Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following, we break those rules, and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more satisfied in the second half of our lives. I'm your host, Erin Keating.
I have been pushing myself to reconnect with some of the amazing people I've had the good fortune to know and work with over the past 20 years of my professional life. It's funny, I'm always happy to talk to folks about what I've been up to, and I'm eager to learn what's been going on with them, but I'm either on or off when it comes to having the will to initiate a catch up or a reconnection with someone I knew in a previous professional incarnation. When I feel that motivation, I never regret reaching out or being the one to initiate.
Talking to folks like my guest today makes me so grateful for every chapter of my professional life and the extraordinary people I've had the chance to collaborate with and learn from over the years. Why do I resist? I don't know. I will talk to my therapist about that.
My guest today is Laura Fischer, who is the co president of Feigco Entertainment, alongside Paul Feig, where she oversees the company's features and television slate, and is currently producing 'A Simple Favor 2' for Amazon. She previously produced 'Jackpot' for Amazon, and 'The School for Good and Evil' for Netflix.
For our listeners who may not be familiar, Laura works with Paul Feig, who directed Bridesmaids, which we talk about hilariously on this episode. Feig also directed 'The Heat' with Melissa McCarthy, 'Spy' with Melissa McCarthy, 'Ghostbusters', the controversial, controversial, in quotes, all female version, and also 'A Simple Favor', as well as the cult classic, comedy series 'Freaks and Geeks', and other space which Laura worked with him on at Yahoo when they were making original series.
Paul is beloved in the comedy industry, and you have probably seen and laughed at some of his work. Laura is also the CEO of Powderkeg, which is Feig's voice driven content company that champions new voices with a commitment to female and LGBTQ creators and filmmakers of color, which there should be so many more of in our industry. That's where Laura and I first crossed paths. We made a dramedy about mental health for Snapchat called 'Everything's Fine', which may be my favorite thing that I made in the hundreds of shows that I worked on when I worked for Snapchat for six years.
Laura and I talk about juggling career and motherhood and how, as a single mom, work is her first priority because everything else in her family's life is made possible by the work she does. We talk about how Laura manages to get so much done. She has a big job and a process she uses every week to make it all manageable. We talk about representation for women over 40 in Hollywood, which she and Paul do a lot to champion. Why she wants to make a horror comedy about motherhood. And how we always have choices, even if it doesn't always feel that way. All right, let's get hot.
Laura Fischer, welcome to Hotter Than Ever.
Laura: Thank you for having me. And Everything's Fine is so dear to my heart too. What a great show and what a great visionary you were for letting us do it with Snapchat.
Erin: Oh, thank you. I really, like, felt like I won when we were able to make that.
Laura: I know.
Erin: You know, when you're an executive, you do kind of the things they ask you to do and then you do the things you really need to do for yourself. And that was one of those you.
Laura: Finding like a very specific window where they were doing a mental health initiative and you were like, this is the window. We're going to make it. But you already had us in your mind. And I was like, that's good executive.
Erin: Thank you very much. I'm so happy to have you here. I mean, my experience working with you was such an extraordinary one. And you always seem to be managing so many projects, big and small for Paul Feig's company alongside the digital project that we made together. And I always just wondered, like, how is she doing this? Like, how is she juggling this enormous job plus being married and a mom to two young kids? Your kids were really young, I remember. I mean, this is a very intense and high profile life that you were living and are living with lots of travel and real time, kind of 24 hour day production demands in different time zones and you have a beloved bold faced name boss who means a lot to people in the industry, especially in the comedy world. So I just want to hear about, I want to hear about how you manage it and I want to talk about representation. But let's start with you.
How is it possible to do all the things that you do without losing your mind? Because I found that after 20 years of the kind of work at the, and also especially towards the end, the level of intensity, focus and drive that it took to pull off the careers that we're both living. Yeah, like, was too much for me. I, I really, I got laid off, but also I got burnout.
Laura: Burned out. Yeah. No, and usually I think those do go together, right? I mean, I technically got laid off at Yahoo, but I was so burned out too. And we were, Paul and I were talking about launching our company as well. But I think, I mean, yeah, usually when people ask me how I do it all, I just say accept failure. Like, accept like you're going to fail a little bit all the time and if you're too precious about it, you'll get hung up on it. But like, failure is just like kind of part of the game. So my philosophy has always been to just move really quickly through it, like fail fast because all you're doing is really experimenting and you're trying a couple of things.
So to me, it's like you set out a vision, you make sure you have everybody you need to get there, and then you assess if it worked and if it didn't, you just move on quickly to the next thing. Not to say we abandoned projects. We have projects that we've been with for years, but that's because we believe in the biggest fight for me internally and sort of being able to like accomplish a lot of different things and including personal life in that category as well, is that you have to have a clear goal and you have to communicate that goal and then that sets the priorities for how you spend your time. It's very easy to just be reactive in this business, and it is with a filmmaker like Paul. We're so lucky that we have a big incoming business model, right? We get a lot of scripts, we get a lot of calls, we get a lot of outreach, a lot of people coming our way. And that is a luxury and I'm so grateful for it. But at the same time, you could get stuck just in reacting, just receiving, right? And your whole day could be just responding to emails and so, or just responding to scripts that you've been sent. Versus how I start my week is like on Mondays.
I sit there with my notebook that is here and I write every little to do list that's on my mind because it is overwhelming on a Monday, right? I have a page for personal, I have a page for work, I have a category for all my projects and I write down exactly what needs to do. Then I meet with my team, I get more to do lists from them. I also am giving to do list. But then we're really clear on Monday how we're spending our time and what we're driving at on like a molecular level on each project, but also on a macro level of like, we now have this availability window and we're hunting, go get me something like this, right? And then we check in throughout the week on like a more in depth level where we talk about notes and we talk about, you know, projects and stuff like that. But I think that managing everybody's goals and visions in a company is the most important work to making sure that you're balancing a whole bunch of different things.
