Agent Douchebag

Some agents really are douche bags. Over the years I’ve heard a world of stories about agents, but you know some stories really take the cake.

I heard stories about agents conning their talent into getting a percentage of their websites, forcing them to “date” potential investors or clients, verbally abusing the girls to keep them in line and all kinds of things like that.

But a story I heard yesterday really just down right pisses me off.

There is an agent that worked with an unnamed talent in our industry for about 5 years. She asked me to please not reveal her name because the agent in question has been threatening her.

Anyway, after 5 years her contract with the agent in question had expired and she no longer wanted to do business with him anymore because during their time together he had not done a good job. There was some question about some money he owed her and beyond that, he just wasn’t a good agent. He wouldn’t actively go out and look for jobs for her, he would hope that some calls would come in to his office and since he wasn’t really that well known, not many of those calls came in. She would have to hustle to get her name out there so that there would be work there. Even then she still had to pay him a % of every job she had booked for herself because she was under exclusive contract with him, he got her to sign a 5 year contract. FIVE YEARS?! Who does that?

The few jobs he did book for her, more often than not would go bad. Since he would book with so many low end, shady producers with drug problems, the sets always had problems with payments, health issues or a lot of cancellations. So after 5 years of this, she let her contract with the man expire. About a year later he called her out of the blue and said he was working with a new agency and he wanted to book her on some new jobs. She said no she wasn’t interested in flying to LA for some work. At first she said she might consider going to Miami then quickly backtracked and said no, she doesn’t want to work at all with him, nor or ever anytime in the future.

She tried to be as polite as she could but she wanted to be firm that she just flat out wasn’t interested in any way, shape or form in working with him.

Turns out one of the jobs in question was a film for a company who the girl in question used to be under contract with. Several months later a producer for said studio contacted the girl in question via twitter just to say hi and to say hey if you are ever in LA they would love to work with her again for a movie or two. The performer agreed to work with this studio for a movie and flew out to LA to shoot it.

After coming back home from LA she got a call from this former agent who was quite upset and said she “fucked him on that (studio) deal”. She was quite interested in how he could seriously think that so she asked him to explain how that was possible since he didn’t go out and actively try and book the job, they came to him looking for her. She wasn’t under contract with the agent in question at the time, nor had she been for over a year and she made it very clear to him that she wasn’t interested in doing any jobs, at all that involved booking anything through him, ever. Period. That under no uncertain terms did she want to continue their working relationship, now or anytime in the future, ever.

He didn’t go out looking for work for her, at best he took a phone call from a producer who already worked with her in the past and spent a few minutes explaining to the producer how she is no longer under contract with the agent. He made a lot of threats to her and became very verbally abusive.

So remember girls, don’t sign any stupid multi-year representation agreement. Trust me when I say, hugely stupid mistake.

Next, don’t let anyone, ever talk down to you like you are some sorry piece of shit. There are many people like that in our industry but it doesn’t mean you have to put up with it.

If you are on set, filming is over and you don’t want to have sex with the cast and crew – don’t. Fake your period if you have to. Just get out of there. Don’t feel like you HAVE to have sex with them. Then in the future just do not book with them ever again. Period. If your agent gets pissed, fuck him. Tell him you aren’t a whore and you aren’t going to fuck someone just because he tells you to. NO MEANS NO. You are better than that and you deserve better than that.

Anywho I’ll get off my little rant now. I just wanted to let you know you aren’t alone. There are a lot of jack asses in our business but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with them. But there are a few good guys out there too.