The UK-based Searchlight executive reflects on her long collaboration with Graham Broadbent, role-playing Chewbacca, and the benefits of swimming in Hampstead Heath ponds.
Katie Goodson-Thomas is Searchlight Pictures’ executive vice president, head of film production and development, working from a top-floor office in London’s Covent Garden, in tandem with US-based DanTram Nguyen. She is looking forward to the launch of Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine at Venice, as she speaks to Screen International, having collaborated with him and producer Graham Broadbent on award-winning titles including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees Of Inisherin.
Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth! and Super Troopers 3 are also set for release this year, while UK director Alice Birch’s directorial debut Sweetsick is in post in the UK, with a cast led by Cate Blanchett and produced by Tessa Ross’s House Productions.
What does your office look like?
There is a colourful cupboard filled with film books, pictures all over the wall, drawers full of things that I’ve never looked at again after putting them in there. I opened one last week and found some cashew nuts.
What’s the first thing you do when arriving each day?
Say good morning to everyone — there are eight of us [in the Searchlight UK office]. I think it’s important to start the day finding out how everybody’s evenings went, and asking what they are up to today. By 4.30 pm, I have to leave to get back to do US calls with agents or the Los Angeles office.
What was your first job in the industry?
I worked in the art department on a version of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe that John Boorman was going to direct. But the budget came in at $110m, and that was 30 years ago. It would have been amazing, but Paramount was like, “There’s no way we can make this movie.”
Who helped you most when you started out?
Graham Broadbent. For reasons I still don’t understand, he said he liked the look of me. I was in Goldcrest doing deliverables on The Wings Of The Dove, and Graham [who was then producing Welcome To Sarajevo through Dragon Pictures] came in and asked if I wanted to work for him. I worked with him for six years, and he took me from being a runner to becoming a producer. I left just as we finished the shoot on [Danny Boyle’s] Millions.
What are you most proud of professionally?
Usually the last film we made, because it’s the one that I just watched an extraordinary group of people drag over the finish line.
What do you like best about your job?
The people. They keep me sane and insane on a daily basis. But everybody is a film geek, and everyone has amazing passion. I find that kind of energy endlessly inspiring.
What was your favourite film growing up?
Star Wars. I was desperate to be Princess Leia, but I grew up with a lot of male cousins, and because of my hair I always had to be Chewbacca.
Who do you look up to in the industry?
Alfred Hitchcock. He showed films could be bold, psychological, dark, completely distinctive. But he still had an enormous audience, and isn’t that the dream? Isn’t that what we all want to achieve?
With whom would you most like to take a meeting?
It would have been Dolly Parton. She seemed to understand storytelling, she had humour, she understood audiences, and she was a great businesswoman.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I still want to be at the coalface, making films.
What would you do if you didn’t work in film?
I would be a chef or a therapist. Both involve absorbing other people’s chaos and trying to turn it into something nourishing.
What do you do to unwind, and where do you go?
I’m a big believer in self-care. I like a massage, a sauna and a cold plunge in that order. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, swimming in the dirty water of Hampstead Heath ponds with some ducks really grounds you.
What are you reading?
I just finished The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, and I cried almost the entire way through. It’s so painfully beautiful.
Who would play you in the biopic of your life, and who would direct?
Julia Davis, directed by Michael Haneke, and it would be bleak and uncomfortable, and hopefully much funnier than anyone expected.
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