How United Talent Agency is redefining Hollywood success
In Hollywood, you’ll find plenty of power brokers, but few are as influential as Jeremy Zimmer. He got his start 40 years ago in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency and worked his way up through the industry, eventually landing a job running the Motion Picture Library and Motion Picture Packaging departments at International Creative Management. In 1991, he co-founded the United Talent Agency, which today counts some of the world’s biggest megastars as its clients. In 2012, he took the mantle of CEO and now oversees a workforce of a thousand employees that provide services to Chris Pratt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Gweneth Paltrow, Judd Apatow, Will Ferrell, Post Malone, Seth Rogan, Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, and hundreds of other stars.
Recently, we at KindredCast sat down with Jeremy to ask about how celebrity culture has changed over the last several decades, why UTA recently took on outside investment, and what made him want to speak out at the height of the #MeToo movement. The below interview has been edited for clarity.
On how celebrities today are different from the celebrities 40 years ago
It used to be you were only exposed to celebrities when they released a new album, TV show, or film, but now you can’t fire up Instagram without being flooded with updates from your favorite stars. “There’s this whole new kind of celebrity that is so powerful and has such an immediate and strong connection with their fan,” said Jeremy. “Those celebrities are driving a tremendous number of eyeballs and driving a tremendous amount of consumer behavior right now. That’s something that we in the entertainment industry have to pay attention to, people in the advertising business have to pay attention to, people in the consumer products business have to pay attention to.”
It used to be the running assumption that too much exposure could tank a celebrity’s career. “We haven’t really found that to be the case so far,” said Jeremy. “The Rock is probably the biggest actor on social media right now. Kevin Hart is close behind. Those guys’ careers seem to be booming in a very significant way. We’re also seeing the relationship between a powerful social media following and a powerful music career, whether it’s Ariana Grande or Drake or Post Malone. DJ Khaled, who we represent, has really built his entire audience through social media and that’s allowed him to become a very powerful producer and music entrepreneur.”
On how he defines “success”
While financial strength is the goal of any business, money isn’t Zimmer’s only metric for success. “I think being able to continue to provide a great place for the people who work here so they can buy houses, have families, build lives [is important],” he said. “I mean, to me that’s what’s exciting … I have more than 40 of my partners [who] started in the mail room. So, kids who were my assistant 20 years ago are now having babies, and houses, and stuff like that. That to me is the metric of success.”
On what motivated him to speak out during the #MeToo movement
Jeremy was one of the first in Hollywood to speak out in 2017 when the #MeToo movement was just getting started. He sent a highly publicized internal memo that heralded a need for inclusiveness, tolerance, and empowerment. “Go to your leaders and mentors,” he wrote. “Go to our Human Resources team. There are always things we can do better — to learn and grow in our choices and behavior. But fear and silence is never the answer… you will be heard.” What moved Jeremy to speak out?
“We were living in this unbelievable horror of Harvey Weinstein, and what he had done, how he had treated people, and suddenly it all came to life,” said Jeremy. “It all came to life, the way that people had been treated, and the fear with which women were living, and I just said, ‘We want to be an organization where people aren’t afraid. And if you’re afraid, if someone’s not treating you right, if you feel you’ve been persecuted, or assaulted, or disregarded, or disenfranchised let’s talk about it, because I want this to be the best company to work for, certainly in our industry if not in the world, and it can’t be that if people are scared. If people don’t feel safe.’”
To listen to our interview with Jeremy, check out Episode 53 of KindredCast, embedded below or available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
