A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: Two years after writers and actors went on strike, Hollywood is still struggling to recover the resulting job losses in film and television production. Add to that the most expensive wildfires in California's history and a shrinking industry, and you got not as much show or biz happening in Hollywood. While President Trump says he wants to turn it all around with 100% tariffs on all films produced outside the U.S., many writers and producers are leaving the business altogether to a so-called creator economy, a growing field where people are producing digital content on their own terms and opting out of traditional Hollywood. That includes Amy Suto, an author and content creator. She told me about how she got her start in a talent agency as a starry-eyed graduate of USC's film school, which has churned out top Hollywood talent.
AMY SUTO: From there, I started moving up the ladder and going from assistant to writer assistant to showrunner assistant, and then eventually getting my own episode of TV. And when I was making that jump up the ladder, sometimes I was able to do really exciting things, but oftentimes you're answering phones. You're, you know, going on coffee runs for your boss. And there was a lot more politics than I had anticipated with a lot more kind of power dynamics between the different hierarchies.
MARTÍNEZ: But isn't that just a part of Hollywood? I mean, isn't that just a part of how it is?
SUTO: You'd think that. But I think the real issue is that as I was continuing on my career in Hollywood, there was becoming this shift. As there was becoming fewer and fewer TV shows produced, there was becoming more and more kind of, like, short-order streaming. The writers' rooms were going from 24 episodes to six episodes. But because there aren't these longer episodes, there's a lot less ability for writers to grow on these shows. And there's a lot less ability to kind of foster that kind of dynamic magic that happened in writers' rooms more in the early golden age of television, which had its flaws as well but had more opportunity.
MARTÍNEZ: Did you ever feel like your creativity was being squashed?
SUTO: Yeah, it's part of the reason why I started in between shows doing freelance memoir ghostwriting and writing my own books, 'cause I started to realize that the projects that I was most creatively enlivened by were happening outside of Hollywood and outside of the industry. And my writing was being more valued by people outside of the industry than the people in it. And I just saw that there wasn't a creative future for people who wanted to not write the next Marvel film.
MARTÍNEZ: Are you able to stay afloat with what you're doing?
SUTO: Yes, but in order to make writing your job, you actually do need to have a few different income streams. You know, writing on Substack is something a lot of people are doing. And self-publishing books is something that allows you to kind of bypass gatekeepers and be able to create books and put them out there in your own way. Since I left Hollywood, I've made way more than I've made any time that I was in the industry.
MARTÍNEZ: Recently, President Trump announced 100% tariffs on all films produced outside the U.S. Do you think that this kind of a move would help Hollywood, would help the industry?
SUTO: I don't think so because when it comes to the production side of things, Hollywood's always had different places it's gone to reduce costs and to be able to, you know, do on-location shoots in different countries. Like, I do think that that is an important part of Hollywood, to be able to have production happen elsewhere. If Hollywood really wants to shift and change, it needs to look inwards about how it treats its creatives and also how it structures its business with gatekeepers and making things for audiences that aren't just another big, you know, superhero franchise.
And so taking risks on smaller creative projects and more of, like, the mid-level films that we used to see a lot of. Kind of, like, undoing a little bit of what streaming broke will also help the industry, but thinking about what is the way forward with different technologies and how to make things on a budget but are more respecting of the artists that are coming in for the creative process, that are bringing their humanity to these stories that need to be told.
MARTÍNEZ: That's writer and content creator Amy Suto. Amy, thanks a lot.
SUTO: Thanks for having me.
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