Erin: So yeah, I mean, that's a very practical, sensible, nuts and bolts approach that also has the purging effect because I Think a lot of us sit with this sort of spin of like, oh, and I need to. And I need to. And I. Oh, and that thing and the. Oh, and the kids and oh, and the vac. What are we. How are. You know, Like, I think we get hung up on the churn in our heads. And I'm a huge believer in fucking dump it. Just dump it on the page.
Laura: Got to put it all out. I mean. And by the way, it's also about knowing yourself, which is the benefit of being over 40. Indeed. And knowing that you're going to feel overwhelmed on Monday. On Tuesday, you're going to be inundated with new business because everybody woke up on Monday and was like, I got to get to that thing. And now it's on your plate Tuesday. And then by Wednesday, you get your foot under you.
Because I work from home on Wednesdays, so. So that I can be as effective as I need to. I don't drive into the office. I've carved out that time to just, like, be in whatever I need to be in and have what I would call an individual contributor day where I'm, like, reading scripts, I'm doing the work, the deep dive stuff that needs to be done. I pop back up on Thursday, get back into all the meetings, and on Friday, we're closing up business on the, like, things that we need to. So, I mean, it's, like, about knowing your own rhythm, too, and just going. It's okay to feel overwhelmed and you're going to get through it, but you're not going to feel overwhelmed on Thursday. You're going to feel good on Thursday because you've done your pattern.
Erin: There is no way on earth that your week works like that every week, though.
Laura: No. It goes so off the rails.
Erin: It sounds so clean.
Laura: It goes so off the rails. We all got Covid on, like, the day after Labor Day, and, like, the entire family was home. It was me and my boys. All of us had Covid. We had just gotten a puppy, which was a Foster and meant to be just a foster.
Erin: Adopted it because it never works out that way.
Laura: Cute. And then there was some home construction, renovation in the backyard, not going well. So it was also a heat wave. It was 115. We're all homesick with COVID and there's light jackhammering and a puppy biting my feet. I mean, you're just like, this is crazy. This is whole so crazy. But that's where you become okay with failure.
And you just go, this whole week is off the rails. We were chasing a big project. We didn't have a lot of clarity if it was going to go our way, way. And every single meeting I had got pushed. I mean, I was just needing to be on the phone constantly and in with the roller coaster that that project still is. It's like, we had it, we didn't have it. We. And so you just go, this whole week is going to be what it's going to be and we're going to try again next week.
Erin: Yeah. I mean, I. For a person who's as high achieving and driven and has so much responsibility like you do, like, what does failure look like? Embracing failure. I get it as a philosophy, but what does it look? What are the little fails along the way? Because we know that a big win is a collection of small wins. Right?
Laura: Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, I, I think that, like, failure can look like a lot of different things, but I think ultimately it's just not meeting your expectations. And I think as a mother, you have a lot of expectations for yourself, for your kids. So kind of daily going like, oh, right, I didn't email that, that football league about getting him on that team. Or like, I didn't make sure he did that homework or I forgot to like handle this thing or I. He really should be doing better at this. So I'm going to get this resource going. So it's like sometimes the failure is just going, like, I'm not paying attention to that part of my life for this day.
And going, we will get to the orthodontist. It's not going to be this week. Yeah. And you're going to be fine. So you kind of accept the failure of like, I wanted to do this right now and you can't. I also, you know, I have two of my own sort of personal businesses. Aside from the stuff they do with Paul.
Erin: Oh, sure. Because you have time for that.
Laura: It's. I might have a problem saying, no, Aaron, that's what we're really getting done to you. But there are things that get neglected and there's emails that go unreturned and it feels like a lot of like, little failures when people are like depending on you for a timeline or a deadline and you blow the deadline. But I am really clear about what my priorities are every week, every day and in a global sense. And my priority is work because it provides for my kids and it provides for me and it provides me with incredible satisfaction. My kids are second because they need me to provide for them. I love them, but they Are second in that way.
Erin: Can I stop you for one second? Though it's rare to hear a mom admit that, you know, when you are the primary breadwinner, when you are the everything, when you are a single mom, which you were not when I was working with you. You know, we're meant in the culture. We are. We are sort of told that we're mom first, everything else second.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And when you are a person who is super identified with their career and who has a lot of success in their career and gets a lot of satisfaction, joy, pleasure, nourishment, you know, self out of your career.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: You serve your kids better when you prioritize that. But it's. We are so shamed and so damned if you do, damned if you don't. As a mother who works, which is every mother, it's high. It's 2024 in, you know, neocon America. Like, this is where we live. We all have to work hard. So I'm glad to hear you say that because I think I would like to hear more moms.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: Say that.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, it's. I'm. I appreciate that point of view on it because I do think it's a little less popular to say it that way, but I don't think. I don't think people would question men for behaving that way, you know, and it doesn't question them. They don't. And it's that whole trope of a man in this. I'm sure everybody's had this experience where a man's like, looks at you on a business trip or looks at you for me, in production and is like, where are your kids? And I'm like, oh, my God. I know. I'm always like, oh, my God, I left the dog in charge. Do you think that's okay? Like, I hadn't thought of that. I'm an alarm.
Erin: I'm left in the house. I have an alarm.
Laura: There's a refrigerator, cameras, they're fine. And I'm lucky enough that I get to travel with my kids. I bring them with me to set for six months at a time. And I'm lucky that I have a partner that supports that. My producing partner, Paul, supports that, you know, because those are financial asks on a budget. But my kids are never not a priority. They are just not the first priority. So if it's a choice between keeping them in school here and doing a movie that feeds our entire life and all of our goals and all of ourselves, then we are going to go do the movie.
And they will find a school and I will find that for them and it'll be great. And most of the time. So that's how my decision tree works.
Erin: Wow, that's incredible. And your kids are how old now?
Laura: They're 8 and 9, third and fourth grade. So there is also a reality in the future where that is not going to be so easy to pick back up. But I've been aware of the last four or five years of making movies that I have that freedom right now. And they were also pandemic kindergarteners. So it was a lot less pressure too to be in that system. Because for us that system didn't function for like a year and a half in terms of in person school. So. Yeah, but there is a reality to like pulling them out of school in high school. That probably won't be it.
