Locarno: Stacey Sher on Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and the Films That Got Away

Few filmmakers can claim to have helped shape an entire era of cinema, but the boom in 1990s indie cinema is impossible to imagine without producer Stacey Sher.

“If you say, U.S. independent cinema of the ’90s, whatever film touched your feelings, your emotions and your memory, most probably, it has Stacey involved in it,” says Locarno film festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, on the reason Locarno is honoring Sher with its 2024 Premio Raimondo Rezzonico, or best independent producer, award.

After a six-year mentorship under legendary producers Deborah Hill and Linda Obst, making such films as Chris Columbus’ debut Adventures in Babysitting and Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, Sher joined the Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg’s newly-founded indie shingle Jersey Films, soon becoming a partner. At Jersey, she was instrumental in championing a new generation of directors — Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Andrew Niccol, Ben Stiller — whose films would define a decade.

“I could find these people because this was my generation, my peers,” Sher remembers. “There was a two-decade age difference between Danny and Michael and me. Danny and Michael couldn’t find these people, but they could recognize their talent and support me and in my support of them.”

Twice nominated for the Oscar, for the best picture contenders Erin Brockovich and Django Unchained, Sher has continued to support new voices, including Liesl Tommy, on Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, or A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, whose upcoming feature as directors, Heretic, Sher is producing for A24.

Sher will receive the Rezzonico Award at a ceremony at Locarno’s Piazza Grande on Thursday, Aug. 8. The festival will also screen Erin Brockovich and Django Unchained in a tribute to her career.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Sher reflected on her nearly 40 years in the film business, the challenges facing the indie industry today, and the films that got away “that still break my heart.”

Congratulations on the award! How does it feel to be honored for your life’s work?

It’s funny. Obviously, I’m incredibly humbled and grateful. But I told them a story that I’ll tell you: When I was making Get Shorty, our costume designer Betsy Heimann, who I just worked with again, on Heretic, took me to meet Neil Young. She’d worked on Neil Young’s ranch, and they stayed friends and she knew I was a huge fan. She had to bring him a suit for a lifetime achievement award. I said: “Congratulations on your lifetime achievement award,” and Neil Young said: “I told them to put me back in the oven. I’m not done yet.” And that’s kind of how I feel about it: I’m deeply grateful and extremely humbled. And I’m not done yet.

Where did your love of movies come from?

From my dad. My late father loved movies. It was our common ground in my childhood. He was my stepfather. He and my mom got married when I was six and a half and like all blended families, there are challenges. But we found this thing that we loved together. And it was it was movies, and so he always showed me movies. So I was a fan and I was fortunate to grow up at one of the great times for cinema, watching ’70s films. Not to take anything away from either film, because I love them both, but we were the family that went to Raging Bull together on opening weekend as opposed to E.T., even though I was probably too young to see Raging Bull. And I grew up with the early precursors to HBO like the Z channel. So I watched films that changed my life. Things like Clockwork Orange, which I watched inappropriately over and over again.

But I went to school thinking I would go into sports and sports broadcasting. Then I had an internship and it was just a bridge too far in terms of how sexist it was. I always joke that I pivoted to the wildly inclusive world of film and television. (laughs) While I was at the University of Maryland, I had a professor who was a trustee at AFI and he pointed me to a new program at USC called the Peter Stark producing program. It was late in my academic career, the fall of my senior year of college. And I found myself not knowing what I wanted to do. I applied to the Stark program and, miraculously, I got in. It changed my life.

Do you remember your first job in the business?

I didn’t grow up knowing anybody who worked in the film business. I did internships and jobs during grad school. I started working on early music videos, I worked on all the Twisted Sister videos. One of my classmates had an internship at a company called New World, which doesn’t exist anymore, which was known for sort of schlocky movies like Angel (1983), the “Hollywood honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night” movie. At the time, they also owned Marvel, which tells you a bit about how people valued superheroes in the late ’80s.

So this person, David Simpkins, had written a spec script he wanted me to get to Twisted Sister. That didn’t work out, but we became friends and he brought me his next spec script, which was Adventures in Babysitting. I was working on a trial basis for Deborah Hill and Linda Obst [at Hill/Obst Productions] When I brought them the spec script, it became the first movie they ended up making together, and I got hired permanently. I worked with Deborah and Linda for six years, through The Fisher King and Adventures in Babysitting, which was Chris Columbus’ directorial debut.

I met writers that I was friends with who taught me how to write script notes. That’s when I began my friendship with Scott Frank [writer of Get Shorty and Out of Sight]. I got to learn about story from people like Lindsey Duran [producer of The Firm and Sense and Sensibility] who was an executive at Paramount at the time and is a genius with story. I learned physical production and a philosophy towards producing from the late Deborah Hill, who was an extraordinary mentor to me.

Most people associate you with Jersey Films, which was behind so many iconic 1990s films. How did you come to join the company?

I got recruited. I knew it was time to expand my purview and I met with Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg. Danny had an extraordinary asset because we could offer final cut as producers. That wasn’t much in fashion at the time but it was why I was excited about the opportunity. It allowed us to champion new voices. We were very out of step with what people wanted at the time, which were big romantic comedies or big broad comedies.

But Danny’s a serious filmmaker. When I said: ‘Here’s Andrew Niccol. He wrote The Truman Show, which they didn’t let him direct, he wants to guarantee that he can direct his new thing, Gattaca,” Danny would support me. Michael, who had produced The Big Chill had the great idea to do a kind of Big Chill for people in their 20s, about Gen Xers. Helen Childress was a writer who was just graduating from USC and was wildly talented. Because I was closer in age, I was able to really get in there with her and ultimately, with Ben Stiller to help shape that movie, Reality Bites, which is turning 30 this year, as is Pulp Fiction.

