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Meet Julie Harris Walker of The Other 50% in Burbank

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Harris Walker.

Julie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started out wanting to be an actor but realized before I graduated NYU that I really didn’t. So, I learned accounting, payroll and production and in 1997 moved to Los Angeles to work at Moxie Pictures as a production bidder. After that I talked my way into an auditing job at Walt Disney Studios. It was a job they typically hired CPA’s for, but I convinced them that my background in both production and accounting would do the trick, and I spent the next three years traveling the world auditing films and TV shows.

I then spent seven years at HBO in production finance and, as is widely known about HBO, there is limited upward mobility since people hardly ever leave. By this time, I had three children to support, so I moved on to The Weinstein Company. Although I met some lifelong friends at TWC, and was gratefully beneath the regard of the owners, it was the financial instability of the company that drove me out, and I transitioned into selling production payroll and accounting software at Entertainment Partners.

Around 2016, I started to feel the rumblings of the discontent of the women in Hollywood, including my own. At that time, it wasn’t so much about harassment as it was about lack of opportunity, unconscious bias and discrimination. And since my secret dream was always to have a talk radio show, I decided to start a podcast. My first podcast was called The Other 50% – A Herstory of Hollywood, where I talk to successful women in the entertainment industry to share their stories. What started out as an exploration of unconscious bias affecting women’s careers became inspiring stories of triumph and women overcoming enormous obstacles to find success, which they did. I had found my passion.

By the end of 2016, I left my corporate job to focus on podcasting full time. Over the next two years, I produced several more podcasts and in 2018 I started collaborating on a project called Catch a Break – the insider’s guide to breaking into and navigating the entertainment industry. The brainchild of Jeanette Volturno, the impetus behind this was to offer a format that included all the things you don’t know you don’t know when you are entering this industry. You may come out of film school fully ready to direct a film, but you might have gaps around things like how to network, how to manage your finances as a freelancer, even how to use the walkie talkies! The Catch a Break team created a podcast with amazing guests as well as a website offering bonus materials. For example, for one episode we went through a complete call sheet and explained every position on the crew. As a bonus, you can download the very call sheet we are looking at during the episode to follow along. We want it to be educational as well as entertaining. We are mid-way through releasing season two right now, which is focused on independent films – how to write them, sell them, fund them, etc. This season has been interrupted by COVID-19 and everything the industry is facing. To meet the moment, we have produced a four part live speaker series called The Way Back – Navigating the Film Industry in the COVID-19 era, where we host panel discussions on what it will take to get back to work. This series is also presented by GreenSlate, the production payroll and software solutions company for whom I am now the SVP of West Coast Operations, in addition to my podcasting work.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I woke up around 40 and realized that all the things Marlo Thomas told me in Free to Be You and Me, the soundtrack of my childhood, were aspirational rather than representative. Professionally I had started to bump up against some resistance before I broke through to the VP level, and personally, my marriage fell apart. As I tried to sort it all out over the next few years, I noticed that more and more women were the breadwinners of their families, as I was, and this was causing a societal shift that I didn’t hear much talk about. I know in my own life I was unable to negotiate what this meant for gender roles inside of my own marriage, and though this wasn’t the sole cause of my divorce, it certainly contributed. And I was negotiating my career for which I had ambitions that didn’t always match the biases of those holding the power.

So, I had great curiosity about how women were doing it – navigating big careers and their personal relationships, when the expectations we grew up with had shifted. I knew several female executives who were breadwinners and had families and worked very hard, so I set out to talk to them. This is how the podcast started. Initially, it was an exploration of two things: unconscious bias in entertainment, and negotiating gender roles in relationships. We were all a bit nervous and polite at the beginning, offering much benefit of the doubt and assuming the best of unconscious intentions. Women also made veiled references to harassment and discrimination they had experienced, never being explicit about it until I turned off the recorder. It felt too risky. Then #MeToo happened and the conversation dramatically changed. This was two years into the Other 50% and women had empowered themselves to a new level of honesty and candor. It was thrilling.

The Other 50% – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
My podcast work has settled into two main shows: The Other 50% – a Herstory of Hollywood and Catch a Break. The Other 50% is very much focused on women of all kinds and their journeys in this industry, while Catch a Break is focused on navigating the labyrinth of Hollywood, while keeping a focus on inclusion and representation.

The secret sauce to my podcasts is creating a space to have intimate conversations where my guests really open up about their passions, what drives them, and their work. This is my favorite thing in the world. I’m not that great at chit chat, but give me an opening to get to what is real and important, and I’m all in. I try to create the vibe of good friends having coffee and my listeners get to be the kid hiding on the stairs listening to the grownups talk. The other magic is hearing how everyone’s path is completely different and finding your place in the world isn’t remotely linear. There are a million jobs in entertainment, most of which you’ve never heard of and no matter what your skill set is, there is probably a place for you. I strive to create both a platform for people to tell their stories, and a resource from which much can be learned.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me the definition of success is doing meaningful work toward the things I care about. What I care deeply about is equality, and my path toward that is intimate conversations. What we see on screen, hear and read shapes our culture. And when the majority of the population is missing from or poorly represented in the narrative, we all lose. We all must be seen. The more stories we can experience from the more diverse perspectives, the better we will all be. It makes us smarter, more empathetic, kinder, more inclusive, stronger. This is a constant journey and evolution, and it is hard work. As we collectively peel away one layer, the next is revealed. Today as I write this, we are focused on the true reality of being black in America, and people who look like me are embarrassingly and unforgivably late in getting there. The work toward equality won’t ever be done, but if I can do my part to push it forward, I will have succeeded.

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