Erin: Yeah, I mean I. My kids are in eighth grade and there is no way. Everything is their friends, everything is their social life, everything is their assimilation into the group. I mean they really like that is. And you know, you were in middle school. That is the truth of what that is. And so. But I love that you're taking the time and the opportunity to do that also because you're shaping your kids to be children of the world, people of the world.
People who are agile, people who are able to handle different circumstances and different social dynamics and potentially different languages. You know, if you're shooting in another country, I just think that's a huge opportunity for them. But I think that's amazing that, that that's a juggle that you're able to do.
Laura: Yeah, I feel very fortunate that we're able to do it. And I don't do it alone. I have incredible resources through the movies, but also incredible teams of people. Great local assistants, great assistants here in the company that help it all happen. But it is, it is the, the pyramid of choice where I go, this is the right way to do it now. And it won't be. We evaluate it every time. And so you look at, like to go back to the earlier question, you look at the little failures.
What didn't go so well, what was hard, how can we make that better? We did one movie where the kids did homeschooling from their current LA school and we took it with them. That felt like a failure in certain ways for certain learning styles. And so the next time we did it, we enrolled in a full school for a full semester and made the schedule work that way. And that was a much better environment and much better success rate for the experience.
Erin: Yeah. What I'm hearing from you, too, is a willingness to do things the way works for your life and your family and your setup and not really holding too tightly to what convention would dictate.
Laura: Oh, yeah, no, definitely not. I mean, I was raised in 10. I was raised with plenty of convention. But at the same time, I think what I keyed into about production that I love so much is the question is always, how can it happen? And not like any other more conventional question about, is it the right thing to do? Is it right or wrong? Or is it perfect for me? Or is it like, it's just always, how can you make it happen? And that. That sort of willingness to just figure out something untraditional has worked in so many different ways. And going back to Everything's Fine, the show we did together, that was definitely a how can we make it happen? In a lot of ways? And that was the pandemic that we shot. That show with no protocol and no.
Erin: Covid budget, honestly, have blocked out so much that Covid production experience. And I, you know, I had the privilege of being the executive on that one and not being the nuts and bolts on the boots, on the ground, on the set, you know, trying to make sure that people complied with COVID production protocols that didn't really exist at the time. We were just sort of on the cutting edge of so many different things at that moment with that project. And also, I think if the work itself, if the storytelling and the quality level was not so high to begin with, and everybody wasn't so in love with the project and so invested in making it extraordinary, like, we would never have been able to suffer through all of the challenges. Like, yeah, when you compromise on quality, when you compromise on vision, this is a thing I think about all the time. Then you're fucked. Just out of the gate, like, because that's all you have. The only thing that leads to a beautiful product at the end is knowing that the thing is worth doing to begin with, and then also making really rigorous, challenging decisions and holding the bar really high every single step of the way.
And I remember the casting process for that project. And I know I wasn't easy to get approvals from because I wanted it to be the absolute best that I could picture for all of us. And I really feel so proud of who we ended up casting and how that ended up coming together. Same thing on the director search. I mean, the whole thing was, you know. Yeah. Was just like, how do we work together to make this the best it can Possibly be. And it was also a team of all women who were all at the top of their game and unbelievable women.
Writer, director, producer. So exciting. And this is not a show business podcast. This is a podcast about living your best possible life over 40. But I. I think there's something to the rigor of the way you work and the way that I work that really makes us proud of what we put out there into the world at the end of the day. And there's nothing. There's no better feeling than that.
Laura: Yeah, it's so true. And I think to your point, too, it's. It's definitely about having your whole team be aligned on what is the best, most uncompromising version of the creative. Because there are times, every part in the process, where you get a bit lost in it and you need somebody that tired. Yeah. Oh, the exhaustion level. And then, I mean, we always talk about how every movie is, like, giving birth in the sense that it's touch and go, and you think it's not gonna, like, go well, and then by the end of it, you're like, I'm never doing that again. And then after being home for a little while and then after seeing the cut and it's good and you love it, then you go, yeah, no, I'll totally do that again.
Like, your brain just forgets all the pain that you just went through, and you're just ready to jump back in again. But I think it's also just, you know, because it's so fulfilling, actually. Which is the same thing I would say for, you know, motherhood. You're like, oh, my God, never doing that again. And then you do it again, again and again.
Erin: I never did it again, But I had twins. So when my twin, I didn't need to. My cousin was like, you're a producer all the way through. I'm like, I know it. I know it. I made the two babies I wanted, but when they were 10 months old, I remember saying to my mom, they were so beautiful, and they were so, like. They were not. I was not worried they were going to die.
They were so robust, and they weren't walking yet. And they just would sit there in their little bouncy chairs and be beautiful and smile. And I said to my mom, I could have another set of twins.
Laura: Yep.
Erin: And she goes, where have you been this past year?
Laura: You know there's an actual hormone responsible for wiping our memory.
Erin: Oh, yeah, totally.
Laura: Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's the same thing that happens in filming, I think.
Erin: I think it happens romantic relationships too where you're like, all right, I'm never gonna. And then someone's real cute and you just get sucked back in.
Laura: Exactly, exactly. We're gluttons for punishment.
Erin: I mean, it's that beautiful amnesia. It's quite incredible. But I'm glad I only had the two. But, yeah, at the time, I really felt like I could so much love and magic here.
Laura: That's the beauty of a beautiful. Of a love based project. Right. Is that you. It feels endless. It feels like your resource is endless.
Erin: Yeah. Even though you're sweating it, you know.
Laura: Every second of the way. Yeah.
Erin: So let's talk about juggling marriage with this life that you have. Because that was always part of the. Like, I was like, wow, you know, I idealize people and I. I like look at other people's outsides and I compare them to my insides. So I just would look at you and be like, wow, she has this marriage, she has the kids, she has a career. She's really like. You're like, oh, my. I like idolizing that picture, which is obviously not real.
