Hollywood Badgers
By Jenny Price ’96
Hollywood can be a tough town for a Badger, or for any creature, really. William Faulkner called it “a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.”
But Lesley Feinstein ’03 and Mary Rohlich ’03 turned that concept inside out in 2005 when they launched Hollywood Badgers, a group aimed at helping UW-Madison students and alumni break into the entertainment business. At the time, Feinstein was working for a talent agency and Rohlich for a movie studio, where she was flooded with resumes from UCLA and USC students seeking internships.
As Rohlich sorted through the stacks, she kept returning to one thought: “I want to hire a Badger.”
The pair, who both graduated with degrees in communication arts, decided Wisconsin alumni living and working in Hollywood needed some camaraderie — in the form of monthly happy hours — and some honest-to-goodness help navigating a notoriously tough industry.
Today, three years after the first Hollywood Badgers meeting, the group has more than one hundred and thirty members — 90 percent of them under age thirty-five — and some serious word-of-mouth buzz.
“It just spread like wildfire, and we had no idea that there were so many people a) who wanted to help and b) who were out here,” says Rohlich, who receives e-mails every week from students who are preparing to make the move to Los Angeles.
With a student chapter in Madison and a new Web site, HollywoodBadgers.com, the group encourages students and new graduates to join, upload resumes for consideration for internships and jobs, find roommates, and make connections — all before even setting foot in Hollywood.
The group gives new arrivals to town the skinny: it helps to know someone to get a job; even with a college degree, you might have to start in the mailroom; you’ve got to be willing to work for little or nothing; and, most important, to live in Los Angeles, you must own a car.
“It’s kind of like a little safety blanket out here,” says Feinstein, who now works as coordinator of integrated marketing for MTV.
Feinstein and Rohlich don’t just preach the group’s mission — they live it. Rohlich, who now works as an assistant to Seth Gordon, director of the upcoming movie Four Christmases, hired five interns from the UW when she was working at Columbia Pictures.
“A lot of us who started [Hollywood Badgers] have gotten to a place where we can help in different ways now,” she says. “It’s not like you come out here and send your resume and expect to get a job. You have to know somebody who can put your resume in front of somebody to get you in for the interview.”
Hollywood can be a tough town for a Badger, or for any creature, really. William Faulkner called it “a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.”
But Lesley Feinstein ’03 and Mary Rohlich ’03 turned that concept inside out in 2005 when they launched Hollywood Badgers, a group aimed at helping UW-Madison students and alumni break into the entertainment business. At the time, Feinstein was working for a talent agency and Rohlich for a movie studio, where she was flooded with resumes from UCLA and USC students seeking internships.
As Rohlich sorted through the stacks, she kept returning to one thought: “I want to hire a Badger.”
The pair, who both graduated with degrees in communication arts, decided Wisconsin alumni living and working in Hollywood needed some camaraderie — in the form of monthly happy hours — and some honest-to-goodness help navigating a notoriously tough industry.
Today, three years after the first Hollywood Badgers meeting, the group has more than one hundred and thirty members — 90 percent of them under age thirty-five — and some serious word-of-mouth buzz.
“It just spread like wildfire, and we had no idea that there were so many people a) who wanted to help and b) who were out here,” says Rohlich, who receives e-mails every week from students who are preparing to make the move to Los Angeles.
With a student chapter in Madison and a new Web site, HollywoodBadgers.com, the group encourages students and new graduates to join, upload resumes for consideration for internships and jobs, find roommates, and make connections — all before even setting foot in Hollywood.
The group gives new arrivals to town the skinny: it helps to know someone to get a job; even with a college degree, you might have to start in the mailroom; you’ve got to be willing to work for little or nothing; and, most important, to live in Los Angeles, you must own a car.
“It’s kind of like a little safety blanket out here,” says Feinstein, who now works as coordinator of integrated marketing for MTV.
Feinstein and Rohlich don’t just preach the group’s mission — they live it. Rohlich, who now works as an assistant to Seth Gordon, director of the upcoming movie Four Christmases, hired five interns from the UW when she was working at Columbia Pictures.
“A lot of us who started [Hollywood Badgers] have gotten to a place where we can help in different ways now,” she says. “It’s not like you come out here and send your resume and expect to get a job. You have to know somebody who can put your resume in front of somebody to get you in for the interview.”
Katie Weigand ’07 didn’t even make it all the way to California before the powerful talent agency International Creative Management (ICM) first called her for a job interview. Weigand, who earned her degree in art history, had been working for a talent and modeling agency in Madison when she met Feinstein at a Hollywood Badgers panel on campus. The two women kept in touch, and Weigand sent Feinstein her resume after graduation. ICM tracked Weigand down as she was making the long drive from the Midwest because Feinstein had forwarded her resume to an ICM agent she knew. Weigand interviewed the day after arriving in Los Angeles and started work the following week in the mailroom — right alongside people with advanced degrees from Ivy League schools.
