Jane Lynch presents the Business Manager Icon Award to John McILwee and sings his praises at The Hollywood Reporter's 14th Annual Power Business Managers event presented by City National Bank, held at Spago Beverly Hills.
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00:00I'm so happy to be here today. I met John McElwee, he's of course videoing this,
00:07at a party on a Friday and we talked a bit about possibly working together. I
00:14let Saturday go by but I called him first thing on Sunday morning and he
00:19said, hey buddy what took you so long? He's the one person I know that I can
00:23text at 6 a.m. and I know that he will be up and at him, probably has been to the
00:28gym, probably did some things over in Europe and I know that he will return my
00:33text immediately, sometimes even before I hit send. Now when I think about what
00:40John McElwee gets done in a day, it makes me want to take a good long nap. He's
00:46smart as hell, he is the most optimistic person I have ever met, he adores his
00:52clients, he sees everybody's TV shows, their movies, their commercials, he comes
00:56to every theater thing I do and he's always in the audience cheering me on
01:00and he deeply loves this business. He is a fan and he's also the biggest
01:06name-dropper I've ever met. But he goes above and beyond for his clients, he's
01:14also traveling the world with his wonderful husband Bill and they're
01:18they're restoring architectural treasures all over the country, going on
01:22adventure after adventure and because he is of such a go-go nature, he has
01:28energy to do it all, he has the energy to fully enjoy it all, he embraces it all, he
01:33carpe diems the shit out of life. But what I love most about John is when I
01:40present him with something that truly confounds me, which is a very easy thing
01:44to do, and he says to me, easy-peasy. It makes my heart melt and I thank the good
01:53Lord for this man. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you this year's Hollywood Reporter
01:58sexiest, did I say sexy? Business Manager Icon Award winner and
02:04all-around great guy, John McElwee.
02:27Hello everybody. Thank you for coming. Obviously this is a big deal for all of
02:33us. I needed something mindless to do this morning, so I want to start off by
02:39thanking City National, Agilink and Exactuals for being able to do direct
02:46deposits on SAG residuals and I sat down and recorded all of our SAG residuals
02:50this morning. So I felt very productive, kept my mind off my speech coming here
02:54today because I'm so excited. I have been doing this for 34 years and I want to
02:59just say that I absolutely love my job. I get up every day about 530. Jan and I
03:05are texting. She's got a couple of questions, so I answer her questions,
03:07whatever. I can do some things in the morning. I get to go to the gym. We have
03:12this amazing ability now with this technology to be able to like work from
03:17anywhere, enjoy yourselves, but also be incredibly productive. I went out last
03:22night with a couple of friends from London, a couple of actors, and the girl
03:28that I was with. Oh, John, you know, congratulations on this. This is so
03:32exciting. And she was on the big award circuit last year, so she was going to
03:36all the, you know, award ceremonies and things. She said, oh, so what's this
03:40Hollywood Reporter icon thing? So you, is it a big, is it a dinner? You're going to
03:44a dinner tomorrow? I was like, no, no, it's not a dinner. Oh, it's a luncheon. You guys
03:48going to a luncheon? This is so exciting. You're going to lunch somewhere? I said, no,
03:52actually, it's a breakfast. And she kind of looked at me and they were kind of
03:56just dumbfounded by this breakfast. I said, listen, I said, we all take it very
03:59seriously. It's 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. It's enough time that you can call City
04:05National. Their elite line is open at 6 a.m., but we can all get back and like do
04:10our international wire approvals. So we really love, actually, this event because
04:14we all kind of take it seriously. I wanted to write my speech down because
04:21there's nothing that people want to see more than a rambling business manager. So
04:27thank you so much to the Hollywood Reporter for this amazing honor. I've
04:31really taken this business manager event seriously for the last 14 years. I've
04:35always got my headshots in on time. I try and come up with interesting quotes for
04:40the articles. What you don't know about me is that I love award shows and I get
04:47to go with clients. My husband Bill's won a couple of Tony's. I get to go to the
04:50Tony Awards. I'm super excited about that. I'm a great plus one. I don't talk to
04:54anybody. I'm having a good time. I have a good suit. I have a good time. I kind of
05:02think of this event as the Oscars of business managers because there's so
05:06many other industries that get all of these awards and kind of accolades and
05:11we don't. So I take this very seriously. I think everybody in this room does an
05:14incredible job for all the work that we do for our clients and I know everybody
05:19that I've talked to especially today really genuinely enjoys this. So thank
05:24you so much for the Hollywood Reporter. A couple years ago my friend Harley Newman
05:29was honored with I think it was the first Icon Award and it was such an
05:33inspiration to me because of his drive and his success but also because he got
05:38a beautiful watch as a gift. So let's see where the day takes us. I want to jump
05:46right in with the thank yous. First and foremost my mother Ellen who's up here
05:50from San Diego. My mom and my family gave me the opportunity to grow and flourish
05:57in San Diego. I attended public schools. I was able to develop the skills that I
06:02think carried me through my life. So I love you mom. Thank you for all the
06:05sacrifices you made for me. Over here is one of my longtime clients Annabeth Gish.
