HOW TO BE THE STAR OF YOUR LIFE

Movie-industry luminaries meditate on making it in a cutthroat business in Rosenberg’s collection of enlightening interviews.

The author, now a spiritual consultant and coach, moved to Los Angeles after attending New York University Film School and working in movies for years, eventually directing the cult classic Assault of the Killer Bimbos. Here, she interviews 24 showbiz friends and colleagues, gathering their insights on succeeding in a high-pressure industry that demands initiative, flexibility, creative drive, and an ability to endure crushing rejection. Included in the lineup is Brad Krevoy, who exhorts readers to stand by their great ideas (he persevered in developing Dumb and Dumber despite everyone telling him that it was dumb). Director Ernest R. Dickerson tells readers to listen to their guts, saying that “when you find someone who is electric, you take a chance on them” (the high-voltage someone in question being a then-unknown Tupac Shakur). Actress Julie Brown reflects on the importance of rolling with the punches, noting that, when she lost the lead in Earth Girls Are Easy to Geena Davis, she got a supporting part that suited her much better. And Oscar-nominated Star Wars: The Force Awakens editor Maryann Brandon enjoins readers to shape their lives like they are movies (“In order not to be left on the cutting room floor of life I think you have to be relevant. You have to be tuned in to the story of your life and the story of what is happening around you”). Armed with her own pithy aphorisms (“No one starts at the top…and there’s a lot you have to prove when you are at the bottom”), Rosenberg distills these conversations into savvy, snappy exchanges, as in writer John Auerbach’s riff on the language of pitch meetings: “When they say, ‘That’s a well-told story,’ you know you’re not going to get hired. What they’re saying is, ‘Yeah, you’ve told the story well but I have no interest in buying it.’” The result is a witty, entertaining sheaf of reminiscences, full of colorful anecdotes and acerbic wisdom.

A captivating look at the struggle to survive—and prevail—in Tinseltown.