How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Sarah Harden and Lauren Neustadter of Hello Sunshine

Episode Date: August 1, 2020

Hello Sunshine—a production company founded by Reese Witherspoon—has created TV shows Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show, and Big Little Lies. Fresh off 18 Emmy nominations, Hello Sunshine's CEO Sarah Harden and Head of Television & Film Lauren Neustadter are hopeful they will find a way to begin filming again safely, despite COVID-19's impact on Hollywood this year. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Airbnb.ca.ca. slash host. Hello everyone and welcome to how I built this resilience edition on these episodes. As you know, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're thinking creatively and doing their work differently right now. And today, we're going to hear from two executives at Hello Sunshine, CEO Sarah Hardin and Lawynolds. Lauren Neustadtar, head of TV and film. Hello Sunshine is a production company whose mission is to highlight female-led films, TV shows, and books. It was founded four years ago by actor Reese Witherspoon, and it's already a big name in Hollywood.

In fact, hours before we went live, the Television Academy announced this year's Emmy nominations, and Hello Sunshine did pretty well. Ripped from the headlines, breaking news, 18 Emmy nominations. this morning. This shows include Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show, Big Little Lies. Lauren, Sarah, welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Congratulations.

18 Emmy nominations. Thank you. We're so excited. It was a great day. Yeah. So first of all, for people who don't know about the production company, tell us about Hello Sunshine. A little bit more about it. Well, look, I think, you know, the company was founded with a driving mission and really a gap in the marketplace that

re-saw, which was to put women at the center of these stories. And I think when we start at the company, we sort of embrace the complexity of wanting to do that in storytelling formats. And, you know, with Reese's book club, particularly, you know, Reese is a huge reader. She reads all the book picks, and we love elevating female narratives from books and in other ways as well. Everything's on pause in Hollywood right now. Films, TV just are not happening. It's not safe. Presumably, that's a case with your productions, right? You're not filming anything right now. That's correct. We had just, started shooting our second season of the morning show, and we were meant to have a show,

start production for Amazon, a show called Daisy Jones, and the 6th was going to start in April, and then we had another show for Netflix called From Scratch that would have been starting this month, and we have paused everything, and we are deep in figuring out how and when we can come back for each of those shows. But I will say, you know, we've used the time in inspiring and extraordinary ways, I think we were dealt a very specific hand. Unfortunately, you can't congregate with large groups of people on a set, on a soundstage anymore. So what we really did was we took the opportunity to connect with our team internally and also with the people that we create with. And we've really, I think, planted some wonderful seeds of development that will hopefully grow

in the years to come. And in truth, if we have been in production on the third, three shows and the movie that we thought we were going to be in production on, we might not have had time to build out the development slate in quite the way that we have. So I think that there has been a silver lining, but I will say we are all more than eager to get back into production and we are spending our days figuring out how to do it safely. Well, let me ask you specifically about the morning show. I mean, that was season one. I mean, how are you going to finish season two? Because I'm assuming it's not all filmed, right? It is not all filmed. We are figuring it out right now. we are talking to epidemiologists, to health and safety experts.

We've got a COVID coordinator. We have a world-class team that is working with us to figure out every single day. What do we do? We've had our epidemiologist came and looked at our sound stages and the ventilation and figuring out, you know, obviously there have been all of these white papers that have come out that talk about what is required in terms of health and safety. And thankfully, each of the studios that are producing these. these shows also are doing their own sort of COVID Bible, as it were, talking about all the

precautions that they're going to be taking. And look, people are taking this incredibly seriously. Health and safety is the most important thing. And in a very inspiring way, I think companies are working together to share, you know, information and ways that they can innovate together to get productions back on their feet quickly. And look, I mean, there are shows that going to be going back in August from what I hear. So I think we're well on our way. Is there a world, Lauren, where there's like, like how the NBA is doing a bubble, right? Everyone's in Orlando playing basketball and staying in that bubble. Is there a world where like Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell and all these actors are in a bubble

for like six weeks to finish filming? Well, our shoot is more like six months for a season. So it's a longer stretch. And I think, though we aren't right now talking about going into a bubble, quote unquote, I do think what we're talking about is how to be as safe as possible. And obviously, you know, when you go into these production papers, we're creating zones so that only the very most essential people would actually be on set so that we will be reducing risk and everyone will be, you know, honoring everything around social distancing. and people making sure that they are appropriately covered

