Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Anne Beagan Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

An Interview With Elana Cohen

Pay the extra money to get your own business cards made up. The government gave me cheap, flimsy ones which were anything but memorable. So I spent my own money and invested in myself — and good business cards to represent me, and have done so once again. There is a reason there is an on-going competition about who has the best business cards in American Psycho. People DO notice and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Anne Beagan.

Retired FBI Special Agent Anne Beagan, a 23-year-veteran of the premier law enforcement agency in the world, is the Founder and CEO of her bi-coastal production company, Anne Beagan Productions.

Beagan retired from the Bureau in 2020 as the youngest female ever to be eligible (due to her acceptance at such a young age.) Her unprecedented access and extraordinary insider status, not only to the FBI and its past and present agents and their stories, but also to a wide-ranging network of subject matter experts, renowned filmmakers, and talent, uniquely position her to produce thoughtful, accurate, authentic, and compelling stories for worldwide audiences. Along with her investigative experience and her extensive collaborations with the media, she is perfectly poised to bring her fresh and innovative approach to stories about the FBI, true crime, and a wide-ranging scope of topics.

Beagan’s experience as an FBI Special Agent and as an accomplished filmmaker makes Anne Beagan Productions a company uniquely positioned to produce films that convey an insider’s view of the challenges and accomplishments of law enforcement.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I was born and raised in rural Vermont, which is one of the most beautiful places in America. Rolling green hills as far as the eye can see, tree lined mountains, winding dirt roads, old stone walls and picket fences. A true Norman Rockwell painting, pretty idyllic — until the third grade when I was hit with a one-two punch that would ultimately lead to life-changing events. My best friend Kathy and her sister were waiting for the school bus on the side of their windy road one cold winter morning when a car hit black ice and spun out of control and hit both of them. Kathy’s sister and the driver miraculously survived, Kathy did not. That same year, I found myself surrounded by a pack of mean girl bullies in my new school. The problem with a small town school is there is only one class in each grade. So, if you find yourself in a situation like I was in, there are two choices: move to a new town or find a different school.

Faced with those hard (and expensive) options, my family chose option B which ended up being one of the best choices my family made for me and one that would set me on a path for success in life … and in the FBI. They enrolled me at the East Hill school in nearby Andover, VT, an actual self-sustaining working farm run by the faculty and students.

I had to learn how to drive anything with wheels, fish, ride a horse, ski, play an instrument, garden, cook, knit and sew, tap a maple tree and make syrup from it, shear a sheep, milk a cow (with my bare hands which is harrrrrrd), change the oil and a tire on a car and basically every other farm-life necessity. Without even realizing it, I was learning leadership and self-confidence, patience, empathy, doggedness and other essential life skills. I think back to that time in my life and I realize how lucky I was that my family made that hard choice, not knowing then that I was beginning an incredible path toward my dreams.

The FBI expects you to be a problem-solving, independent, critical thinker and thanks to my loving family (and that farm school), I had a great foundation and grasp of all those skills to draw from and I continue to draw from them in this “second act” producing stories about the Bureau.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

For 23 years as a special agent in the FBI, I experienced the most electrifying and intoxicating job one could imagine. It never felt like a job, and no two days were the same. Adding to the daily thrill of my work, I lived in the heart of NYC, which allowed me to rub shoulders with other “revelers of the night,” who also happened to be journalists, writers, actors, media executives and the who’s who of the entertainment industry. It struck me that there was a big misunderstanding of what the FBI does and who works there — and I immediately realized I was in a position to help clarify misconceptions about the FBI, so I began to work on bridging the gap between today’s FBI and the entertainment industry. I made introductions between otherwise unknown people within the FBI to those equally little-known private sector players. This turned into a dialogue that allowed the FBI to talk about who we are today and how we serve the American people, putting some light on what was previously a black hole of either no information or wrong information.