That's something I made up. So you were married, now you're not. What is your life like now versus what it was like then? How's it harder? How's it easier?
Laura: Yeah, it is very different, I think. You know, we were married for five years until my youngest was about a little under two. And so. And we were juggling a lot. I was starting powder keg, and I also had a parent who came down very early onset dementia at 64. So it was. It's okay. It was just this very unexpected.
But, you know, everybody knows what that means, just caring for an elderly parent, except for maybe 20 years more sooner than you thought you were going to do it. And so it was a lot to juggle. And I think, again, it was this exercise in getting really, really clear on, like, what the vision for life was. And, you know, Jeff and I got to a place where I think it was healthier for the whole family to be, like, changing our dynamic and to change our situation. It was certainly not without pain, and it was certainly not without, like, moments of feeling like failure. Like, this is not what it is, you know, what we thought it would be. But at the same time, I think what the opportunity is, is to redefine what does work. And in a lot of ways, it was sort of like renegotiating, like the next 10 to 18 years.
And we did that really well. And we're really happy with our dynamic now. I think we still spend time together as a family. We go to the cabin or we go to on vacation together. And when our kids draw pictures of the family, it's the four of us. And whoa. We talk every day, most days. But, you know, not to over idealize it, of course, we're still like divorced and we don't hold a lot of, like, intimate space for each other, but we function really well for the purposes of raising our kids together.
And at the end of it, I know I'm going to look at him and go, we did it is you and I, bud. Like, we did this. And this is really awesome and really beautiful. He's my partner in it all. No matter what, when that is probably a misnomer of the process of divorce, you never stop being in relationship with that person. You absolutely are. You're just redefining it.
Erin: If you have kids.
Laura: Yeah. Yes, exactly. You're right. If you have kids, of course. No, if it's. If you don't have kids, good luck. Bye.
Erin: Bye. See, I wouldn't want to be.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. So I think that it was more about redefining things. And a friend had sent me an article maybe after the pandemic, and I was well into the divorced phase of my, you know, newly divorced phase of my life. But it was this woman who was writing an op ed about how she had kind of like, like nailed parenting her teen during the pandemic. And she was talking about these different situations with her kids and how she felt like she had handled it really well. And at the end of the article, she's like, I know it's because I'm a single parent and I do not have to balance coming home and dealing with another person's needs besides my kids. And she's had also mentioned some successes at work. And it was such an optimistic take on a divorced single parenting life that I do share it with people going through the same thing that I do have more time.
I have more time because it's just me. It. Of course, there are things that I know would be easier. There are times where I'm packing us for vacation. Very specifically, packing for vacation or unpacking from vacation. I'm like, this is the Olympics of single parenting. Getting like two kids under 10 in and out of a car with like a whole vacation plan, hosting people at like, you know, a thing we planned. There are things where I'm like, man, another adult would be so helpful here.
But at the end of the day, I know that I come home, put the kids to bed, make dinner, all those things. And then I get my time at the end of the night. And whether that's reading or watching something that I need to watch, or like, just having, like a crash out night, there's absolutely no other complicating dynamic to that. And same thing with my weekends. And it's just allowed a lot of space for me to, like, prioritize the things that I've already talked about here, you know? Yeah. So it fit really well together, but it is very different. And it's. There are places where you can see, man, a partner would be really amazing here. But without it being the right partner, that fits into the whole vision. It certainly is not worth pursuing.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. For me, that's the most liberating thing about divorce has been not carrying someone else's emotional weight, not being responsible for someone else's well being, even though we know we're not responsible for their well being. You do get cast in a certain role in a marriage and you get made responsible for things that maybe aren't yours to carry. At least that was what I experienced for.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: You know, friend. In a relationship that lasted almost 20 years, you know, and then my story was that I got really sick with COVID and I had like a. Went to the hospital and had like a life reassessment where I was like, why does this feel like Canyon Ranch? Like, why am I so happy to be alone with these IVs in my arm?
Laura: Like, while you were sick with COVID That's 100.
Erin: That's incredible. I was like, oh, something's wrong with my life. If this is a relief, good for.
Laura: You for paying attention to that feeling, though. Good for you.
Erin: I had to get really, really sick, though. I had to get really, really sick. And I think that is what happens to a lot of people.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: Especially women. We load so much onto ourselves and we think, I can handle more, I can do more. I'll do it. I'll handle it. And then we get sick. And statistically, that's what we're starting to see. Yeah.
Laura: Stress of it all.
Erin: Yeah. That stress is the killer. And so, you know, for me, that was like the first sign that, like, this actually let this life. These choices I had made were really not working.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And one by one, I got separated that I got laid off. And then I was like, oh, wow. I. Life has handed me a blank slate. Like, you know, and I turned 50, like, at the same. Like, in the same window. And I was like, okay, like, what does that mean? What is. What is possible now.
Now that I'm this person, you know, at this point, these accomplishments and having gone on the journey that I've gone on, what does life look like now for me if I get to choose? And I think that's the reason I started the podcast. Those are the conversations that I have here, because I think we're asking ourselves these questions in this weird moment we're in. Culturally, historically, technologically. We're the most successful generation of women who have ever lived on planet Earth. We're the most accomplished, and yet we. A lot of my peer group. Your peer group, is feeling like, what am I? How am I supposed to do this? Like, there's nothing that feels stable about anything, you know?
Laura: Yeah. I mean, the most successful generation of women is a wild sentence. I haven't really ever thought about it that way. And what does that mean for us? But what you just described is so empowering because you saw the ability to create out of. Out of that opportunity of, like, sort of taking away. And I think a lot of my. I have friends in various stages of marriages and divorce and things, and I think the biggest fear I hear consistently is, like, that they don't know what's on the other side.
Erin: No, we don't.
