After 26 years at UK production powerhouse Working Title, New York-born Liza Chasin founded the film and television production company 3dot Productions in 2018. She arrives in Toronto with the international premiere of The Friend, a drama starring Naomi Watts that is adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s novel, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 2018.
3dot has a first-look feature deal with Netflix and a first-look TV deal with Fifth Season. Chasin’s credits include Stillwater and The Lost City, and she served as executive producer on About A Boy and Darkest Hour, among others.
What is your office like?
I live between Ojai and New York City and have home offices in both. Since I started my company, I have been on location more than I have been in one place. So my “office” is a room with an ever-changing view. My 3dot team is in Los Angeles and New York and we gather when we’re in the same city.
What is the first thing you do when you sit down at your desk each morning?
Before I get to my desk, if I’m in the same city as my husband and dog, the first thing I do is take a nice long walk or hike. Then I make a pot of tea and launch the laptop.
What was your first job in the film industry?
I was a PA holding parking spots in New York City when I was at NYU film school. One of my first real jobs was as a co-ordinator on the television series Kate & Allie.
Who helped you most when you were starting out?
[Working Title co-heads] Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Paul Webster hired me and I went to work for Tim in the satellite Los Angeles office in 1990 just before he partnered with Eric. We were young, scrappy and, fortunately, well-financed very quickly. My job was doing everything: reading scripts, making sure there were refreshments and staples in the stapler. I learned how to be a producer.
What was your favourite film growing up?
The movie that made me realise the power of movies and the power of storytelling was Ordinary People. It has informed the stories I’m interested in, considerably.
What do you like best about your job?
I like telling stories. I love creatively bouncing ideas around with other people. I love the collaboration. I love that making movies is the definition of “it takes a village” and everyone matters.
What’s your favourite festival or film event?
Toronto is fun and it’s great for seeing everyone. Venice is beautiful. And they know how to celebrate cinema in Cannes. I was excited for my first trip to Telluride with The Friend.
Tell us about The Friend and what you’re working on next.
Writer/directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee took a book that some might have said is almost unadaptable because of its internalness. It is a movie about grief and the most unlikely friendship. Right after we shot that earlier this year, I made The Life List, which is for Netflix and is in post right now. I’m prepping a new comedy for Netflix that’s going to start shooting in London in mid-October.
What book are you reading?
I am re-reading a book that I’m working on right now as a film, which is The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and I’m also carrying around Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem to escape into sometimes.
What is the biggest challenge facing the industry today?
We are on the edge of crushing the dreams of dreamers. When I came to Los Angeles in the 1990s, the roads were paved with dreamers: a gathering of ambitious, wide-eyed, great artists and minds. The world has become a little less forgiving and a little less welcoming, and I fear that people are afraid to dream in the big way we did back then.
What’s the biggest professional mistake you have learned from?
I can tell you my biggest regret, which was not selling hard enough when I had the chance to make Boogie Nights. I had Paul Thomas Anderson’s script in my hands. I couldn’t get the people around me to say yes, and the mistake was that I didn’t know how.
Who would play you in the biopic of your life and who would direct?
I went straight to dead people because they’re personal idols and I can’t offend anybody who’s still alive: for directing, Mike Nichols, and for acting, Lauren Bacall, who was known as a hard-edged provocateur and didn’t show the soft inside.
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