“I’ll always remember that this was how I was able to land on my two feet out here,” Weigand says. As it turns out, her stint in the mailroom lasted just three weeks; she now works as the assistant to an agent in ICM’s international and alternative media department, which buys and sells reality TV programming, including Dancing with the Stars.
Colleen Kerns ’06 turned to the group’s Web site to find a roommate before relocating to Hollywood. One woman who responded to her post had cats — a deal breaker for Kerns’s allergies — but the cat owner’s boyfriend ended up helping Kerns land her first job at a small TV production company. Now that Kerns is working as a director’s assistant, she says she’s “hoping to definitely return the luck,” a mindset Hollywood Badgers has instilled in its members.
The group also creates a little piece of home for UW graduates, as Rohlich found when a college friend who had been struggling to meet people and find work because of the writer’s strike attended one of their football-watching parties.
“She was just glowing and felt like she was at home. … It was just a totally different energy, and she was just so happy, and it was like she’d found her place here,” Rohlich says. “It definitely still feels like you’re in Madison when you’re around these people.”
UW alumni did not have much of a profile or formal network in Hollywood when Richie Schwartz ’97 moved to Los Angeles ten years ago to work as an assistant to movie director David Lynch. He recalls driving to a sports bar one morning, hoping it would be open so he could watch a Wisconsin football game. A group of Michigan alumni was there with the same idea, and Schwartz thought, “This can’t be possible. Where are all the Badgers?”
Hollywood Badgers was “sorely needed” and has strengthened the UW alumni presence, says Schwartz, who now works as manager of creative affairs for late-night host Conan O’Brien’s NBC-Universal-based TV production company. He also has used his industry connections to link other UW alumni with job prospects.
“Wisconsin meant nothing to a lot of people. It was just a name,” he says. “Having the cachet of a group is almost a brand in a way.”
It was clear the group had made an impression after Feinstein got promoted at the talent agency where she once worked as an assistant to a film agent. “He said to me, ‘I only want to hire someone from the Hollywood Badgers, because everyone I meet from that group is just so smart and motivated,’ ” Feinstein says.
Kerns, who served as the same agent’s assistant before leaving to work for movie director Brandon Camp, heard the identical directive in searching for her replacement. “He really wanted me to get someone from Wisconsin,” she says. “It was kind of a rush — we had to settle for someone from Texas.”
“I’ll always remember that this was how I was able to land on my two feet out here,” Weigand says. As it turns out, her stint in the mailroom lasted just three weeks; she now works as the assistant to an agent in ICM’s international and alternative media department, which buys and sells reality TV programming, including Dancing with the Stars.
Colleen Kerns ’06 turned to the group’s Web site to find a roommate before relocating to Hollywood. One woman who responded to her post had cats — a deal breaker for Kerns’s allergies — but the cat owner’s boyfriend ended up helping Kerns land her first job at a small TV production company. Now that Kerns is working as a director’s assistant, she says she’s “hoping to definitely return the luck,” a mindset Hollywood Badgers has instilled in its members.
The group also creates a little piece of home for UW graduates, as Rohlich found when a college friend who had been struggling to meet people and find work because of the writer’s strike attended one of their football-watching parties.
“She was just glowing and felt like she was at home. … It was just a totally different energy, and she was just so happy, and it was like she’d found her place here,” Rohlich says. “It definitely still feels like you’re in Madison when you’re around these people.”
UW alumni did not have much of a profile or formal network in Hollywood when Richie Schwartz ’97 moved to Los Angeles ten years ago to work as an assistant to movie director David Lynch. He recalls driving to a sports bar one morning, hoping it would be open so he could watch a Wisconsin football game. A group of Michigan alumni was there with the same idea, and Schwartz thought, “This can’t be possible. Where are all the Badgers?”
Hollywood Badgers was “sorely needed” and has strengthened the UW alumni presence, says Schwartz, who now works as manager of creative affairs for late-night host Conan O’Brien’s NBC-Universal-based TV production company. He also has used his industry connections to link other UW alumni with job prospects.
“Wisconsin meant nothing to a lot of people. It was just a name,” he says. “Having the cachet of a group is almost a brand in a way.”
It was clear the group had made an impression after Feinstein got promoted at the talent agency where she once worked as an assistant to a film agent. “He said to me, ‘I only want to hire someone from the Hollywood Badgers, because everyone I meet from that group is just so smart and motivated,’ ” Feinstein says.
Kerns, who served as the same agent’s assistant before leaving to work for movie director Brandon Camp, heard the identical directive in searching for her replacement. “He really wanted me to get someone from Wisconsin,” she says. “It was kind of a rush — we had to settle for someone from Texas.”
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