{"id":632665,"date":"2026-09-22T17:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T17:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632665\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T17:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T17:48:16","slug":"inside-ari-emanuels-earliest-days-in-hollywood-memoir-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632665\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Ari Emanuel’s Earliest Days in Hollywood: Memoir Excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOne of Ari Emanuel<\/a>\u2018s first appearances in the pages of The Hollywood Reporter came in our venerated Next Gen feature. Emanuel, then a 33-year-old agent at ICM Partners, was a member of the class of 1994. He listed his inspiration as his father, his power spots as The Palm and The Ivy, and his career goal was \u201cBesides getting money and power, I haven\u2019t figured it out yet.\u201d Over 30 years later, as the head of two of the largest companies in entertainment and sports \u2014 he leads TKO as executive chair and CEO and is executive chairman of WME<\/a> Group \u2014 Emanuel has money and power in spades. And, as of September 22, he can count himself as an author, too. In Roll the Calls<\/a>, his new memoir, Emanuel tells his story from the beginning for the first time. Here, in honor of the book\u2019s publication and his upcoming Los Angeles tour stop<\/a> on Sept. 29, he shares with THR an exclusive excerpt about his earliest days in the mail room at Creative Artists Agency, the audiobook version of the excerpt as read by Bob Odenkirk and an updated version of his infamous Next Gen questionnaire.<\/p>\n

Audio excerpted with permission of Penguin Random House Audio from Roll the Calls<\/a> by Ari Emanuel, excerpt read by Bob Odenkirk. Ari Emanuel \u2117 2026 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy first day in L.A., after purchasing a used 1983 Le Car, lipstick red with a pullback black canvas top and white racing stripe (Le Car painted inside the stripe), I go all in for top-of-the-line auto insurance. Whatever else I skimp on, whatever else I do without, I splurge on the best car insurance. Of all things that might go wrong in Hollywood, my father is most worried about a smashup without adequate coverage.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow the question is, Am I going to sleep in this Le Car? Because after blowing my wad to insure it like a Lamborghini, I can\u2019t afford an apartment.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the verge of sleeping in the park, I\u2019m bailed out by my friend Mendelsohn. The same friend who first mentioned the idea of agent ing to me. By coincidence he\u2019s moved out here too. His apartment, on Wilshire and La Cienega, has only one bedroom, but he graciously offers me his couch.<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst night in town, going for burgers with Mendelsohn. The talk is all about mailrooms. He knows everything about them. He worked in the William Morris mailroom in New York, and long before that\u2014 when he was still a teenager\u2014 he landed a gig in the mailroom at The Tonight Show.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome days he was plucked from the mailroom to drive Johnny Carson to and from Burbank. Carson would try out his monologue on Mendelsohn. Think that\u2019s funny, Mike? Think they\u2019ll laugh? Gee, Mr. Carson, it made ME laugh!<\/p>\n

\n\tMailrooms have been berry berry good to Mendelsohn, and yet he\u2019s burned out. That\u2019s why he\u2019s working at a bank right now, step one in his master plan to acquire the financial know-how to become a producer.<\/p>\n

\n\tBest of all, he says of the bank, normal hours! Vacations! Holidays! Weekends!<\/p>\n

\n\tMazel, I say, setting my alarm for 4:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the alarm goes off, I jump into Le Car and drive as instructed to a local bagel shop, where I buy dozens of plain and poppy seed and onion and raisin, plus several gallons of coffee, plus a vat of fresh- squeezed orange juice, plus two tubs of cream cheese, plus some fresh fruit. Then I cart this smorgasbord to the offices of CAA<\/a> and lay it out before everyone arrives.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn my brief orientation it was explained to me that catering would be my first duty every day. If this seems demeaning, at least it\u2019s simple. My task the rest of the day is impossible. I\u2019m to empty the huge sacks of mail that arrive each day at CAA and distribute it all to dozens of people I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo one gives me introductions; no one gives me a list of names or a face book.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust figure it out, asshole, that\u2019s the ethos of the job.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf the whole agency.<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery mistake earns me a scathing reprimand. People wave their arms, get right in my face. This letter isn\u2019t for me, dickwad! Sometimes the yelling seems to come from deep down in the yeller\u2019s soul. As if I killed their grandma.<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes it feels as if the yeller is actually getting off, as if they\u2019re a textbook sadist. And sometimes it feels like basic revenge, because the yeller got yelled at when he worked in the mailroom.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe yelling isn\u2019t what throws me, though; it\u2019s the things that make people yell.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tiniest infractions.<\/p>\n

