Sometimes Hollywood finds its way to us (The Paper Chase or Legally Blonde, anyone?) and sometimes we find our way to Hollywood. Or at least our alumni do. Take Zola Mashariki ’97 for instance. A Vice President of Production at Fox Searchlight Pictures, her credits to date include The Namesake, Phat Girls, and Antwone Fisher. Before transitioning into the limelight, er “searchlight”, Mashariki worked as a corporate attorney for Proskauer Rose, LLP in New York. She began her tenure at Fox Searchlight in 2000 as a production intern, was promoted to Creative Executive in January 2001, and to Director in November 2003.
“While I loved corporate law, my background in college had been drama and I was still yearning to do something creative. I just couldn’t invest the energy at the time” Mashariki said. Heeding her passion, she headed out to Los Angeles where she enrolled in the Peter Stark Producing Program. “[While different from what I expected], I did learn about production. I was shooting, editing, splicing, and cutting sound the old fashioned way,” she said. “As an intern, I realized that producing is about anticipating everything that can go wrong and working against it.” In what she dubbed a “sink or swim” environment, Mashariki became a “highly underpaid” executive.
“My job became networking… I looked at relationships I had with folks on the outside.” What relationships did she have? From her days growing up in Brooklyn, Mashariki knew Jay-Z, Tupac, and Ice Cube. Her next project, in fact, is The Notorious B.I.G., the story of the life and death of infamous hip hop rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G.
When asked by one student how viable Mashariki’s path was for other law students to follow, she encouraged him to decide what it was he wanted to try, embrace every “menial” task and be prepared to lose his ego. “In the end, it’s all about getting the creative result you want… it’s about negotiating your wants and trying to achieve a common ground. And you’re at HLS, what better preparation could you ask for?”
