Watching the Oscars on television wasn't enough for Dave Phillips, Trinity '85. After 10 years of hard work he's on his way to becoming a regular there. As a literary agent, Phillips, 32, who represented the creators of "Sleepless in Seattle," "While You Were Sleeping" and "Hoop Dreams," was recently featured in "The Hollywood Reporter" as one of the "50 young execs climbing to the top."
Phillips will be speaking Friday afternoon on "How to break in to Hollywood," as a part of the Duke in Hollywood career conference.
"There's only one way to go for it, and that's do everything you can with everything you have; no one can teach it to you in an undergraduate community," Phillips said. "You can take courses and improve your people skills, but until you thrust yourself in it, in terms of internships, you're never going to know."
While he was at the University, however, Phillips wasn't so sure of his future.
"I was toying with being a child psychologist, a writer or going into big business. Being an agent, I am a child psychologist," he said, laughing.
Phillips took several writing and drama classes, but initially turned toward New York instead of Los Angeles, taking a position in Macy's management-training program.
"When I graduated, I pursued my father's dream for me, and not my own. I realized that in the real world, if you're going to have to work such ridiculous hours just to make a success of yourself in any field, I reasoned that I might as well be passionate about the field," he said. "Any moment I had that I wasn't at Macy's I spent going to the movies."
Hating Macy's, he turned to Martina Bryant, associate dean of Trinity College, with whom he'd kept in touch.
"She was always close to me and gave great counsel," Phillips said. "When it came time for me to make a transition from Macy's, Dean Bryant was terrific in helping me to realize that after being accepted to several business schools, if I wanted to explore entertainment as much as I did, then I should go to UCLA because that would get me to L.A., where the action was."
With another Duke student, he got a loft and entered the MBA program. The only class he actually went to was an undergraduate course called "How to Make it in Hollywood" taught by Peter Guber, the producer of "Rain Man" and "Batman." He followed Guber to his car every night begging him for an internship. Phillips now teaches the course himself. "These guys follow me to my car," he said laughing.
Having Duke on his resume didn't get him as far as his perseverance.
"I felt like the people who were making these movies had to be ordinary people, they had to be just like you and me--despite the fact that many of them were nieces and nephews of famous people. I just felt like I was hungrier than they were," Phillips said. "I was going to work harder than anybody for five years, if I hadn't made it then I could go back to the East coast having cleared my conscience and go back to selling sweatshirts."
Most Duke students wouldn't see success in a job at the mailroom of the International Creative Management, a talent agency. He may not have loved it, but it got him started.
"It was horrible. I'd get to work at 7 a.m., and I'd leave at 11 p.m. for $200 a week and no overtime, and no guarantees that I'd ever get out of the mailroom," Phillips said. "I became an expert deliverer of mail and I used the opportunity to read every piece of paper that came through that mailroom. I got the opportunity to learn who every agent was, and who every client was."
He took advantage of his mail route and made friends with an agent who he knew needed a new assistant.
"After I left my mailroom duties each night I'd go up to his office and ask him if there was any work I could do for him, like reading scripts," Phillips said. "Perseverance is tremendously key. Rejection is everywhere, especially in this business."
These days, the mailroom is long behind him as an agent juggling 100 calls a day, dashing between meetings and negotiations. All in all, however, he said his life hasn't changed that much since he left Duke.
"Being an agent is not much different from being an RA or my fraternity's rush chairman," Phillips said. "As an agent you're primarily part salesman, part mentor and part mediator."
As he cared for his students when he was an RA in Hanes House, he continues to invest himself emotionally in his clients.
"Probably the hardest thing for me has always been when one of my clients doesn't sell a script, or is incredibly hot one year, and then can't make any money the next. That kills me and makes we want to work harder for him, because I still believe in him. A lot of times if I don't believe in him, the town doesn't believe in him, and he doesn't believe in himself," Phillips said.
He has to encourage clients that even if they don't win the Oscar, he'll be with them the next time around.
Perseverance and a constant striving toward success is the motto that got Phillips to Hollywood, and it's keeping him there.
"My father once gave me a poem called `Don't Quit,' and it enabled me to make it in Hollywood where there's so much rejection," Phillips said. "I keep this poem on my desk, just like he did."
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