and that everyone is taking all precautions. I think there are lots of conversations being had, but not ones, to answer your question, not ones about a bubble in the way that the NBA is though I think that people are talking about that when they think about shooting out of state. Yeah. We had Jeremy Zimmeron here a couple days ago,

the head of United Talent Agency, and basically he said in like four to six months, we're going to start to see a shortage of new TV. What do you think about that? I mean, is that a possibility? I definitely think that's a possibility. I mean, I think it just depends on how much people have in their coffers and how, where they are in post and what they're planning in terms.

I'm sure that people are being very deliberate about their release schedules. But yes, I mean, obviously, it's been quite a long time since we've been able to be on a set. And so, you know, if they don't have it on film, it's very hard to cut it and present it to an audience. You're going to say, I think what's also interesting is, you look at, you know, I think when we talk about our big, crude, complex scripted shoots, and then you look at, you know, you look at the unscripted business where certain formats are able to shoot with a much lower footprint. I think the question already seeing some of it, right, like as some of those bigger shoots get delayed or they have big set pieces or big crowd scenes,

how you were both innovating on the formats of those scripted shows, but then also as you look at what is it open up, and opportunities for? unscripted programming and other types of formats that just have a lower and safer shooting footprint as well. This must be so weird. I mean, it's like time is frozen in Hollywood right now in a sense, right? It is definitely weird. I will be honest. It does feel like things are a bit frozen, but I actually think things are also thawing.

I think this is an opportunity to slow down and to connect in ways that, maybe we weren't slowing down and making time to connect before. I think that is the case internally at Hello Sunshine, but I also think in a very remarkable way, it is the case externally. I find that, you know, where typically we roll phone calls and we go from call to call to call to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, I'm hearing about people's kids. We're talking about school. People ask, how are you, and they really listen. We're really interested to know and I think that we're doing something where we're building a foundation where when we do come back, we will be stronger and better because of it. And I think we're all looking out

for each other in an extraordinary way. And I think that that was something we were all moving so quickly before. I think slowing down a little bit isn't necessarily the worst thing. When we come back in just a moment, Sarah and Lauren talk about their production process and how they find the best stories to tell on screen. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this resilience edition. And we've been hearing from Sarah Hardin and Lauren Neustadt of the film and TV production company, Hello Sunshine. I know that the mission of your company is to elevate and to tell stories of women.

From your perspective, Lauren, what is the state of things now for stories about women, women writing, screenplays, directing? How would you assess where Hollywood is right now with respect to that? I have to tell you, I think it's a great time to be a woman in Hollywood. Truly, you know, there are so many people that are doing incredible things, but I certainly put Reese at the top of that list. I think she has really devoted herself to putting women at the center of stories and advocating for women and cheering women on as they are doing the same and talking to them as they're creating production companies.

I mean, we're constantly talking. talking about, you know, this person is creating a production company, who would be a great person for them to hire. This book isn't exactly right for us, but maybe it's exactly the thing that this person is looking for. I think, you know, it's a really wonderful time of collaboration among women in Hollywood. I have been so inspired by the transformation that I have seen in the time that we have been working at Hello Sunshine. You know, telling stories about women has really come to the front of everyone's minds and obviously also representation and inclusion, which is a huge part of our mission at our company, I think, has become something obviously that is at the

forefront of every conversation in our industry right now, as it should be. So I think it's a real time of opportunity and it's quite inspiring. With respect to some of your bigger shows, I mean, you've got you work with Apple, obviously on the morning show, and I think Little Fires Everywhere's on Hulu and you work with different partners and platforms. Can you kind of walk us through what your strategy is for working, you know, with specific partners on specific projects and other partners on other projects? Absolutely. We are very lucky that we're pretty much in business with everybody.

