.” Complete and utter bullshit.
This industry is ruthless. If you want to survive, you fight for every single opportunity. Preparation, confidence, and relentless perseverance—those are your weapons. Apologies and condolences can wait. The entertainment industry is cutthroat and will leave the “nice” in its dust before they even know the game started.
Hollywood runs on a toxic cocktail: right place, right time, nepotism, backroom deals, and dumb luck. Crap gets financed every single day. Absolute garbage is bought, sold, made, and distributed while brilliant talent goes unseen. Don’t hate it—study it. I’ve always pictured Hollywood as this glittering castle with a moat around it. And in that moat? The gatekeepers: casting directors, agents, managers, script readers. Their job isn’t to let you in—it’s to keep you out.
And yet, deals are happening every single day. Roles get cast, films get financed, scripts get picked up—while 99% of creative voices sit rotting in that moat. Not because they aren’t talented, but because the gatekeepers are drowning in scripts, pitches, reels, headshots. I once saw a documentary (if you know the title, let me know) where a guy walked through the mailroom of a major agency. He pointed at the mountain of screenplays in baskets stacked to the ceiling and said, “There are probably ten Academy Award-winning scripts in here. But no one has time to find them.”
That’s the truth. Those scripts are sifted by underpaid Ivy-League grads trying to climb the agency ladder, and they don’t give a damn about your work. They’re looking for shortcuts, same as you.
So what’s our job? To be the shortcut. To be the answer when they finally ask a question. If a studio exec, or a friend-of-a-friend, or even a low-level assistant asks anything—do it. Then do it well. Be prepared. Because that might be the one opening across the moat. If it isn’t, keep fighting until the next one comes.
Here’s the secret no one wants to say out loud: most people in Hollywood don’t actually have creativity or talent. That’s where we come in. Our job—our calling—is to save Hollywood from itself. Because the same broken cycle that keeps pumping out sequels no one asked for, or greenlighting $200 million “sure things” that bomb, is the same cycle that will one day make them desperate enough to need us.
Every studio wants a blockbuster. They just don’t know what it is until someone shows them. If you get in the room, show them—with every ounce of talent, fire, and conviction you’ve got. If you don’t, trust me, someone with way less talent will.
And you already know how that ends.
