Lyndy:
Sophie, I’m so intrigued by your own story and would love to hear more about it before we talk about launching Eleanor in London with Josie. I read that you were born in France and raised in England. How did this background come about?
Sophie:
My parents! I was four when we came to England. The majority of my brothers and sisters were born in different countries; my older sister was born in Ivory Coast. My parents loved to travel and they happened to be in a small artistic town in France when I was born. My first language was French.
Josie:
Do you still speak French?
Sophie:
When I’m drunk!
Lyndy:
That sounds like quite a creative background..
Sophie:
No, my dad was a lawyer and my mom was a nurse.
Lyndy:
What were the overarching influences from your childhood that created your drive and vision as an adult?
Sophie:
Well, my parents died. I’ll tell you the story because it’s the thing that made me who I am. My dad died when I was seven, from stomach cancer. My mom died when I was 14 of a brain hemorrhage. We were thrust into foster care and then brought back to live with friends, and eventually to live with my uncle, all of us back in the family home [in London].
I remember this, like it was yesterday. I had been obsessed with watching MTVs like Sweet 16, where the celebrity mom and dad would spoil their 16 year old on their birthday. Normally, it always ended up with them getting a car or something ridiculously expensive. So when it was my 16th birthday I was waiting in the morning for people to jump out and say, ‘Happy Birthday!’ .
And no one said anything to me the whole day. I was increasingly getting sadder and sadder. And then, around 5pm, I remember going into my mom’s old office, which my uncle was inhabiting and saying, ‘Oh, hey Uncle, it’s my birthday, is anyone going to do anything? And he says, ‘Oh, is it? Okay, well Happy Birthday.’
I asked if there was a gift or anything and he was like, ‘Well, here’s £5 then.’ I thought to myself, this is ridiculous, but I loved going to Blockbuster, which was up the road. As we all know, £5 doesn’t get you the latest hits, so I went to the section of cheaper, older films and found Moulin Rouge. I waited till everyone went to sleep and I watched this movie about the courtesan and the show that they were putting on. And I remember thinking, Wow, this is the power of movie-making and Hollywood, and perhaps I can transform myself into anything that I want to be.
And that’s what really started my love affair with film, seeing the power it had to heal people who feel alone, and it was inspirational. The next day I went to McDonald’s and got a job. After my first paycheck I never went back home.
Lyndy:
So what was your route from peddling hamburgers to the world of commercials?
Sophie:
Oh gosh… Sales, events, finance, and then I was giving a talk about my belief that your network is your net worth. This woman came up to me and asked how her boyfriend, who was a director, should go about getting jobs. And I said I knew some people, let me try and connect him. And that’s how it started.
Lyndy:
What took you to America in the first place?
Sophie:
An ex who was American. We were together for several years in London and he wanted to move back home to Florida. I said, ‘No fucking way, I’m not looking to retire. But I’ll do New York.’ Because at the time, I had already started working with some directors who I was trying to break [into] America. My thinking was that if repping directors didn’t work out, I could at least maybe work on Wall Street, and New York just seemed a lot cooler than Florida.
But launching the directors [in New York] failed miserably because apparently at the time I had too much of a European taste. So I thought, well, I’ve got to pivot and get experience at some American companies that had European talent. I started working at a post company that wanted to expand into production and it’s funny because it’s come full circle. I’m now working on a job with this woman who said: ‘I remember your Linkedin message from 12 years ago, and it was like: Dinner, lunch or coffee? I have an Amex and I’m not afraid to use it. Can I take you out?’
I was very good at finding talent and I was very good at sales and I didn’t care about the word’ No’, which people are often afraid of. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get. After all, my first sales experience was upselling people. I’d make a commission if I could upsell people from normal meals to supersize meals at McDonald’s, because it was a franchise-owned store. The boss said: ‘I’ve got a failing party business that could use your love, could you try and get mums and dads to have McDonald’s kids parties?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, I can do that.’ So I’d wait at the door and talk to the little kids on their level and get them to blackmail their parents into having a party.
Eleanor London MD / Exec Producer Josie Juneau and Eleanor US/UK President Sophie Gold
Lyndy:
On this whole journey towards setting up a production company, were there any key obstacles that you encountered?
Sophie:
No, not really, I’m really kind of a sledgehammer. Because I’ve been on my own since I was 16 years old, I learned that if I don’t sell, then I starve. Maybe it’s stubbornness or persistence or stupidity. I don’t know. And a little bit of luck.
Lyndy:
Eleanor is one of the rare Black-owned production companies in the US and now in London. Why do you think there are so few?