We start with telling stories that move us, telling stories that we feel passionate about. And then what we do, we're very lucky because we're not tied to one particular place. what we're able to do is find a story that we love, find a story that we're passionate about telling, put a writer into the project that we know is exactly the right writer, find the actress that we think is perfect to star in that show. And then the Hollywood term is packaging, right? So we put the package together, we put the group of people together that we think is perfect for that project. And when we bring it out into the marketplace, we always choose the place that shares our passion, right? So when they love it, like we love it, we know it's the right fit. And I think we've

been very lucky with so many of our shows to really find perfect partners. And we've had great success working with all of the different platforms. It's really been, it's been great. You know, part of what we say as a company, it's not just our responsibility, which we take very seriously, create great storytelling, but also to be great partners as our platforms launched those stories and I think having the social reach that we do I mean we work very hard to just be great marketing partners as well and you know when we have a book like little fires everywhere you know we put that for book club in September of 17 on its published date and so if you've been following our social handles our our followers have had a two and a half year relationship

with little fires and they fell in love with that book when they read it and they heard when we announced that Kerry and Reese were starring and and so So it's a long journey for them. And it's one of the things as a company that we look to do. We've got a question from Dante Richardson, a 23-year-old aspiring producer. He wants to start a production company in the near future. He's asking for your advice. What is the best advice you have for him if he wants to get started?

What does he do first? Well, I think if he wants to be a producer, the best and fastest way to get going is to find a piece of material that he really. loves. Little Fires, as Sarah was saying, is an amazing example of we read a book that hadn't yet published and we loved it. And we saw it as something that we wanted to celebrate through our book club, but also we saw it as a limited series. We knew what the show was. So I think that my advice for him is try to find a book that you love, try to find an article that you think would make a great movie or make a great television series and then challenge yourself to take it and put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, find a writer that you love, come up with a take, you know,

and then approach other producers that might be able to mentor you and guide you. We often partner with producers who have incredible taste, but might want to partner with us because we're going to help them to flesh it out and bring it to life in the way that they really hope. So I think there are always opportunities, but it starts with great material. Before we go, for both of you, when you talked a little bit about how this is a, you know, it's been a pause and a time to kind of slow down and not jump from call to call to call and, you know, this constant just racing forward. What do you want to take from this time that you want to apply to what you do as a business and as a company forever and ever afterwards? You know, I think it's been a time of like

deep humanity, like deeply human leadership. I mean, managing three kids, working full time, trying to do my best with a leader. And that's what entertainment media. is about like human stories and I just am constantly reminded of that. I'm like proud about how our whole team has really done their best through some very trying circumstances for many of our employees as well and I don't I don't want to ever lose that humanity as we sort of hopefully move into a period that's less traumatic and taxing on all of us. Sarah, how old are your kids by the way? A 16, 14, and 10. Okay.

So you got to guess. And Lauren? I have a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. Yeah. So, yeah, I've got a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old. I know it's crazy. But I do think that what you said earlier, Lauren, this idea that, you know, you're getting to know other people's kids. I mean, it does build empathy, right?

I mean, we're all on these Zoom calls. And we're all kind of seeing what the reality of just kind of getting through the day is for our colleagues. And I think that's important. I think that actually has created really important connections in a way that would not have happened if we weren't all thrown into this. I will tell you, I was on a Zoom with the head of a streaming platform, and her eight-year-old daughter came in to ask a question in the middle of the Zoom. And I felt so happy and so relieved, because I think we're all going through very similar things where we're trying to do these jobs that we love, but we're also trying to stay connected. to our children in a moment when we know that they're incredibly vulnerable. It's actually something that Sarah and I talk with Reese about a lot because she has three kids too. And so we spend a lot of

time talking to one another's children. And it's actually quite nice. Yeah. Lauren, Sarah, thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Oh, thank you for having us, Guy. We're so appreciate it. I've been such a big fan for so many years. And so it's like a personal kind of little thrill to be doing Thank you very much. I know. We were very excited to be having this conversation with you. Thank you for having us. That's an excerpt from my conversation with Sarah Hardin, the CEO of Hello Sunshine and Lauren Newstadter, the head of TV and film at Hello Sunshine. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash How I Built This. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR. And if you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or U.S. other virtual NPR events. You can go to NPRPresents.org. This episode was produced by Candice Limb,

with help from Will Mitchell, Tyra Lockhart, Matt Adams, El Manion, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and I'll see you in a few days. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.