\n\tHey, asshole, what happened to that script I sent out last week?!<\/p>\n

\n\tHey, fuck-o, can you explain why this envelope doesn\u2019t have a stamp?<\/p>\n

\n\tHey, dipshit, we\u2019re out of garlic bagels again!<\/p>\n

\n\tIt occurs to me one day that the reason might be power. Maybe CAA wants all new employees to understand raw power by first making us feel the horror of powerlessness.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey don\u2019t understand: I\u2019ve never known anything else. I grew up without power. At home I was the youngest and told myself I was the dumbest. At school I was hopelessly lost. The only place I experienced anything close to power was the wrestling mat. So I know my way around this powerless feeling, as I know my way around the Art Institute of Chicago.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou wanna try to make me feel powerless? Knock yourself out.<\/p>\n

\n\tI also don\u2019t react to stress the way others do. With dyslexia, ADHD, it\u2019s always stress in my head, so when there\u2019s stress outside my head, when there\u2019s chaos and change and disorder, it feels like some cosmic symmetry is being restored.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat others call stress, I call normal.<\/p>\n

\n\tI call peace.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course I have moments. Now and then I curl up in a corner and wonder: Would people yell less if I fit the mold? Everyone at CAA is Harvard, Princeton, Yale. No fellow Macalester alums in this bitch. But I quell this creeping paranoia by reminding myself that two of the firm\u2019s co-founders aren\u2019t exactly Rhodes scholars. Ronnie Meyer dropped out of school at sixteen. Mr. Ovitz got his business degree on the fly, attending school while working grunt jobs.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth men also grew up poor. Their dads were salesmen. Meyer\u2019s father sold dresses door to door; Mr. Ovitz\u2019s father sold liquor. The whole point of this place is sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe whole point of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m annoyed with myself for believing the myth that Hollywood is a sun-splashed enclave of creatives. It\u2019s that too, but it\u2019s also a nonstop sales convention. Everyone is selling. Their story, their body, their script, their face, their voice, their blood, their soul. I might not know what goes on inside Skull and Bones or Princeton eating clubs, but I know how to sell.<\/p>\n

\n\tI feel as if I\u2019ve always known. As if I never had any choice. People ask me when I knew I wanted to sell things, and it\u2019s like they\u2019re asking when I knew I had two brothers.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat a pleasant surprise to find Hollywood full of people like me. Salespeople, I mean. More surprising still is that the town was founded by salespeople.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat block-lettered sign in the hills is nothing but a sales pitch. People act like it\u2019s Niagara Falls, some miracle of Mother Nature, but it\u2019s just ad copy! HOLLYWOOD \u2014 it was nailed up there in the 1920s to lure prospective homebuyers. It\u2019s a billboard, for crying out loud. No one anticipated that people were going to start projecting their dreams onto a billboard.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhenever I\u2019m feeling doubt, fatigue, fury, I use that sign to reorient myself. Whenever I\u2019m lost in Le Car, coffee and vats of cream cheese spilling and sloshing across the floor mats, I look at the sign and concentrate on who I am, and where I am, and how those two things are aligned.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m not the world\u2019s greatest mailroom clerk, I\u2019m under no illusions about that, but I could sell circles around anyone at CAA. That\u2019s what I tell myself anyway as I punch the pillow and pull the blanket under my chin on Mendelsohn\u2019s couch, trying to catch a few hours of shut-eye before the alarm goes off at 4:30. Just give me a chance, you fucks.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome nights I get the blues. When Robby first told me to go west, I pictured champagne flutes, Corvettes\u2014glamour. Who doesn\u2019t? Even the mailroom, I figured, would be glamour adjacent.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn two months I haven\u2019t had one glimpse of glamour. Haven\u2019t seen one star.<\/p>\n

\n\tFunny how Tom Cruise never seems to make his way back to the mailroom.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe only star I\u2019ve seen thus far is Mr. Ovitz.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot that he isn\u2019t big. For some, the biggest. And he knows it. He struts up and down the halls as though they\u2019re red carpets.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can always tell he\u2019s approaching from the rising wave of ass-kissing.<\/p>\n