Sophie:
Lack of opportunity. And not being able to see other people [running production companies] who look like they do. There’s a lot of different issues. Traditionally, there isn’t generational wealth among Black families, where wealth is passed from one family member to another. They also don’t have access to funding as easily as their white counterparts. And there’s a lack of representation across the board. And that’s the beauty of me trying to make Eleanor a success both in the US and the UK, because I want people to see us as a signpost of what’s possible. That you can be Black and female and successful and drive a Porsche, which I do, and live in a nice house and have all of the trappings that normally are dominated by or reserved for the white, older male.
Lyndy:
When you say there’s a lack of representation, do you mean throughout the industry?
Sophie:
Oh, absolutely. I had to do an article pinpointing 17 Black directors who could be used for Super Bowl ads next year, because I constantly get asked to point people in the direction of talented Black directors. The chips have always been stacked against Black people here, like [financial] redlining, and one of the things I do is encourage young Black people to really focus on how they’re managing their finances, how they’re ensuring that they keep good credit ratings. Because ultimately, the minute you check a box that you’re Black on an application form all of a sudden you are looked at with more scrutiny, there’s a lot going against you.
But we’re not trying to be a successful Black company; we’re just trying to be successful, period.
Lyndy:
Yes, your roster in the States and in London is mixed, ethnically.
Sophie:
That’s the thing, too. People ask why don’t you just have a Black roster? I’m like, why would I? Is talent just defined by colour? No, it’s not. I am Black, but does it mean I believe that talent only comes in one skin tone? Talent is talent across the board; whether you’re male, female, Black, white, lesbian, straight, gay, doesn’t matter. We are champions of talent, we are curators of talent, period.
Lyndy:
How far do you think the creative industry has come in representing Black lives since Black Lives Matter? Do stereotypical characters and tokenism still prevail in our narratives, particularly in commercials?
Sophie:
Well, just look at the Super Bowl this year. There was one Black director who directed a Super Bowl commercial; that is tokenism in its very definition. Sixty spots and one Black director.
Lyndy:
How would you like to evolve storytelling?
Sophie:
I want people to approach advertising and creativity in a more sacred way. What we get to do is really beautiful. We are, to a certain degree, just selling products, but we’re doing it with storytelling. And that shouldn’t be shortchanged in any way. If we can approach creativity with this sacredness, then we’ll treat it with more care. We won’t make flippant choices on the directors we use, or the stories that we put out, or the casting choices.
I was doing an interview the other day with one of my directors, Edson Oda, and he was saying that many creatives are interested in leaving advertising to work in film. But what they don’t realise is that in film, we reference a lot of their commercials as inspiration.
Josie:
Yes, I want commercials to go back to the craft of storytelling, I want to feel something again. It’s gone by the wayside a little bit, of late.
Sophie:
And Josie, you can speak to that because, frankly, Ringan [Ledwidge, whom Josie worked with at Rattling Stick] was one of the best directors of a generation.
Josie:
And it didn’t matter what genre he was doing, it made you feel something. And if you connect with a cast or a story, you will remember that film and you will then remember the product – which is the whole point of why we’re doing this. I’m missing that massively at the moment. My goal is to help craft some fantastic films that really connect with the audience again.
Lyndy:
Josie, what qualities in a director do you look for when you’re hiring?
Josie:
Performance. It starts at the beginning, doesn’t it? When you are watching a director’s reel, if their casting isn’t right, then you’ve lost me straightaway. Also cinematography. If you see something that opens up and it’s lit beautifully, you are in.
There is some fantastic young talent coming up through the ranks at the moment, and that’s what excites me. When you watch a director from the beginning who five years down the line is doing these amazing films, there’s that moment of magic. You see it in some young director’s work and you recognise that they could do something brilliant with the right script from the right agency.
Lyndy:
Are you building a new roster here in London?
Josie:
We are. We’re taking our time in picking the right people. It’s a much smaller market in London and yet it’s incredibly saturated with directors. And so we have to get the right ones, who are going to capture the right scripts and who are going to stand out and that’s going to take time to finesse. We’re not rushing to get a roster of 20. We want to keep it small, we want to keep it boutique, and every single one of them is going to be a little shining diamond in their own right.
Lyndy:
Josie, after what must have been eight comfortable years at Rattling Stick – with a roster reknown for its witty, superbly crafted story-telling – what was the lure to join Eleanor’s London set-up where you’ll be starting almost from scratch?
Josie:
It feels like the right time. I will always love Rattling Stick and as much as I will miss them, I’m so excited to be working with Sophie. What she has already built, her vision and hearing her story .. I’m in awe. It’s not everyday an opportunity to handcraft a roster comes along. I wasn’t going to say no to that!!
Info:
Eleanor website
@josieca1
