Angle on Producers with Carolina Groppa

Jacob Chase made his first short film with friends and no money. Nine years later, he was handed the keys to one of horror's biggest franchises. Jacob also directed Come Play, four episodes of Peacock's The Girl in the Woods, and is now in prep for Sleepover with Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster.
And while he's done a ton of great press for Insidious: Out of the Further, he hasn't talked about much the decade before it, which is the part you know I love.
The TV pilot that collapsed days before shooting, the student loan debt that shaped every creative choice he made in his twenties, the Doritos Super Bowl commercial that won him just enough money to breathe again. In this conversation, Carolina and her pal Jacob go past the franchise talking points. We explore:
Going from a four-minute short film called Larry to a phone call from Amblin 
The fear of repeating his own parents' patterns while directing a film about generational trauma
How becoming a father reshaped what scares him.
Jacob also tells the story of pitching Insidious the way he first told it to Carolina over brunch, before any of it was real.
Can't wait to hear what you take away! 
xx CG

Today we're serving you a special episode in collaboration with Latina Squad, the community of Latina executives launched by Christine Davila reshaping Hollywood.
Carolina sat down with three of her fellow squad members:
Julia Balleza (VP of Development and Programming, Blumhouse Television) Greta Fuentes (MACRO, where she started as Charles King's assistant the day he left WME to build the company), and Adriana Martínez Barrón (former Netflix exec, now running Stacey Abrams's production company Sage Works). We're also honored to feature Chika Igwilo, SVP of Development at FX, as our guest of honor.
Chika was awarded the Catalyst for Change award at the organization's second annual Creative Honors, recognizing her impact across two decades in the industry.
Together, we discuss the career-defining gambles they didn't see coming, what it actually means to advocate for a project no one else believes in yet, and what they hope the next generation inherits. I hope this convo fills your sails with wind!
MORE ON LATINA SQUAD www.latinasquad.com
AOP SUBSTACK 📫 Musings, Mixers, Workshops, and Exclusive Content https://angleonproducers.substack.com/

Adrien Rabago has spent 25 years dressing people in Los Angeles, from actresses on red carpets to brides finding "the dress" to two very famous soccer players who needed twelve jerseys instead of two, two days before the shoot.
She founded Adrien's Closet in 2009 to make elevated dressing accessible beyond celebrity circles, and in this conversation she pulls back the curtain on what styling actually looks like behind the glamour: the steaming, the pinning, the returns, the paperwork, and the constant last-minute fires that come with production work.
Carolina and Adrien actually go way back, one of those funny things that happens once you've been in LA for 20 years and your paths keep crossing. Carolina was thrilled to head into Adrien's Closet for her Tribeca looks, and Adrien even surprised her with an outfit for this very recording!
Experience the flowy fabulousness on YouTube!
Clothing can shape identity, confidence, and how we are perceived. It can absolutely change how you walk into a room. There's real research behind this, including the concept of "enclothed cognition," coined by Northwestern researchers in 2012, which explains how what we wear doesn't just signal something to the world, it actually changes how we think, perform, and feel about ourselves.
We also dig into the real difference between a stylist, a designer, and a costume designer, how wardrobe communicates trust or authority or struggle before an actor says a word, and why quiet luxury might really be a response to overwhelm. Adrien also opens up about dressing women through body changes, including postpartum, and what it means to help someone feel confident in a body they're still getting to know. 
AOP SUBSTACK 📫 https://angleonproducers.substack.com/
WATCH ON YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/@angleonproducers
JOIN THE AOP COMMUNITY
📸 Instagram: / https://instagram.com/carolinagroppa | https://instagram.com/angleonproducers 📱 TikTok: / https://www.tiktok.com/@carolina_groppa 👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn: / bit.ly/2BqHs8L
CONNECT WITH ADRIEN https://www.adrienrabago.com/
QUESTIONS ❔Answering your questions on our Subtasck! Submit here: anglonproducerspodcast@gmail.com

