Meet Jacobo Aparicio of Anonymous Content in Culver City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacobo Aparicio.

Jacobo, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m originally from Madrid (Spain), where I grew up through most of my childhood. I started playing soccer since I was five years old, and during my last years of high school I was fortunate enough to sign with a professional team called Rayo Vallecano, which at the time was competing in the first division league of Spain (aka. La Liga). There, I started playing in the U-19 squad, the reserve team, and eventually joined the first team’s practice, where players such as Diego Costa, who would later be called by the Spanish national team and played for elite clubs like Chelsea or Atletico de Madrid, were part of the roster.

However, as I was starting college in Spain, pursuing a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism -as film and television was my biggest passion besides soccer- I started suffering some injuries that forced me to realize that earning a college degree was going to be key for my future, as soccer could end rather soon due to unexpected challenges such as a career-ending-injury, or a bad stroke of luck. Therefore, knowing that what I wanted to pursue was a career in film and television, I thought that the best path towards it would be to go to the US, where the entertainment and media industries are so vast, full of resources and flooded with the best talent from all over the world at all levels (creatives, executives, producers, etc.). In order to make this transition, I was able to generate interest from different schools in the US which offered degrees in Mass Communication in addition to a strong collegiate soccer program and received athletic scholarship offers inviting me to join their teams and schools. Ultimately, I decided to accept the offer from Iona College (NY), and in a matter of months found myself studying and competing in a city that I could have never dreamed of living in.

I joined Iona College as a Junior and graduated in two years, having also the chance to compete in the NCAA Division I league. However, more injuries kept disrupting my athletic trajectory, and although I had the chance to train with the MLS club NYCFC, as soon as I graduated I decided to start working in a job aligned with my degree. I started working in advertising in Madison Avenue for a firm that focused on servicing the Hispanic market both in the US and internationally, but I knew that what I really wanted to do was to be involved on series and films, yet I wasn’t sure in what capacity exactly. Thanks to one of my college professors, I received an offer to join the production of a Marvel show for Netflix called LUKE CAGE that was being shot in Brooklyn. I managed to work both on set at night and at the ad firm during the day (which was truly exhausting), and although shooting outdoors in the cold winter of New York was tough, the experience was fantastic, I learned a lot and realized that what I wanted to do in my life was to develop and produce series and films.

As my US visa expired, I went back to Madrid to work at Warner Bros. for the international film department of the studio and started applying to a master’s program at UCLA for Producers. Luckily, I was one of the 12 students selected and soon moved to Los Angeles where I started the program and started working at the same time for a management and production company in Hollywood. However, right before making the move to LA, I had co-created with a friend of mine who would later go on to become a top actor in Spain (Miguel Bernardeau; stars on Netflix’s ELITE) a project for a thriller TV series in the world of surfing in Lanzarote (Canary Islands, Spain). We had sold the project to Grupo Ganga, one of the leading Spanish production companies, and as I was already doing the Producers Program at UCLA, Gaumont Television (the studio for Netflix’s NARCOS) joined the project as well.

A few months before finishing my master’s at UCLA, and while I was working at a management and production company in Beverly Hills and producing short films, I received an offer to work at Anonymous Content. This had always been my dream company in Hollywood as the type of high-quality, socially relevant and groundbreaking series and films that the company had been producing for about twenty years had been the type of content that had inspired me to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. I joined the company exactly a year ago, but in about a month the pandemic hit. However, and despite all the challenges that 2020 brought to all of us, I was able to grow within the company, learn from the executives and producers that I had always admired for their work, and I am currently working in the development and producing side of the film and TV industry, in Los Angeles, which is what I had always dreamed of doing. Additionally, I am very thankful of the opportunity that I have at this company, as my job consists of focusing on helping to create films and shows from all over the world, thus connecting with international creatives, talent, producers and executives, in a process that feels deeply rich on many cultural and creative levels, and that inspires me to do my best every day.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Although it has been a fun and exciting journey overall, there have definitely been challenges and quite a lot of stress through certain periods along the way. At first, struggling with injuries throughout the last years of my career as a goalkeeper and having to be able to combine both my college studies with competing at a high level in soccer, hence having to optimize my time management to be able to do both things at the best possible level.

Also, culturally adjusting to a new country and new city when I moved to New York, as well as (and probably most important for me) getting used to living thousands of miles away from my family and friends, as that was the sacrifice to make if I wanted to pursue a career in entertainment in the US.

Also, it was a challenge to find a way to transition from sports to a career in the media and entertainment, as I had to “rebrand” myself. However, my experience with soccer helped me tremendously, as a life-playing team sports gave me the opportunity to understand the value of teamwork, sacrifice, responsibility and commitment.

Later on, the biggest challenge was having to move back to Spain as my visa expired, thus living an interesting experience of readjusting to one’s home country, friends and family after moving abroad. Most recently, the challenge of struggling on a personal and emotional level, as most of us in the world had to with the beginning of the pandemic and the uncertainty that it brought while living far away from my friends and family back in Spain, and seeing so many friends leave LA, has been one of the toughest challenges that I’ve had to face.

Please tell us about Anonymous Content.
Founded in 1999 by CEO Steve Golin, Anonymous Content is a production and management company where talent comes first, trying to bring to the world groundbreaking and socially relevant content. It is perhaps one of the most prestigious companies in Hollywood, having won Academy and Emmy awards several times, with films such as SPOTLIGHT, THE REVENANT, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND or most recently THE MIDNIGHT SKY, among others and shows such as TRUE DETECTIVE, MR. ROBOT or 13 REASONS WHY, among others.

We manage exceptional directors (like Alfonso Cuaron or Peter Farrelly), writers (Nic Pizzolatto, Mark Bomback, Guillermo Arriaga or Diana Ossana), actors (Emma Stone, Mahershala Ali, etc.), and work closely with them to achieve their goals, whether in feature films, television, commercials, music videos, or brand integrated content. We guide careers with confidence, relying on our experience in every area of the changing media landscape. Alongside our distinguished clients, we continue to grow our outstanding reputation in the entertainment and advertising industries.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have probably been kinder to myself, especially in terms of unnecessary benchmarks and goals that I have constantly aimed for, that in hindsight weren’t necessary at all, and instead of helping me just generated more stress and anxiety. Perhaps the biggest lesson is understanding how everyone has his/her own path, and as long as you feel like you are moving forward towards your dreams but still being happy with yourself, your friends and family, things will be alright. This is a mistake that I’ve made on many aspects of my life, especially on the professional side (whether it was playing soccer, working in the entertainment industry or even as a student), and as time passes by and goals and dreams come true, you realize how rushing things doesn’t help at all.

This is probably connected to the above, and it has actually been accentuated by the pandemic, but knowing that planning for everything, to some extent, isn’t worth it, and that life is going to surprise you in so many different ways (good and bad), has been one of the main lessons that I’ve learned throughout my journey.

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