Having held perhaps the very best position at the Harvard Independentit is not a surprise that Couper Samuelson ’02, previous Indy Arts Editor, has actually gone on to make waves in the creative world. Now President of Feature Films at Blumhouse Productions, the previous Indyite has actually assisted produce a few of the greatest scary movies of the last couple of years, consisting of the current hit m3gan, a sci-fi scary movie about the risks of AI. Last week, the Harvard Independent had the chance to speak to him about his time at Harvard and beyond.
Despite an excellent profession trajectory, his starts at the Indy were rather modest: “We were in the basement of Canaday. It very much felt like a little bit of a feral cat colony that was in charge of producing a weekly paper. It was underfunded, and it felt a little shoestring,” Samuelson said. “But also, it was kind of fun, because that meant it could be a little weirder.” He remembered composing a “hatchet piece” on schoolmate Natalie Portman ’03 about her movie Anywhere But Herewhich would have been hard with “more adult supervision.”
Samuelson already had an interest in movie and journalism when he showed up on school, and the spiritual 1969 trainee weekly was simply the location to cultivate his enthusiasm. “We had this little mailbox, and we would get free invitations to press screenings. There was this theater in Copley Plaza in Boston that had a screen that would do like before movies came out. And, you know, when you’re a starving college student, and you get free passes to a movie, it was like, the biggest deal of all time. Typically enough was like getting to go to Copley on the T a couple days a week and watch movies. Before they had been kind of soaked into the culture. Before they were a thing.”
During his time at Harvard, Samuelson worked a number of internships in the home entertainment world—with Entertainment Weekly, Slate Magazine, and after that Warner Bros, slowly gravitating towards the movie market—however it wasn’t till he transferred to Los Angeles after finishing that he dove headfirst into movie theater.
“I drove my Toyota Camry out [West] in August of 2002,” he said, where he “hit up every single Harvard person whose email address [he] could vaguely find.” He quickly got a task at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), entering the “very traditional path” of operating at a firm.
Samuelson highlighted the value of the Harvard network in assisting him discover tasks. “There’s of course a big infrastructure for Harvard kids called Harvardwood. It’s a very cushy landing, if you’re moving into town,” he said, referencing prominent alumni such as Franklin Leonard ’00 , who developed the Hollywood black List.
“In general, there’s so much fear, and there’s so much luck associated with things [in Hollywood]that if you have something in common with someone, if you have some shared point of reference with a fellow alum, it just makes it a little easier to trust that person and connect with them, for better and for worse.”
After a year at CAA, Samuelson moved into the independent movie world, and in 2011, he began operating at Blumhouse, where he now acts as the President of Feature Films. At the time, Blumhouse was simply beginning as a scary motion picture business. Since, they have actually produced a few of the greatest movies in the scary category.
Blumhouse produces normally low-budget scary movies with huge ticket office earnings, a design which has actually been incredibly effective for them. However, they in some cases branch off, especially with 2013’s Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle ’07. Samuelson remembered Chazelle connecting after he had actually simply transferred to Hollywood.
“He emailed me out of the blue, a really nice email about some other movies that I’ve worked on. And, of course, flattery, really does work on Harvard people in general. And, so you know, he had made a movie in college, a little black and white movie that was really impressive.” Chazelle then ended up being a “semi successful horror-thriller screenwriter,” through which he was familiar with Samuelson.
Samuelson highlighted that while the Harvard name might have assisted Chazelle make connections, he would not have actually been successful without his ability. “He sort of emerged fully formed, like Athena from the head,” he joked. “When he wrote Whiplashthat was sort of an undeniably incredible screenplay. So I was sort of helping him but he also helped me and I think that’s one of the things that people don’t really understand well enough about Hollywood is that it is extraordinarily transactional.” He continued, “I didn’t get Whiplash made out of the goodness of my heart. I did it because he was such a talented screenwriter and so helpful in that way that it was only natural for me to help him.”
Samuelson studied History & Literature and Romance Languages & Literature at Harvard, however he took some classes in Visual and Environmental Studies (now AFVS). He remembered taking VES 50, what is now AFVS 50: Introduction to Nonfiction Filmmaking, a class virtually the same considering that his time. He delighted in the course, stating “it was a very different kind of experience than most Harvard classes. It was really immersive and really intense. And really it was a good simulation for what kind of movie making, which was, which is all encompassing and intense.”
The Independent just recently reported on the competitiveness of AFVS class admissions, something which Samuelson supported. “I sort of had to bitch my way into VES 50,” he confessed unapologetically. “I guess I’m sort of ambivalent about that […] because I almost view it as kind of a lesson that like, you know, Harvard has tons of resources, but it’s not like they make those resources very easily accessible, at least in my era.”
“If you really want something, you gotta bitch for it, you know?” he concluded. This lesson is specifically appropriate in the arts world, where even skilled filmmakers like Damien Chazelle needed to hustle to get their work produced.
For budding filmmakers, manufacturers and performers, Samuelson culminated with some recommendations based upon his own profession. “A talent agency is essentially a kind of a general education program for Hollywood. So if you’re not really sure what you want to do, or you sort of want something creative, and kind of want to get some experience in the industry, then yes, I think the talent agencies are the right way to go. […] But if there’s some specific path that you want, then honestly I would just cold email 17 Harvard grads who are sort of doing that, and, you know, offer to trade your sweat and effort on their behalf as an unpaid intern or whatever and, and go out and follow whatever their path is.”
Andrew Spielman ’25 ([email protected]) dislikes scary movies.Proof Schubert Reed ’25 ([email protected]) enjoys scary movies.