\n\tGood morning, Mr. Ovitz. Good afternoon, Mr. Ovitz.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou only hear obsequious greetings, however, never actual conver sation. Mr. Ovitz doesn\u2019t do chitchat.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou also never hear anyone call him anything but Mr. Ovitz. Never Mike, never Mikey. Never: Hey, yo, Mr. O.! What\u2019s shaking?<\/p>\n

\n\tIf he were stabbing you in the chest with a carving knife (always a real possibility), you\u2019d still be expected to follow protocol. Please, Mr. Ovitz, would you kindly stop stabbing me?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first time Mr. Ovitz didn\u2019t respond to my good morning, I was crushed. What a relief it was to learn that he speaks to no one.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis power derives from silence and mystery. And fear.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he does deign to drop a word in the direction of another human, that word is cherished, then shared like scripture or revelation. I half expect Mr. Ovitz to arrive at the office one day wearing a white robe and sandals rather than his standard double-breasted Zegna.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite having no interactions with Mr. Ovitz, I\u2019m on intimate terms with his belongings. It\u2019s my responsibility, after I\u2019ve spread out the bagels and filled up the coffee urn, to slip into Mr. Ovitz\u2019s corner office and tidy.<\/p>\n

\n\tMake sure his personal fridge is stocked with his favorite fruit juices.<\/p>\n

\n\tMake sure his personal bathroom is supplied with toilet paper. (Charmin only; Mr. Ovitz is a devout two-ply man.)<\/p>\n

\n\tMake sure his bowl of Hershey\u2019s Kisses is filled to the brim.<\/p>\n

\n\tStraighten his wall art.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s been strongly implied that if Mr. Ovitz\u2019s gigantic portrait of Marilyn Monroe, or his equally gigantic portrait of the Buddha beside it, are even half an inch askew, my lifeless body will be found several days later floating face down in the Los Angeles River.<\/p>\n

\n\tSaturdays\u2014the closest I come to interacting with Mr. Ovitz. After coffee I run down to the office, scoop up his phone sheet and a package wrapped in brown paper that contains his mail, then speed over to his house on Roxbury.<\/p>\n

\n\tNerve-shredding experience, pulling up to Ch\u00e2teau Ovitz in Le Car, run- walking to the front door, ringing the bell.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the door swings open, I\u2019m always taken aback that it\u2019s not an English butler before me. It\u2019s Mr. Ovitz, wearing a cardigan.<\/p>\n

\n\tI hand him the call sheet and package of mail. He doesn\u2019t say thank you, doesn\u2019t look me in the eye, doesn\u2019t acknowledge my presence. In one motion he tears open the package of mail and closes the door in my face.<\/p>\n

\n\tExcerpted from Roll the Calls<\/a> by Ari Emanuel. Copyright \u00a9 2026 by Ari Emanuel. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\t\tAri\u2019s Next Gen Questionnaire From \u201994\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Hollywood Reporter\u2018s Next Gen list, featuring Ari Emanuel, was published on Nov. 8, 1994.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTHR<\/p>\n

\t\tAri\u2019s THR Questionnaire From \u201926\t<\/p>\n

\n\tARIEL EMANUEL<\/p>\n

Executive Chairman, WME Group; Executive Chair and CEO, TKO; Founder and Principal Investor, MARI<\/p>\n

Age: 65<\/p>\n

Birthplace: Chicago<\/p>\n

Education: B.A. Macalester College (**I THINK THR SPELLED IT WRONG LAST TIME!) [Editor\u2019s note: We did.]<\/p>\n

First job after college: Working as an assistant to agent Robert Lantz in New York City<\/p>\n

Big break: Taking control of the William Morris Agency for $44 million<\/p>\n

Career milestone: Buying UFC and then WWE to create TKO<\/p>\n

Career goal: Still trying to figure it out<\/p>\n

Inspiration: Staud and my kids<\/p>\n

Business philosophy: Know when you\u2019re on the field. Know when you\u2019re off the field.<\/p>\n

Lessons learned: Revenge is best served cold.<\/p>\n

Power spots: Only one meal a day.<\/p>\n

Leisure time: Working out, golf, surfing, sauna, meditation, breathing, ice bath etc. etc. etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Ari Emanuel\u2018s first appearances in the pages of The Hollywood Reporter came in our venerated Next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[169965,288,93792,321,93,61,60,80752],"class_list":["post-632665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ari-emanuel","tag-books","tag-caa","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-wme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}