Laura: And I always tell people, like, you have to be sure that you're going to take the opportunity to create what's on the other side. Or don't jump. Like, just don't jump. If you're not sure, just don't jump then. Because not everybody can see the other side, you know, when you start, and that's fine, but you have to see that there's at least a light at the other end of the tunnel, and then. And then everything else is something that you can create from it. And I've never been happier or more grounded or centered or just, you know, I've also probably never been busier at the same time. But I feel in my own skin, and I hope. I don't know if you feel the same, but you certainly look like you feel that way by the way you describe your change.
Erin: Yeah, I feel in my own skin. I feel in my own voice, too, which is an interesting thing. When you've worked for corporations like I did for 20 years, even in the, you know, deeply creative capacity that I worked in, you do have to toe the party line, and you can't really speak truth to power. And you, you know, you're selling your licensing, your voice and your advocacy, your enthusiasm. I'm a very passionate, enthusiastic, and convincing person and have been compensated for that in my life, you know, as I know you have too. So, you know, that's the ma. The biggest liberation. Not in addition to having my own agency around my time. And what I choose to make of that time is also just being able to say what I really fucking think.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And it was very exhausting to work in the tech boys club and not be able to call out the epic amount of bullshit. Also, I drank the kool aid like 100% when I was there. Right. So I. I believed in the mission of our team. Not necessarily of the company overall, but the. The team certainly. And I believed in the stocks and I really believed in the paycheck.
Laura: They're counting on it. That is how that is structured. And yeah, I mean, I definitely felt like a bit of a detox period after working at Disney for eight years and then Yahoo for four or whatever and then going out on my own. It was the. It was like the whole sky opened up and like everything was an option. And I just actually we had a little reunion with my old ABC co workers because we had a really close team and also believed in that vision of that team and ran that team for many years. And I have to say, like, I think each one of them in different timelines has come to the same realization. And it's been awesome to watch them launch their own businesses and go on to sometimes other roles at other companies, but everybody sort of finding that they look back on that time almost like an abusive relationship, as it was just described to me by one incredibly talented creative person on that team who worked for the man and was happy with the sort of equation there in what everybody was getting provided.
But at the end of the day, never really was made to feel his full potential because that is threatening to the company mission. And that is the thing that, like, I'm so excited when somebody does leave their stable corporate job, however creative that you can feel. You're a different way of looking at yourself and your. What you're possible. What's capable, you know, and what. What you can do.
Erin: Yeah. Because you don't have to deliver inside a box of. That's prescribed.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: I mean, SNAP was very, very entrepreneurial. And so I got to do all kinds of crazy there that I would never have been able to do at a normal company. So grateful for the team and the time and, you know, and the resources and the house. I bought like all of the things. But also, you know, once I. Once it was over, it was like total ptsd. Like, whoa. Like, whoa.
We were all working like this was the most important thing. And we were all working like we were trying to elect Kamala Harris president of the United States of America.
Laura: Oh, my gosh. You know, when you pull back, you're like, wow, I gave that 120%.
Erin: Yeah. And I was hiding there, too. I was hiding from marriage. I was hiding from the stress of my domestic life and from the things that weren't working. And thank God, sometimes men have historically always done this with work and with. In a certain class of men, golf or fishing or whatever, they go to their safe space. And for me, work has always been that.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And I always have felt like I'm looking for other women who feel that way, because not every woman feels that way. And I think we've been lucky enough to be part of a professional class of women who have really been able to shine in those contexts.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, I think that's the kind of difference in the phases of your career, for me, at least, is like, you know, you're sort of open to any opportunity when you're younger and going for anything because you're just dying. For me, I was just dying for experience. I was dying to know how to do something. And I learned by doing. Very much so. And especially in a creative endeavor, I think you show what you know by doing as well. And that is the real currency you trade in is, like, actually getting it done and how.
How well you got it done. So I would just do anything and everything. But I think as you sort of go along, if you don't progress into a situation of going, what do I want to do? And how am I going to do it? Then you can kind of just get stuck and trapped. And it does feel dissonant after a while. You know, just being an individual contributor to A Bigger Machine did feel that way for me.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. So let's pivot the conversation a little bit to the work you do with Paul. And Paul Feig is known as someone who loves funny women and who loves to work with women. And, you know, I think most of the listeners to this podcast have probably seen Bridesmaids at the very least. Right. So we're talking about someone who revels in the distinct and specific ways in which women can be extraordinarily funny and also emotionally true. I think he sort of does that stuff side by side in a way that very few filmmakers do.
And you started Powder Keg Together, which was. Had a mission of championing women, LGBTQ voices, people of color, filmmakers of color. And so I Want to extrapolate that conversation to women of a certain age, because what I have seen and what the Geena Davis Institute reports and all the research in the industry is like, women over 40 disappear from our screens. Our stories aren't told. Certainly stories that are not about crime are very rarely told for us or to us. Oxygen Network is now only crime. The biggest podcasts out there that women listen to are crime. I am, like, on a soapbox about the crime stuff because I feel so mad about it.
Laura: Toxic.
Erin: Yeah. When there are. When it's so bad for us, when you're falling asleep to stories of, you know, rape and whatever, murder, like, spousal abuse. I don't know how the. Like, I do not know how that happened. I do think in my most conspiratorial, anti patriarchal self, like, I do believe that that is a social control mechanism. What I started hotter than ever to do is to celebrate stories about, by and for women who are in this phase of life, because we are so rich and so complex, and there are so many funny, wonderful, and terrible things that are happening to us. And now Paul is older.
The women that he loves working with are older. Melissa McCarthy is someone who you guys have worked with over and over again. So I. I just. I want to open that conversation to the idea of representation, what it means, what it can do, and. And why we don't see more representation of women in our demographic.
Laura: Yeah, I think it was really interesting watching the Emmys this last weekend, because when Hacks won for best comedy, it was a bit of a surprise, Right?
Erin: God bless Jeans.
Laura: God bless.
Erin: That show is so brilliant.
