Comments on the studio of an actual Hollywood assistant

** Warning: This post contains spoilers for The studio, And also the realities of the work in Hollywood. To continue at your own risk. **

In order to speak to my qualifications in writing, I first have to disclose: Melanie Fischer is not my real name.

The reason why Melanie Fischer is not my real name is that in 2022 I worked as an assistant in a Hollywood studio-a world full of powerful people with very fragile egos, in which public opinions, especially about everything that has been entertaining, is a massive, professional liability. But the good people from Pajiba kindly allowed me to continue occasionally under this Nom de Guerre, so we are here.

(To give an example, a friend of mine once had massive difficulties at work because he invited a friend to a preview demonstration of a film, and then his friend left a negative review of the film on Letterboxd, which was massively annoyed by the director, who seemed to do nothing better than throwing a terry about a random 23-year-old.

This brings us to the actual question of the day here: How realistic is The studioStrictly speaking?

As a satire, things are of course brought into the extreme. Noir pastiche last week was the most absurd and unrealistic episode so far. In reality, Olivia Wilde would accuse the camera PA, and the camera PA would prove unemployed and unlimited unemployed before he could get a word in edge. The end.

But overall, The studio It’s more precise than you think. This business is full of deeply uncertain people who were traumatized by their bosses for most of their 20s and now spent the rest of their career to inflict this trauma towards others. While she was still working under the same boss that I mentioned before because none of these boomers retired, and every actor and A-List filmmaker who deals with the expression of action will be done. This is so much the rule that when I see an exception, I only assume that the talent in question is a single child and is unmarried, unless the opposite evidence.

Every day, working in a studio is a number of crises, and 90% of them act on things that do not objectively play a role. There was a phase in which I ordered my boss to eat from the Executive dining room only. Every assistant who has been working in business for several years probably had at least one boss with ridiculously special opinions. I know an assistant to a talent agency whose boss shouted at him in front of the entire department, as he “never made it in Hollywood” because he did not know the difference between the decionized and distilled. (By the way, the Perrier joke in the last episode is very imprecise.

The studio Functions More Pratfall and Slapstick, and how many of the doctors are shown, which would be carried out in medical dramas in the real life of nurses, many of the assistants would actually be handled. It would also be like executives of 8-10 mid-level managers in the hierarchy between freshly funded creative executive quinn hackett (Chase Sui Wonders) and second-in-command Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), but that would be an unusual amount of additional characters that have been taken, so that the creative license that was recorded there, so It is too necessary that there is functional.

The least precise thing The studioOverall, the studio actually looks. Namely this building is Away Too pretty and the interior design much too pleasant and aesthetically coherent. I worked in the beautiful building where the studio’s office was (although he and the company jet were usually elsewhere), and Continental Studios does the building where I worked compared to Lumon Industries. To consider that Apple has already had TV CompensationThis is another artistic freedom that makes a lot of sense.

All in all, The studio It is precisely enough that it feels therapeutic and reumumatized at the same time. And as a studio survivor, no episode was half as triggered as the latest “The War”.

This is really not surprising when you consider that it is probably the most focused on the episode concentrated on Studio -Lot policy and assistants are most important.

For me personally, there is also the very specific trigger in how much of the episode there is a meeting with Parker Finn. I have been The studio assistant who met Parker at the reception and offered him a drink and made an uncomfortable small talk on the short walk up to the office of my boss. (In order to be clear, the meeting in the real studio with Parker otherwise has no similarity to The studio; It was unusually drama -free, if at all, it never had to be reset and everyone was on time.)

Usually this would not be particularly remarkable, but my boss avoided getting into the office and in particular personal meetings to carry out at all costs. I can count on my hands with my fingers to save the number of general personal meetings when she was actually present in the time when I worked for you. Parker Finn was one of the few lucky ones.

(In the meantime, I had to keep an eye on a list of the over 50 other poor souls with which she would meet but not really intended to do this, but I could not only say these fools who would not have indicated in Regina George’s immortal words that they in the immortal words of Regina George, It will not happenBecause I also didn’t have my boss’s permission to lift the meetings. I regularly sent her an e -mail with this list of meetings and a, Hey, is one of them a priority or may there be some in which I could use a pen because they are so busy? She was too busy to ever recognize these e -mails.)

The nearest thing The studio‘S Parker Finn Drama, which I have ever met in my time in Pedro Pascal, although luckily I was just a witness and not a participant. Pedro appeared at the reception when nobody expected him to be in a boys’ car, an assistant who is directly involved in our text convo from the time “Defcon 1.” To quote to quote to quote our text convoy. The guests need a gate pass to get to a studio -los. In general, this exact scenario really shouldn’t have happened for several reasons, but it is Pedro Pascal. This face card does not decrease. I doubt the security that even asked him for the ID. So an assistant had to make small talk with Pedro for 10 minutes, while the other was to pull the two managers he met from their other meetings. (The TL; DR version is that Pedros Agent’s assistant had told our team that he had to plan again, but apparently somewhere somewhere on the way, so that Pedro appeared at the originally planned time. Honest mistakes; no attempted sabotage involved.) Probably.))

Anyway.

Perhaps the most accurate aspect of the “war” is the way the assistants are in the trenches of their boss’s political battles. We are the foot soldiers, cannon food, human shields and scapegoats. As an assistant to a Hollywood manager, things, including, but not limited to traffic, the weather, the flight delays and the mistakes and misery of others, can and are likely to be held against them.

Something about “the war” that I cannot emphasize enough when someone who actually lives in this world is how much Quinn comes across as a full psychopath in this episode. No, I’m not a licensed medical specialist, but there is no other way to interpret the evidence. Your frustrations are incredibly reliable and practical for assistants and junior executives everywhere. However, it is not just a person to whom the ability to empathize is able to not only one, but also two assistants in the trenches, without only the slightest hesitation or the regrence to which the ability to empathy is not only able to destroy two assistants.

But that itself is pretty on the money. Showbiz is a dog dog dog dog, and with regard to the survival of the strenuous I-Felal-Licht-At-the-the-The-the-The-The-the-The-Wait-Das-Ein negotiation hell, which is a Hollywood assistant, which is long enough to make it to the other, without being the endless slog without exceeding itself.

Last but not least to discuss the other Star player from “The War”: Sal. The studio On the whole is a well -occupied show, but I have to give Ike Barinholtz particularly praise. With regard to the seniors, the studio manager I worked for was astonishing on point. The tone he uses when he calls his assistant after the first attempted Parker Finn meeting, made me so closer to me that I had to pause my TV and take a short walk around my couch to shake it off. And to end an easier grade than my trauma, the bow he uses, and even the hand gestures that he does when he asks, “Who the hell is Owen Klin?” Is a really scary match, as my boss once asked the same question when calling with a producer – only she referred to Barry Keoghan. (Pre Sabrina Carpenter, Post Banshees from Inisherin Oscar nom.)