Sherry Thomas is one half of Bialy/Thomas & Associates, the casting powerhouse behind Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, Barry, The Righteous Gemstones, Dead to Me, Apple TV+'s Sugar, and Broadway's Jersey Boys. She and Sharon have earned multiple Emmy nominations together across their 25-plus year partnership. Their most recent Emmy nom is for Apple TV+'s Pluribus, which is Vince Gilligan's follow-up to Breaking Bad.
It's a full-circle moment: Sherry and her partner Sharon Bialy are the team who first brought Bryan Cranston to Gilligan's attention nearly two decades ago. 
In this episode, we go all the way back to New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where a girl obsessed with Donny and Marie and Three's Company had no idea she'd end up building an empire in casting. She landed in LA not knowing a single person. She slept on couches for two years. She worked retail at the Gap. And then, through a chain of small moments (a charity basketball game, a fundraiser, a woman named Victoria Burroughs) she found her way into a casting office and never looked back.
We dive into: 
Her first job as a location casting assistant on Contact
Meeting her business partner Sharon Bialy at a Starbucks and building a 25-plus year partnership without ever putting anything in writing
What she wishes every producer understood about working with casting directors
Her honest, unfiltered take on AI in casting and what it means for actors
How becoming a mom to two teenage daughters changed the way she sees ambition and grit
Sherry is candid, funny, and doesn't hold back, whether she's talking about the gritty early days or the future of our industry. This is a primer for building a career (and a business) on relationships, resilience, and staying true to who you are. 
AOP SUBSTACK
📫 Musings, Mixers, Workshops, and Exclusive Content
https://angleonproducers.substack.com/
 
AOP WHERE TO WATCH/LISTEN
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@angleonproducers
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6UBux9RgxeW1MiQDXSMrnr
iTunes: https://apple.co/3FDyhmC
 
JOIN THE AOP COMMUNITY
📸 Instagram: / https://instagram.com/carolinagroppa | https://instagram.com/angleonproducers
📱 TikTok:   / https://www.tiktok.com/@carolina_groppa
👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn:   / bit.ly/2BqHs8L
QUESTIONS
❔Answering your questions on our Subtasck! Submit here:
anglonproducerspodcast@gmail.com
 
Keep creating, keep hustling. And as always, thanks for doing this life with me. — C.

Dana Ledoux Miller ​is a shape shifting scribe. ​
S​he was PA'ing on Lost and The Descendants when she first said out loud that she wanted to be a writer. A decade later, she's co-written and co-directed Moana 2 and written Disney's live-action Moana, in theaters July 10 — becoming one of the ​f​ew Pacific Islander writers steering a major Disney IP. In this episode, we trace ​h​er full arc: from set life in Hawaii, to landing in Aaron Sorkin's writers' room on The Newsroom, to the surreal call that brought her onto Moana.
We talk about what it actually feels like to carry the weight of representation on a project this big — the pressure of getting it right, the imposter syndrome that hasn't fully gone away even after a billion-dollar movie, and how she handles public reaction to work she's poured herself into.
We also get into PEAK, the nonprofit she co-founded so she's not the only name on the list of Pacific Islander storytellers working in Hollywood.
Plus: desert island essentials, her favorite Hawaiian island, and what The Rock is actually cooking.
 
AOP SUBSTACK
📫 Musings, Mixers, Workshops, and Exclusive Content
https://angleonproducers.substack.com/
 
AOP WHERE TO WATCH/LISTEN
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@angleonproducers
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6UBux9RgxeW1MiQDXSMrnr
iTunes: https://apple.co/3FDyhmC
 
JOIN THE AOP COMMUNITY
📸 Instagram: / https://instagram.com/carolinagroppa | https://instagram.com/angleonproducers
📱 TikTok:   / https://www.tiktok.com/@carolina_groppa
👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn:   / bit.ly/2BqHs8L
 
QUESTIONS
❔Answering your questions on our Subtasck! Submit here:
anglonproducerspodcast@gmail.com