A specific career-altering experience that set me on my path from the Bureau and into the entertainment industry happened in 2015 when I was working at our headquarters in Washington, D.C. on the same floor as our relatively new FBI Director, James Comey. I wandered down to the Webster Auditorium one afternoon to hear him address a conference of our Legats (the FBI’s Agents assigned overseas) and it was like being at a high school pep rally — the energy he was injecting into the room, the way he spoke and inspired that group of veteran agents. I’ll never forget that feeling. After leaving the auditorium, I wanted to share the same aspirational euphoria with the American people that I felt while listening to Director Comey. I recognized that I was in a unique position, once again, to do even more to share who and what the FBI is. This set me on a journey to a higher position within our main Office of Public Affairs where I realized there was NO good network show about the Bureau — how could that be?!

I eventually shared my vision to create a series around the FBI with my good friend and uber-producer Dick Wolf, who loved the idea. I asked him to meet me in D.C. to discuss my ideas. In a true “pinch me now” moment, part of that meeting ended up taking place in the inner sanctum of the FBI Director’s private office with FBI Director Comey (I still don’t know how my boss and I were able to pull that one off. Most agents on the same floor of the same building have never even been behind those closed doors). Director Comey supported our pairing and agreed the Bureau needed a show to really share with the American people who we are and what we do.

Subsequent to that meeting, and in furtherance of developing our scripted series, I put together an exciting day of subject matter expert briefings in the New York Field Office, where I was formally assigned, to better inform Dick about a world with which he was unfamiliar. As we left the meetings that afternoon, he leaned into me and said, “I’m so blown away by the real men and women of the FBI. Let’s also do an unscripted show.”

That show was sold to USA Network and I spent the next 18 months making the groundbreaking six-part docuseries Inside the FBI: New York in lock step with the esteemed documentarian, Marc Levin, whom Dick had brought in to be our partner on the project.

For a variety of reasons, the scripted show took much longer to get off the ground, but I was never going to give up and finally, in 2017, we sold the scripted version of FBI to CBS, which has since turned it into a franchise.

Those incredibly rewarding and successful experiences informed my decision to become a producer of FBI-specific content and was the impetus for my transfer to LA. The specific eye-opening moment for me was when I realized that I was the key to the success of those productions. I was able to unlock previously guarded information about who and what the FBI is and does, how it all works, and to gain the support of my brothers and sisters in the Bureau.

Filmmaker Marc Levin shared, “Beagan negotiated unprecedented access to the professional and personal lives of the agents in the New York office, allowing viewers a rare glimpse into the FBI World. Anne’s sense of character and creative vision were invaluable to the series’ success, especially as she knew who to put on camera and what the stories were. This series would not have happened without her.”

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’ve been humbled every day by the outpouring of support from my FBI colleagues who have been reaching out to me since I embarked on this “second act.” I think most agents would rather not have their stories told at all, than told in an irresponsible way — and they trust me with their stories because of that FBI family bond we share. It has been an honor to have the ability to set up projects based on some of these riveting, untold stories, some of which are so wild a writer couldn’t make them up. Like they say, truth is stranger than fiction! I’m really excited to continue finding the right collaborative partners for the over two dozen pieces of intellectual property (in the form of life rights and book options) based on incredible true stories that I’ve added to my growing production slate.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’d say my first official “pitch” on my own was funny and felt like it could have been a big mistake. Armed only with what I knew was a great idea for a show, I marched into a pitch meeting with studio executives carrying huge poster boards with actual photos I had taken as a more effective way of describing the world to them. A child’s glue stick can do wonders.

I hadn’t been able to get any formal “pitch” training and when I asked for suggestions, I received varied advice. I figured I would just do it my own way. I felt a little silly walking around the big Hollywood studio lot carrying those huge poster boards (which barely fit in my car), and even more silly walking into the meeting carrying them … but it worked! They loved the pitch and thought my arts and crafts project was different! They made an offer the next day.

The lesson I took away was never be afraid to be yourself, and let your own unique style shine through. Unless you’re at the airport and it’s “TSA’s way or the highway” nothing is set in stone — do what’s fun and different, people will respect and appreciate that.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Well, as I said earlier, the collective support of my fellow agents has certainly contributed to my success. I’m fortunate also that I have made so many professional connections and friends who are writers, producers, actors and directors while I was bridging the gap between the FBI and the entertainment industry. Those connections and friends have remained incredibly supportive and have helped me on this journey.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Don’t be daunted by the prospect of failure. Failure is just fate putting you on the proper path. You have to be willing to go for it. If you don’t try, then you will never know what could have been. One of my favorite quotes from Theodore Roosevelt hangs in my office today:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doers of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood: who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again …”

“Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause: who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory not defeat.”

