Impossibly Tongue-Tied Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    Having Sam Godwin as an agent is like being blessed by an angel. I never felt luckier than on the day he tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Jenny, I’d be honored to make you a star.” I was, like, “No, Sam, I’d be honored to be one of the stars you’ve made.”
    Jennifer L., in Variety
    When Sam is here at Sundance, his instincts are like a Geiger counter: Any film he’s excited about means that the director and the actors are made—that is, if they are smart enough to sign with Sam and then listen closely to what he says they have to do in order to make it in this business. Of course, they’ll never regret that they did.
    Robert R., in Hollywood Reporter
    When you’re a nobody and all of a sudden your indie flick gets some buzz, a dozen agents will descend on you like locusts, and then tell you how terrific they are and what they can do for you. Not Sam. He’s too Zen for that. He sees his job as your samurai, the one who slaughters all the bad guys so that you can make the movies you want to make. And trust me: The dude wields one bad-ass sword.
    Quentin T., in Interview
    You want to know about Sam as an agent? Let me put it this way: Both Ben and I had the opportunity to sign with Sam, but because people in Hollywood see us as joined at the hip, we decided, “Okay, we’ll sign with different agents. How bad could that be, right?” So we flipped a coin, and I got Sam. Need I say more?”
    Matt D., in Entertainment Weekly

2
The Ultimatum
    In Hollywood, everyone has a dirty little secret.
    And Sam Godwin, the managing partner of ICA—Intellectual Creative Agency, one of the biggest talent firms in Hollywood—knew most of them.
    For example, he knew that a certain blockbuster director had recently been arrested in Utah for rolling around a lumpy TraveLodge mattress with the comely, buck-toothed fifteen-year-old daughter of a polygamist. What do you do in that situation, hold your breath and pray that no overly zealous stringer with the National Enquirer or Hollywood Exxxposé is Googling the court dockets from the Deseret Morning News ? Hell, no! It was Sam’s way of thinking that you had to be proactive, not reactive, which was why he convinced his client to make a fairly substantial contribution to the fifteen-year-old’s “college fund.” Sure, it ticked off Mr. Cradle Robber to have to do it, but he anted up. Case dismissed. End of story.
    And Sam was the only person on the planet who knew that a certain up-and-coming television actor whose starring role in his first action film had tested through the roof still slept at home with his mother. No, not just in the same house; but in the same bed with Mommy Dearest.
    Every night.
    Nope, there would be no way in which to resurrect Sonny’s career if that little ditty got out.
    And then there was that veddy aristocratic British actress who was at the top of every film director’s must-have list—you know, the one who comes off as the long-lost daughter of Audrey Hepburn, all fire and ice elegance? Well, her little indiscretions, which took place in her mid-teens, could be found on the shelf of any video porn shop in Germany. But thanks to the fact that she took Sam up on his suggestion that she change her name and find herself a top-notch Swiss plastic surgeon for a nose job, cheekbone augmentation, and let’s not forget the breast reduction, no one else needed to find out about this, either.
    In Sam’s mind, knowing these juicy little tidbits and telling the world about them—or telling anyone, for that matter—accomplished nothing. In fact, it defeated everything he stood for, because keeping secrets was Sam’s stock-in-trade.
    He was, after all, a Hollywood agent.
    Which was why he made every client’s business his own, and worked very hard to ensure that their business became no one else’s.
    It was this kind of