06:13Annabeth and I have worked together between 25 and 30, might be 30 years. So it was
06:19right when she started acting at seven which was great. So we've had a good
06:24time together. The incredible Jane Lynch. We've had a good time together and if
06:30you've watched Only Murders in the Building then you know what good
06:34business manager doesn't need a stunt double in his back pocket. My husband
06:41Bill Domaschke who unfortunately couldn't be here today. He's in London.
06:45For all the support and all of the missed holidays that we've experienced
06:50over year-end. Bill is president of Warner Brothers Animation also producing
06:54two Broadway shows. So when he suggested he should fly home for the event I did
07:00as any good business manager would do and say honey just stay there keep
07:03working. On to my amazing team without who I would not be standing here we have
07:10Alex Grissom who took a leap of faith with me back in 2019 when we started our
07:16current firm. December 2019 almost killed us. We had a new City National Bank
07:22platform. We converted to Agilink. It was year-end. We had all of our
07:30clients addresses and updates to do and we somehow managed to get through that
07:34month and what was critical about that was by doing it 2019 it made 2024 or 2020
07:41perfect. So it couldn't happen in a better time in advance of the pandemic.
07:46Jason Kazan dare I say the best tax man in Hollywood. Okay Jason has such a dry
07:53sense of humor and it's so friendly we actually look forward to tax season.
07:58Matt Salmon over here who was a senior payroll specialist at Paychex and I
08:05will tell you having an in-house payroll whiz is gold. Kathy Domaschke who works
08:10out of Chicago she's a paralegal she's in charge of all of our compliance and
08:14insurance and I can safely say that between she and myself we know more than
08:18anybody at any of the guild's eligibility departments. I really
08:24embraced having an office atmosphere where everybody can enjoy themselves and
08:27have a fantastic work-life balance. I'll give you a perfect example so Matt just
08:31had a baby and I said Matt why don't you take a couple of months off really be
08:37home with your family your girlfriend enjoy the baby. So about 10 days later
08:41Matt shows up at the office I said Matt what are you doing here he said I came
08:45because I needed some rest. So we have a good time working together. One of the
08:55things I've always respected about the Hollywood Reporter is that they take
08:58this issue very seriously. I believe that they really consider what's good for our
09:01industry and carefully think through this process. I would especially like to
09:05acknowledge THR this year for recognizing someone like myself and my
09:08firm. Although we were a small boutique agency firms like ours represent a large
09:13portion of the entertainment industry. Whether it's a large firm or small firm
09:17all of us come to work every day and try to make the world a better place for our
09:20clients. I believe culture starts at the top. I've always strived to treat my
09:25clients my co-workers with the ultimate respect. I don't have any employees I
09:28only have co-workers because I believe that we're all in this together and we
09:32all have a vested interest in being successful. The last couple of years been
09:37a lot to process, pandemic, the strike, the general contraction of the industry. On
09:42top of that shrinking resources across the board. In my life, in my work, I've
09:47always strived to create win-win situations. A successful negotiation
09:51doesn't mean somebody else has to lose. All of our jobs have gotten so much
09:56harder. Compliance at the bank level, restrictive insurance markets, medical
10:00coverage, qualifications. Technology is amazing when it works and catastrophic
10:04when it doesn't. We often discuss it's a blessing and a curse being good at our
10:09jobs because sometimes a client might not see that there are nine steps that
10:14we have done and dealt with some difficult situations to get it to that
10:17tenth step. So not really is all the work that was required is a little bit
10:22of our kind of like unsung hero situation because we really appreciate
10:26being able to do all this. So when it gets to a client they think that it's
10:29been done correctly the whole time. In May of 2020 I read an article in the
10:35Wall Street Journal by Esther Perel that really struck with stuck with me. She's a
10:40New York-based therapist and described the unbelievable fear and anxiety of
10:44living in lockdown, having her life and all of her future plans upended. It took
10:49some time but she was able to reframe this unknown fear into optimism. Instead
10:54of fearing the future why not be excited about the undiscovered opportunities?
10:58What amazing things are out there that we don't know yet? Yes there's fear and
11:02anxiety in the world and you can't ignore it but instead I choose to
11:06acknowledge and embrace it and all the unknown discoveries that await. Be
11:10excited about what you don't know. Be excited about what could be better. We
11:15have a saying around the office which is it's been done that way because it's
11:19always been done that way. So why can't if there's a different opportunity do
11:23something that makes something better? Anyway thank you again to everybody in
11:27this room. I think we're the unsung heroes of the entertainment industry.
11:30Keeping clients on the right path in this wild world of culture and politics
11:35as it relates to finance freedom of expression can be a struggle but a
11:38necessary one. Also when are we finally going to get our own IMDB category? So in
11:47closing I would just like to thank everybody here. This means a tremendous
11:52amount to me. I take what we do so seriously and I have it's a pleasure to
11:59work with all my clients, my co-workers and congratulations to all of you. Thank
12:03you.