Laura: And Paul and Lucci and Jen, who make it, are incredibly smart and talented. And I think when they won, Paul was saying. Paul Daniello, that was saying that, you know, something like 40% of our population is over 60, but only 3% of TV leads are over 60. And that is the age of the characters, like, 63. And I think it was such a poignant point to make about how representation matters and this population is aging and why aren't we telling the story of what their experience is like and not telling it, you know, making sure that we tell it in a way that's, like, authentic and exciting and aspirational even. Yeah. Gritty and complex and complicated and not just like, okay, boomer tone of like, you know, why didn't you. Why don't you understand technology or something? Which are a lot of sitcom pitches that we hear in that space.
And so I think it's wild to me, Kate Winslet also had another quote. Sorry I'm citing so many people, but I think a lot of people in the industry have thought about this. Kate Winslet has often responded to people saying that she looks great at her age and aging gracefully, like positivity, by saying, like, why do you guys think that we will not get better with age? That is wild. Like, that is the problem is that assumption. And I would say the same thing for representation on screen. Why are we assuming that women would not be funnier, more interesting, and more entertaining? Honestly, with experience and age, we have so many more stories. We have so much more life experience. Our life is constantly getting so complicated that, you know, those are the stories that those are the areas you want to mine.
I think that, you know, coming of age stories are great, but at the same time, like, that's just one category of life. There should be all the other categories of life. And I think, you know, t'polls, I think visionary foresight for entertainment was. He would. The kind of concept for powder keg clicked in for him when, you know, from the TV writing rooms, of knowing that he would write a joke, certain structure joke, and then in a writer's room, somebody younger or different, with a different point of view would pitch that joke back with their point of view and the whole room would laugh. And he was like, right, there's a different generation, but it's the same trade of comedy. So, like, why don't we start powder Keg to hear all those new, different ways to tell the same joke? Right? Like, everybody sees humor in certain situations, but the newer, fresher voice on that, which, again, newer, fresher can be absolutely applied to women of a certain age, you know, because we haven't heard it before. So it is new.
And fresh has nothing to do with how brand new you actually are in years. It's just an unexpected point of view. And that was always our premise for making comedies through powder keg, was that if it was unexpected, you would laugh if you know what's going to happen.
Erin: Comedy is surprise. Yeah.
Laura: Yes. If you know it's going to happen. If you know that joke is coming, you are a lot less likely to think it's funny. You feel above. You feel above it because you're not coming. So if it's fresh and surprising, that's. Those are the real, like, hallmarks for us in terms of trying to find, like, interesting comedy projects. And, you know, Paul also grew up in an era where his mom watched a lot of films from the, like, 20s, 30s, 40s, like a lot of classic films.
And those women had gumption. Those women were strong and moxie. Yes. All the words. And he was like, why did that ever go away? Like. And that was sort of his driving principle at the kinds of films that he was attracted to is telling, like, three dimensional female stories, which is what we do at FeedCo, and just telling those complicated character stories, but telling it with heart so that you stay in it and along the way. Yeah, yeah.
Erin: So funny. I mentioned Bridesmaids to my mom, who's 80, and she's like, but there were all of those fretboy jokes in there. And I was like, are you just thinking about the pooping part?
Laura: Just that one scene?
Erin: Yeah, maybe.
Laura: So funny. That's so funny. Paul and I talk about that scene all the time for two different reasons. 1. One reason is the test audiences hated that scene when he made the movie. They hated it. They would say it was gross, it was too far. It wasn't like, cut that out.
Like, because they ask you all kinds of questions in a test audience. And. And he would always go back to the tape and watch the audience. Because when you're doing a test screening or videotaping with night vision, everybody watching it, amazing. And it's.
Erin: I don't think the audience to this podcast probably knows that.
Laura: Okay, so we go back and watch the tape of the audience watching the movie, and it synced to the movie so you can see how they react to certain jokes.
Erin: So fun.
Laura: So Paul would watch the audience at that scene and they would have massive reactions. Big fun laughs, cringe, all the whole thing. And he was like, I'm not cutting it out. I'm not cutting it out. He calls it the greasy burger conundrum, where you look at the burger and you're like, that looks so good. You eat it. And then you're like, oh, that was gross. I can't believe I ate it.
And it was the same principle of like, I can't believe I laughed at that. That was a lot of poop jokes, Frat boy humor, as your mom said, and you feel embarrassed, but it brought you to tears. And it is, you know, of course, the number one scene that everybody remembers.
Erin: Oh, I remember, like, crying with laughter.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And also being like, oh, God, the discomfort. A vein in comedy, this mind throughout time is discomfort, right?
Laura: Yes.
Erin: Uncomfortable circumstances. They just body humor on top of that is like, oh, my God.
Laura: Yeah. The other thing we always talk about with that scene is the reason it's so funny is because you have one character saying, nothing is wrong, wrong. And everybody else has evidence that something is very wrong. And that is why you're laughing. That is just the fundamental tension of comedy. And to, to, you know, your point about applying this to women of a certain age, like, nothing is funnier than like somebody being like, it's, there's nothing wrong. And our lives are so complicated. Constantly, like lying to yourself, that's wrong.
Erin: But isn't that the condition of being a woman where you're like, you know.
Laura: It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. We're gonna hold it together. Right. And then it is so fun to laugh at it falling apart. And to that end, there should be more stories with women over 40, over 60. Like, because our, our stakes are so much higher when things fall apart, it can be very funny.
Erin: That's such a great point. The stakes are really high for us. The stakes are really high for us in terms of change, in terms of what we're trying to hold together. The house of cards that we've built, the plates we're spinning, whatever the metaphors are. And I think there's a certain, there's a certain group of actresses and a certain kind of movie that gets made, the 80 for Brady or the Book Club or whatever. But those women are much older and there's about six of them. Get that, get all the parts. And they're extraordinary. But the main premise of those movies is, look at these old ladies doing inappropriate things.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: If we were able to add depth, nuance, complexity, a storytelling sophistication, a filmmaking sophistication, to layer that on top. Like, you know, even when you look at the Anne Hathaway movie where she dates the hot young rock singer, which is called Idea of youf, the Idea of youf. One of those, one of those titles that are like, you can count on me. One of my favorite movies, but I'll never ever remember the name. It's just sort of an abstract sentence with the wrong kinds of words.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: Everyone I know watched that Anne Hathaway movie, even though she was not a believable 40 year old. Whatever. Wasn't believable at all. But it's the one movie I've reviewed on this podcast.
