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"We just had the SAG Awards on Saturday night, but that isn&amp;#x27;t stopping Hollywood. Last night, the red carpet was rolled out yet again to honor the top producing teams at the 25th Producers Guild Awards. Lupita Nyong&amp;#x27;o, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Claire Danes, and others showed up, but only one A-lister talked to the entire press line: Brad Pitt. The red carpet can be brutal. I know you&amp;#x27;re thinking, Don&amp;#x27;t you dare complain! I&amp;#x27;d love to be on the red carpet! But when you have to be there hours early to wait for stars to show up, only to have them ignore you on the carpet, it&amp;#x27;s defeating. Well, at the Producers Guild Awards, Brad Pitt, with his 12 Years a Slave director, Steve McQueen, beside him, graciously answered every question and proved what a star he is. So, with that said, I know many of you often write me to ask, &amp;quot;How does one get a job in entertainment?&amp;quot; Whether you&amp;#x27;re looking to produce, act, direct, or just get a competitive job in any field, the top producers&amp;amp;#8212;including Brad Pitt&amp;amp;#8212;are sharing their best career advice with you guys: Brad Pitt (Producer, 12 Years a Slave): &amp;quot;You gotta keep pushing. You just have to keep pushing.&amp;quot; (More from Brad, below!). Jerry Weintraub (Producer, Behind the Candelabra): &amp;quot;I never hear the word no. I hear the word maybe. Maybe means yes. If I want to do something, I do it. I don&amp;#x27;t listen to anybody else. I&amp;#x27;m not interested in anybody else&amp;#x27;s opinion. I just go do it if I believe in it. That&amp;#x27;s the most important thing. Believe in [what you&amp;#x27;re doing].&amp;quot; Peter Del Vecho (Producer, Frozen): &amp;quot;Be flexible. By that, I mean whatever you think the film is going to be or the story is going to be, it&amp;#x27;s going to end up being something else. So you have to learn to adapt quickly. I think storywise, you can never get satisfied with what you have because you can always improve upon the story, so that flexibility to be able to rework and rework something is so important. Don&amp;#x27;t settle for something that is good&amp;amp;#8212;strive for excellence.&amp;quot; Lori McCreary (President, Revelations Entertainment, with Morgan Freeman; Co-Chair, PGA Awards): &amp;quot;We have a seven-year rule. Do you like the project or the people enough to spend seven years with them getting it made? Will the project get you up every morning? If so, then you say yes to it.&amp;quot; Mike DeLuca (Co-Chair, PGA Awards; Producer, Captain Phillips): &amp;quot;Never take no for an answer. The people that don&amp;#x27;t, know where that line is get weeded out in the early stages. But you have to &amp;#x27;vibe it.&amp;#x27; Meaning whether you ask someone for a date, or a job, know where the line is.&amp;quot; Joey McFarland (Producer, The Wolf of Wall Street): &amp;quot;Work; don&amp;#x27;t network. Truly dedicate everything you have and you&amp;#x27;ll get there. Don&amp;#x27;t rely on other people, and do it yourself. We&amp;#x27;ve all had connections that have come through for us, but don&amp;#x27;t rely on it. Don&amp;#x27;t put all your eggs in one basket. The reality is, doors will always open for you, just be prepared to walk through them, and if you have a seat at the table, make sure you&amp;#x27;re bringing something and just not eating at it.&amp;quot; Riza Aziz (Producer, The Wolf of Wall Street): &amp;quot;Just have passion for what you&amp;#x27;re doing. Because when you&amp;#x27;re going through the day-to-day, dealing with problems, you have to have the passion for what you&amp;#x27;re working on. Surround yourself with good people that you can trust and share the same passion for the material.&amp;quot; Rachel Winter (Producer, Dallas Buyers Club): &amp;quot;Follow your passion. You can&amp;#x27;t make anything and you can&amp;#x27;t sell anything if you&amp;#x27;re not fully, fully committed. If you give it all, other people will give it their all and follow your example.&amp;quot; Chuck Lorre (Norman Lear Achievement Award; The Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, Two and a Half Men, Mom): &amp;quot;There&amp;#x27;s a good chance you&amp;#x27;ll fail. Fail on your own ideas and not someone else&amp;#x27;s. You&amp;#x27;ll sleep better!&amp;quot; Nina Yang Bongiovi (Fruitvale Station, Stanley Kramer Award): &amp;quot;You gotta follow your heart. As producers just starting out, we have trouble getting movies made, getting projects financed, and a lot of time we do jobs because we have to make ends meet. You do what you have to do. Then hopefully when you build enough leverage and credits behind you, you&amp;#x27;ll be able to follow your passion.&amp;quot; How do you best handle career disappointment? Rachel Winter: &amp;quot;I look at my family and think, Things can&amp;#x27;t be that effing bad. lt&amp;#x27;s going to be OK. Just keep going. It&amp;#x27;s all about who is left standing.&amp;quot; Robbie Brenner (Producer, Dallas Buyers Club): &amp;quot;I pull my car off to the side of the road, cry for 30 minutes, then I get back in and I keep on going.&amp;quot; Chuck Lorre: &amp;quot;You face it every day. Either a script doesn&amp;#x27;t work, a scene doesn&amp;#x27;t work, a joke isn&amp;#x27;t funny. Mistakes are part of the business, but blame, shame, and regret doesn&amp;#x27;t fix it. You just gotta fix it.&amp;quot; Brad Pitt: &amp;quot;The setbacks are just part of it. At times it&amp;#x27;s a pain in the ass, but at the end, you have this beautiful, beautiful film that you&amp;#x27;re very, very proud of and you have relationships working with people that you respect. In this one, for me, it&amp;#x27;s a once-in-a-decade kind of thing.&amp;quot; Chiwetel Ejiofor (Actor, 12 Years A Slave): &amp;quot;You just say, &amp;#x27;Their loss.&amp;#x27; Everybody reacts differently to disappointment, but I always tell myself, Their loss! [Laughs]&amp;quot; And by the way, I think you&amp;#x27;ll love this story that Chuck Lorre told while accepting his award tonight: When he was penniless, a neighbor of Betty White&amp;#x27;s told Chuck that if he wrote a Golden Girls spec script, he would personally put it in Betty&amp;#x27;s mailbox. Chuck did, and Betty got the script. She not only read it but sent Chuck a handwritten note telling him how much she loved it and would send it to The Golden Girls producers. Weeks later, Chuck got a letter from those producers at Warner Brothers saying that his writing wasn&amp;#x27;t up to their standards. He still has that letter. And now he works at Warner Brothers&amp;amp;#8212;and is responsible for some of their most successful comedies in the history of television. And then there was this hilarious nugget from Captain Phillips&amp;#x27; Barkhad Abdi: &amp;quot;I am from Minnesota. I drove limousines. Tonight I came here in a limousine. I didn&amp;#x27;t drive. [Long pause] I love Hollywood!&amp;quot; By the way, Gravity and 12 Years a Slave co-shared the top PGA award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture. What does that mean? The Oscar race just got a heck of a lot more interesting. What&amp;#x27;s your favorite piece of advice?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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