Every industry iterates and seeks improvement. What changes would you like to see in the industry going forward?

I’d like to see stories about law enforcement told more authentically.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

I’m very proud of a documentary I co-created with wonderful partners titled 26th Street Garage: The FBI’s Untold Story of 9/11, streaming on Paramount+. It’s an untold story about how my FBI colleagues and I, after evacuating our own offices just blocks from Ground Zero, turned our greasy automotive garage in New York City into the command post on 9/11 to begin that massive investigative undertaking. People are surprised to learn how that all happened during a time of utter chaos for our nation.

I also co-created a docuseries with the same incredible partners called FBI TRUE, also currently streaming on Paramount+, where the viewer really gets to see who an agent is. The format is very different in that we have another former FBI agent hosting the interview, so we really peel back the onion on how an agent talks to other agents about a fascinating, complex case they worked on.

I have several other projects in various stages of development, including a book and a feature film, but none of them are ready to be discussed further — but I’m excited to share more detail with you when I can!

We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?

It is critical that the FBI-centric stories I’m telling are diverse because the FBI is everyman’s private investigator and the FBI in film and TV must look like the nation it serves in real life. It is also critical that we be diverse to show people that the FBI can be a job for you!

Diversity to me is also about highlighting ALL the roles, not just the agent role. The FBI is not only made up of superhero agents who can do it all themselves. There are analysts, scientists, translators, computer engineers, pilots, navigation experts, forensic accountants, and dozens more supporting roles that all contribute to the success of the Bureau and the work it does. This diversity is not unlike the entertainment industry — it’s not just the actors, but an entire village of people in different and diverse roles that lead to the success of any production.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. In the FBI, it was “always have extra handcuffs” and for Anne Beagan Productions, it’s “bring enough snacks for everyone in the meeting!”
2. The often glacial pace of Hollywood does not = failure. Hang in there!
3. Remember who packed your parachute.
4. Pay the extra money to get your own business cards made up. The government gave me cheap, flimsy ones which were anything but memorable. So I spent my own money and invested in myself — and good business cards to represent me, and have done so once again. There is a reason there is an on-going competition about who has the best business cards in American Psycho. People DO notice and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
5. If you are on your feet for 12+ hours, whether it be on FBI surveillance or the set of a production … rubber-soled shoes will save your life.

Can you share with our readers any self-care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.

Self-care has always been part of my life and I give a lot of credit to time spent with Mother Nature for my mental, physical and spiritual health. Nature has always been very much like a church to me, but after leaving Vermont, where nature is literally all around you, I’ve had to look a little harder to find it.

During college I discovered the magic of running on the mall in Washington, D.C. and in

Rock Creek Park, where I would ride horses and hike.

When I lived in New York, one of my favorite ways to start a morning was a run or ride in Central Park (until the Claremont Stables closed). I loved spending that quiet time in the city I loved so much.

Now that I live in LA, I’ve come to appreciate the incredible hiking trails where my creative juices just flow.

Strength and good sleep are also critical (plus it’s when your brain stores new information). Being strong and well-rested got me through many long nights of surveillance or during an “all hands on deck” event while I was in the Bureau. It has also gotten me through long days/nights on the set. (That and really good coffee :) )

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“If you aren’t willing to step to the edge of the cliff, you’ll never really see the view.”

That quote had great meaning to me when I decided to pull up roots and leave my incredible life in New York City to pursue my dreams in LA, a city I barely knew. It felt very much like stepping to the very edge/off a cliff — but I knew if I didn’t try it, I would never know what could have happened.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I want to inspire a whole generation of young women to want to join the FBI. I hope my own journey inspires and excites people and reminds them that dreams do come true if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, take risks and believe in yourself!

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

OPRAH! Because she lives her truth!

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

Yes! I’m relatively new to social media — you’re discouraged from having any social media while in the Bureau (and some platforms are outright banned for employees) — but thrilled to now have a growing following. My posts include a fun mix of meaningful personal and professional moments — and updates on both are growing!

@AnneBeagan on Instagram

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!