How to Get Coffee in Hollywood
So, a week ago Friday, I tote my laptop down to the outdoor cafe nearest my house. It’s one of those places that exemplifies Los Angeles’s biggest advantage during this contagious era: the weather. It’s January, but except for the masks, this coffee shop looks much like it did two years ago. And on the day in question, it sounds like that, too — by which I mean, the place is set to Industry Networking Mode, dial turned to the max.
I get my coffee — just a little half and half, no sugar, “for here” — and before I even find a table, I cross paths with a guy who’s stepped away from his companion to answer the phone. “I’m here with Julie figuring out how to finance the movie,” I hear him say to whoever’s on the other end. He returns to Julie a minute later, rolling his eyes.
I sit down, dodging a hanging succulent that’s grown down to eye-level. Kitty-corner from my new outpost, two bearded men — one wears a man-bun and brown leather boots, the other has New Balance sneakers and matching striped socks — talk about set work. “So, what do you want to do? You were telling me you want to direct?” Boots asks Sneakers.
So we’ve got the producers, the directors. Now the writers pipe up. Across from me, a young woman is describing her transition from “support staff”1 to getting her first script on the show she’s working on. Of course, she’s still technically support staff. But now, she gets a writing credit...and she also has to/gets to squeeze the time to write a TV script into her spare hours. “I’m hoping to find some kind of representation in the next few months, because I can’t do this support thing anymore.” I hear her say. “It’s so exciting, because I love TV. But I also can’t stay excited for long.”
The conversation over at the Beards table wafts my way once more. “I can’t get behind RGB,” Boots argues. He’s talking about color models now? Maybe these guys are camera team...
It hits me: This is it. This is life in Hollywood. You meet and talk. You dream and complain. You try and strike a livable balance between art and money. You try and not let the business of it all sour the romance of it all. No matter where you are on the continuum of your career, these are the building blocks.
I’ve been overhearing conversations at this coffee shop for seven years. In that time, my relationship to the conversationalists, and to Hollywood, has reshaped itself over and over again. There were times when I was sure that everyone I heard was a “more legit” industry person than I was. There were times when I was certain that they were all full of shit. Now, I find myself thinking that both must be true. Legit and full-of-shit are part of the balance. Legitimacy is mostly a mindset; and one must be full of something — full of beans, full of chutzpah, full of oneself — to fuel this ride.
Maybe I’m extra dialed in to this wavelength humming all around me because my own career path is about to take a bend.
This will be my last coffee shop day before starting a new, full-time job as a podcast producer. Like, a professional podcast producer. Producing podcasts about movies and the entertainment industry. While my days of creative hustling are far from over, I expect they’ll look a little bit different from my new perch. Maybe I won’t be as hungry. I worry about that. Maybe I won’t feel as jaded. That would be nice. It’s a creative job, an entertainment industry job, but also a steady job, with regular-ish hours. It’s more...sensible, I guess, than this world of coffee-shoptalk.
Or so I assume. For all I know, half these people are on a lunch break or just flexing their hours while they work from home as customer service representatives. Maybe they’re bored parents or wealthy nephews or film-school freshmen or lawyers playing hooky. This is another tried-and-true facet of life in Hollywood: making up stories about the people around you and their wild, lucky lives, free from whatever problems or roadblocks you’re facing down.
And it’s not just a “Hollywood thing,” I know it’s not. Everywhere you go, to dream and complain, to assume others are achieving what you’re not…it’s just a part of the human condition.
We just wear it on our sleeves here. And we have these outdoor coffee shops all year long.
In TV, this refers to some kind of assistant — writers’ assistant, script coordinator, writers room production assistant