With Quentin, we made a blind deal with him before he even started shooting a frame of footage on Reservoir Dogs. At the time, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety did a listing of future films shooting in the U.S., which was really designed for physical production or for casting people to see what was coming up. If there was a project with an impressive cast and I didn’t know the writer or director, I would get the script and read it. It was my way of finding new people and new talent. That was how I got the script for Reservoir Dogs. At first, we offered him something that he turned down, which was an adaptation, and then, ultimately, we made a blind deal for him to do his second film. Which was Pulp Fiction.

Would that sort of deal be possible now?

A big part of our ability to do what we did is that we had something that doesn’t exist anymore, which is called a discretionary fund. We were able to buy things that we were passionate about. So we made our blind deal with Quentin Tarantino out of our discretionary fund. We paid for Erin Brockovich’s life rights and Susannah Grant’s first drafts of the script and rewrites out of our discretionary fund. We prepped Garden State (2004) out of our discretionary fund, we paid for the script of How High (2001) out of our discretionary fund.

How did you connect with Steven Soderbergh on Out of Sight, the first of your many collaborations?

It was Danny’s relationship with Barry Sonnenfeld that led to Get Shorty and with Out of Sight, Dutch [Get Shorty and Out of Sight writer Elmore Leonard] came to us because he felt Get Shorty was the first successful adaptation of his work. Barry was not available so Casey Silver, who was head of Universal at the time, suggested Steven because he’d worked with him before. George Clooney was actually on board before Steven. Steven told us later that he and was and you know, Stevens later told us all that he and [assistant director] Greg Jacobs worried all the time they were gonna get fired. He wouldn’t let us watch [his 1996 media satire] Schizopolis until after we wrapped. But working with him has become one of the great joys of my career, he’s one of the great collaborators. In Locarno, they’re showing Erin Brockovich, which grew out of an idea from Michael Shamberg’s wife Carla. Carla said she met this woman, through her chiropractor, and was told: “Her life should be a movie.” And because she wasn’t cynical, she listened. It was Erin Brockovich.

What did you bring to Jersey Films, compared to Danny DeVito and Michael Shamberg who were already established?

I could recognize these new voices coming up. I could find these people because this was my generation, my peers. There was a two-decade age difference between Danny and Michael and me. Danny and Michael couldn’t find these people, but they could recognize their talent and support me and my support of them. I understood what Helen and Ben wanted to say [in Reality Bites]. I was the oldest person on that movie, and I had just turned 30.

In the same way, Pam Abdy, who is now the co-chair of Warner’s, when she worked for Danny, Michael and me on Garden State, which just hit its 20th anniversary. She was like: “This is me, this is my generation. I believe in Zach [Braff].” So we backed her, because we recognized Zach’s voice and what he had to say and how deeply it resonated. You can lose your ability to find the new people, but if you maintain a connection to popular culture, you don’t lose your ability to recognize talent. My son two years ago showed me Druski, who’s become a huge Internet comedian with sold-out shows. I would never have found him on Instagram, but he is so talented and funny. I’m developing things with him. New perspectives renew the business.

When you look at the conditions for independent production companies today, are you still hopeful for the state of the business?

Hopeful? I’m always hopeful. And maybe I’m just kind of like a crazy Pollyanna. But since I started working in the late ’80s, people have been saying, “Oh, it’s over, you missed it.” So I’ve been hearing that I missed it for my entire career. There are a lot of changes right now but with changes always comes tremendous opportunity. We’ve been hearing about the death of cinema, how theaters are gone. But, to paraphrase Clinton, “it’s the movies, stupid.”

I think it’s more challenging now that film companies are global multinational corporations, who are managing for Wall Street and are under tremendous pressure. I have so much respect for the pressure that film companies and media companies are under, the scrutiny that they’re under. But we are not only in the business of math and science, we’re in the business of alchemy. No one could have predicted that a movie about a mother and daughter and a multiverse where people have hot dogs for fingers and are rocks talking to each other would make over $100 million. The lesson of Barbie and Oppenheimer is not about period films, it’s about investing in the visions of Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig. It is always one plus one equals three in our business.

It can be tough. We optioned Nick Fury: Agent of Shield when I worked for Deborah and Linda, with Stan Lee. And nobody was interested. Look, nobody made James Cameron’s Spider-Man. The studio heads were not the same generation as the filmmakers. But at some point, we have to figure out how to make new stars. It is so great that Twisters is a hit, that we have new people, new stars, that young people are excited to go to a theater to see.

Are there any movies that got away?

Of course! The one that breaks my heart the most is that we lost Rushmore to Disney. And I knew Owen Wilson and Wes [Anderson]. I met them with Quentin when the short of Bottle Rocket was at Sundance the same year as Reservoir Dogs. One of my mentors, the late and great Polly Platt, produced the feature film. Early on in my career, I really loved the script of Heathers but I couldn’t get my bosses to understand it. And I really loved David O. Russell’s directorial debut, Spanking the Monkey, I recognized David as a filmmaker that I loved, but it was a bridge too far for certain people that represented our group because it was about incest. There are many that got away and many that never got made. They still break my heart.

Do you have a philosophy of producing? Something that has enabled you to survive and thrive through all these years?

The secret is to love it. You know, I have a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old, and I said to my 22-year-old who wants to be in our business: “If you can think of anything that would make you happier, that you are more passionate about, do that.” Because it’s really hard being a producer today. We’re the only people on set who aren’t guaranteed health care, who can work on a movie for decades and not get paid anything. Development fees haven’t changed since 1971. They’re the same $25,000 that they were in 1971. If they are even paid. So what I would say is: Find what you love.