Laura: Nice.
Erin: Because I kept. Everyone was telling me about it and it was not marketed. And it's just like, like anything with Judi Dench in a hotel or Helen Mirren, like, doing anything. Like there is a group of people who will come out in force to the actual movie theater or, you know, or tune into the show and talk to their friends about it. And for some reason, and I'm curious what you think that reason is. We are discounted as a consumer demographic. We don't get advertised to directly. We don't get programming made specifically for us unless it's crime.
And I'm curious what you think the marketplaces responsibility and also fear is of saying yes to projects that celebrate or highlight us.
Laura: It is confounding to me that we are still in this place in 2024 about female programming. It has to do with the decision makers. I remember pitching for funding for Powder keg. I pitched 60 rooms, all men for financing of that project. And I was sitting there saying women are funny. This is a post. Harvey Weinstein world is MeToo was just starting. But Bridesmaids had been hugely successful in 2012.
Ghostbusters was out and successful by the way, despite the kind of like counterculture online troll troll situation that happened. And you know, I could see in their faces that they weren't sure because it was too new. And that was okay in 2016 when I was doing that. I can understand the like kind of resistance in 2024. It is wild to me that there is still so little theatrical programming, so little female driven programming. And I think even places like Amazon buying Idea View and making Idea View with the initiative that they know they need more female driven programming. And so to that end like I think they deserve some credit for like doing it. But I think the real problem is, is that Hollywood has a very, very old guard still running the studios and the tech companies.
And I think Wall street has demanded that of the companies, they have demanded Iger stay. They've demanded people to stay in those positions that are into their 70s and 80s, which was sort of unheard of.
Erin: I mean the same thing that's happening in the government. It's a democracy and it's.
Laura: I haven't heard that yet.
Erin: Oh yeah, absolutely. That's 100% what it is. And it's the boomers who will not get out of the way. Get out of the way.
Laura: Especially in a tastemaker business, you know, and, and I think also in a public policy business, of course, because you're representing people, we're representing the audience. That's what we're supposed to be doing. And in the same, same way that you know, politicians supposed to represent their constituency, like that is where you need to be of the people and you need to be of the current mindset. I mean new line in the 90s, everybody there was in their 30s and 40s and look at the incredible movies they made title after title that have become icons. Those were all risks, though, that somebody in that zeitgeist and of that age will do. And I think that it does come down to having women in those positions of decision making, having women in those positions of power. But also quit looking at the female sector as a separate business entity that needs to be evaluated. Just make stories for the population, which is 60% female.
And they turned Barbie upside down into a massive hit against all tracking expectations. And I, when women show up, it is a successful movie. It ends with us. Has experienced that. And you know, I think that it is just really wild to me that we still get evaluated as an if not a guarantee. And we, when we do our test screenings, when we track our projects, we always make sure that we score. If we're not scoring well with women over 35, we go back to the drawing room and we fix it in the edit until we get that. Because if you don't have that, you actually don't have the household.
In my opinion, it doesn't really matter who else can turn on Amazon or turn on these other places. If you don't have the mom in that house going, that was actually really good. You don't have anything.
Erin: I love hearing that. I love hearing that. And you know, from your mouth to show businesses ears. Which is my hope for our generation is that, you know, that we are able to step into those seats of power where we really, I mean, look, they let us run everything. They just don't let us control everything. Right. So we don't. We're not on the boards and we don't run the hedge funds and we don't control Wall street and that.
But we are the labor that fuels the economy in so many ways and in so many industries. Industries. And we're the leadership teams as well.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And so, you know, God, fucking give us some laughs, for God's sake.
Laura: Exactly. No, I completely.
Erin: More than anyone, we need some laughs.
Laura: I couldn't. Couldn't agree more. And I think that, you know, bit by bit, this industry's had a lot of. A lot of setbacks. Right. With COVID and also with the writer strike that took programming down for nine months. And you know, I think that, like, that has made everybody a bit disoriented is maybe the best way to say it. I also think we're in the middle of a contraction, which was happening kind of anyways.
Erin: Absolutely.
Laura: Because of the. After every peak there's a contraction. But I do think that bit by bit, people are seeing the continued success of Female Driven Content. And I even hate classifying it that way because. No, it's terrible, right, that anybody can watch Female Driven Content, even if they are not a female, and enjoy it.
Erin: I mean, we. We do it with Men Driven Content our entire lives.
Laura: Constantly.
Erin: And then like, I don't wanna. I don't wanna watch. You know, what did I go see? I went to see Bad Boys 2 or 7 or whatever it was. It's. It was fun. It was fun, but it was so violent and it was so macho in so many ways. And we were in Hawaii, it was raining. We needed something to go to.
I thought Deadpool would be too much. I ended up that too. It is. It's better. But we are basically expected to care about Star wars and shit like that, which, like, I just. I just don't.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: And I think men can, like, have feelings and care about stories that have women in them. Like. Yeah, their lives have women in them. Yeah, they don't hate that.
Laura: Exactly. Exactly. And I think. I think, you know, Netflix has an interesting philosophy in programming where they're like, we don't actually care who. Who we think is. This movie is for. It's about who's actually going to turn it on. Because people do behave very differently in secret.
And they have some really interesting data around who's actually watching. What you would deem a chick flick. Right. Is not just chicks, but only they hold that data, you know, and they're kind of holding it close to the vest. But I do appreciate that, like, they know that it spreads and they know that people will watch outside of what their expected norm is. Now, will they go by it? A movie ticket outside the norm? Maybe not. That's a bit more of a public experience. But in private, they will choose, very surprisingly.
