Today we’d like to introduce you to Marie Halliday.
Hi Marie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
As a tween, I was absolutely certain I would become an ass-kicking spy when I grew up. A few years later, I was absolutely certain I would become a criminal defense attorney. Around the time I started to think about applying to undergrad programs, it suddenly dawned on me that I was picking prospective professions based on TV shows I was obsessed with at the time (Alias and The Practice if you’re wondering — it was the early-2000s Sunday Night Lineup no one knew they needed!). Realizing that there were jobs and dare-I-say careers associated with the creation of the fantasylands I wanted to live in was a game changer. I wanted to be a part of it.
I went to study Media Arts at the University of South Carolina and found my way into the city’s incredible art scene through working at the state’s only nonprofit art house theatre, the Nickelodeon. At the Nick, I was introduced to the work of filmmakers like Chris Marker, Helen Hill, and Harmony Korine for the first time, and my love for independent cinema blossomed. The theater also ran a film festival called Indie Grits, and in working on that, I got to meet a weird and wonderful group of directors and producers who inspired me to start getting out there and making stuff…
I wanted to learn more about producing, so I went to get an MFA in Creative Producing at Columbia College Chicago. The final year of the program took place in LA so that we could take on industry internships during the day and take classes at night. After a few unpaid gigs at production companies and on sets, I was hired as an intern at HBO Films. When it came time for that internship to end, an assistant in the department happened to be leaving, and I was offered the job. I stayed for three years working under two talented, generous, and empathetic Directors of Development, learning how to evaluate scripts, interface with writers, and deliver notes.
From there, I moved to a small production/publishing company called Adaptive Studios, developing a slate of digital series, features, TV shows, and books. Then to MarVista Entertainment, the production company behind all of those delicious, guilty-pleasure Lifetime thrillers where the nanny steals the baby and the holiday romances where a workaholic woman rediscovers her Christmas spirit while falling in love with a single-dad farmer.
In 2019, a friend from grad school reached out, letting me know that the Georgia-based company he worked for, Crazy Legs Productions — a leading producer of reality, true crime, sports programming, and branded entertainment — was launching a new narrative film division and they were looking for someone to oversee content creation and acquisitions. Five years later, we have a thriving feature film business, and as our Head of Feature Development, I get to shepherd projects from conception to distribution.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve (thankfully) gotten more and more smooth patches of the road as I’ve gotten older, but there have certainly been a lot of speed bumps, potholes, and pebbles along the way.
There were the usual-suspect external hindrances to trying to make it in Hollywood (things like low finances paired with insanely competitive job markets). To give you a sense of it, when I moved to LA, I was completely broke, living on an air mattress in Koreatown with a Lion King comforter from my childhood home in Virginia that I’d brought with me. The good ol’ days!
To be honest, though, the majority of my struggles have been inner battles. It’s a continuous journey of learning how to better assert myself in a still male-dominated industry, fighting back against people-pleasing tendencies, shattering through self-limiting beliefs, and re-aligning with priorities. A huge thing for me in the last few years has been accepting that I’m prone to bouts of anxiety and depression that need to be channeled healthily. Recognizing that was a paradigm shift, as my most effective tool for dissipating the darker energies is through making and consuming art. Realizing that that’s true for many people, not just me, totally changed the way I look at what I do for a living. Nothing about it feels trivial anymore.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I used to have a very superficial definition of success. I remember setting a goal for myself around age 22 or 23, declaring that by the time I hit 30, I wanted to be a Director of Development like my then-bosses. But when I was promoted to Director of Development at 28, it offered none of the fulfillment I thought it would. It was a period that I can only describe as being stuck at the bottom of one of those potholes I mentioned earlier. I was depressed, drinking too much, artistically dry, and generally apathetic.
So, I redefined success for myself.
Now, success is a consistent commitment to development, growth, balance, and presence.
In 2020, that came in the form of kicking alcohol to the curb once and for all and getting trained to work as a volunteer counselor for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
In 2021, that came in the form of adapting my father’s unbelievably poignant young adult novel Shooting Monarchs into a feature screenplay.
In 2022, that came in the form of accepting a job as an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago’s Semester in LA program (the same program I’d gone through as a student 10 years prior).
In 2023, that came in the form of having my endlessly supportive family come be extras in a film I was producing alongside an ensemble of actors tween-me would have been awed by.
In 2024, I hope to share all that I’ve been working on. And then maybe take a nap.
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