Erin: But if they were more public with that information, if they shared that data.
Laura: Across, it could change the industry decision.
Erin: Makers would change the way that they approach green lights. And yeah, you know, that is what we. That is what, you know, I certainly hope for. I know what you and Paul are always gunning for. You've done so much, but you're still so young. You may have 30 more years of your working life ahead of you. You know, I think most of us have a lot more time than we think of our working lives because we're gonna live longer and we're not gonna get uninterested in the world and making things. And we're also gonna be more skilled and have more expertise.
Are there projects, ambitions, personal or Professional that you're still burning to accomplish stories that you're dying to tell.
Laura: Yeah.
Erin: Curious about that.
Laura: Absolutely. I. There is a lot that I'm dying to do. I mean, I'm 41 now. I feel like the next 10 years are, I would hope, my most productive years yet ahead of me. And, you know, I've started late into the movie business from a lot of non traditional routes.
Erin: Yeah.
Laura: Through digital media and TV and entrepreneurship and everything else. So there are so many more movies I want to tell the story of. I think there's interesting biopics and women that have gotten written out of history that I think are so entertaining and interesting. We have a script about the one woman who was in Butch and Sundance Wild Bunch just wasn't in the movie. And it's a true story. This woman named Laura from Texas that got the nickname the Thorny Rose, planned the biggest heist they'd ever pulled off.
Erin: That's interesting how much fun that movie would be to watch.
Laura: Exactly. And she's whip smart and a con artist and a great shot. And just there's. There's really interesting ways to get across the point that we. That three dimensional women are worth being in the front of a big project. And we have a couple of books that I really love. There's. I'm dying to see a very, very authentic version of a comedy centering around moms.
Laura: I just, I hate the shortcut version.
Erin: Oh, every single one is the shortcut version.
Laura: Yeah, I really hate the shortcut version. I. To me, it almost has to be like a horror comedy because it's just both all the time. You know, I was just on a call with a writer creator who's a mom, and I love her. We were talking about this book we have, and I always tell this story about when we try to aim at a horror comedy. I think it's the most authentic way to embody any human experience, actually, because we're living on both equations all the time. And especially as a mother, it's a bit of whiplash. But one night my son screamed and I was sleepy, woke up, ran into the hallway.
He standing there in the middle of the hallway, completely still holding his hands over his mouth. And I can. I can see blood coming down from his hands. And I first. First thought was like, is this a monster? It's my son. That's blood. And I was like, are you okay? And he's like, I have a nosebleed. And I was like, okay.
Like, I know how to fix this. And like my brain starts to wake up. And then I'm like, were you picking your nose in the middle of the night? And he's like, maybe. And I was like, this is not an emergency. You were sleep nose picking. And now I'm cleaning blood off the floor at 3am Go back to bed and put your hands down. Like, where are these gloves? Exactly. Just the whole experience is so visceral and changes so fast. As a mother, I'm dying to do a comedy that like can encompass all of that.
Erin: So I'm ready, I'm here for it. It's such a bodily experience and it's just no one tells you, but the biggest laughs I've ever had in my life have had to do with baby poop. Like really just fucking. The most disgusting projectile things that have ever happened. The mishaps, you know, the. I mean, just so much more unpredictable. So many scenes from my twins babyhood that like I was literally double crying with laughter because it was so disgusting.
Laura: I can't imagine with twins, like I had one at a time and I still got like a million poop stories to come out of motherhood with. It's, it's so true. So I mean those are, those are definitely stories I want to tell and I think we just want to make people laugh. But I think the real currency we trade in today is authenticity. And in a world where baby reindeer can be like a dark horse and win everything, it's about authenticity to Richard Gad's point too. And we, we owe that to motherhood. We have not done that yet.
Erin: Yeah. Amen to that. I love it. What do you want our listeners to know about what their options are, what their choices are at this stage in their lives? Any words of wisdom and if you don't have any, fair enough.
Laura: Well, I, I'm sure your listeners span a really wide swath of ages and where they are, but I think the one universal truth is that you have a choice. No matter what, you have a choice. There is a choice in front of you in every situation today, even if you feel trapped, there is actually a choice. And so I think the most useful exercise, whether it's career, professional, like development or personal life, is like, how do I feel about this? That tells you where you are. That's your compass. It is by no means what you should do about it. Right? Like, let's not get those confused. Your emotions can tell you where you are, but they're not going to tell you where to go.
And then you need to assess what's going on and really figure out what your A and B choices are. There's always a choice. And I think if more women felt empowered to make that choice to like do the different thing, I think we would be a bit louder in all of our respective areas and be a bit more effective.
Erin: That is very deep. That is very deep. We have a lot of choices to make and a lot of things that mitigate whether or not we're willing to make them. And so inspired by you, Laura. This conversation has been wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to share your story and the mission of the work that you're doing. Just really grateful you came on today.
Laura: Well, thank you for having a podcast centered on women like this and stories that where this can exist. I mean, what a beautiful thing you're doing with this platform, this podcast. So it's been so fun seeing you and talking to you.
Erin: You too. You too. Take good care.
Laura: You too. Bye
Erin: Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with the fabulously passionate and clear headed Laura Fischer and took away some inspiration from how she speaks.
Stay focused on goals, priorities, and finding a way to make things work spoken like a true producer. If you were inspired by this conversation, why not share it with the other high achieving women in your life or the women, you know, who are on the verge of something great. Nothing makes me happier than when a friend sends me a podcast episode with the note, this made me think of you.
And if you haven't ever commented on any of our posts on Instagram, start that conversation now. And I promise I will respond directly to you within a week. Is that a compelling proposition? How does that sound? Comment on our posts, drop us a note, and let us know if this conversation spoke to you.
Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and podcast productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.
Have a fantastic week. I'm going to go to work on my goals and priorities for the end of the year. I'm sure you'll hear all about that in a future episode, since I do have the tendency to overshare.
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