How can you balance creativity with business when it comes to writing — and filmmaking? How can you access that ‘touch of madness' in everything you create? How can authors pitch their books for film? All this and more with Larry Kasanoff.

In the intro, Paid ads with BookBub, Facebook and Amazon [BookBub]; Blood Vintage cover reveal; Unter dem Zoo out now in German; The entire ARKANE Thriller series is back on Audible, as well as Spotify, and you can get 50% off at JFPennBooks.com (65+ hours of thrillers!).

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Larry Kasanoff is the CEO of Threshold Entertainment and has made over 200 films as a producer or studio head. Some of his credits include Mortal Kombat, True Lies, Terminator 2, Dirty Dancing, and Academy Award-Winning Best Picture, Platoon. He's also worked in the music business with artists like Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Why are creatives more scared to express themselves now?





• Tips for starting out in the industry





• The timeline differences between getting a book published vs. a movie published





• How to state of play and positivity can help your creativity flow





• Balancing creative decisions with business decisions





• Tips for longevity in a creative career





• How to pitch as an introverted author





• Generative AI in the movie industry

You can find Larry at LarryKasanoff.com and his new book at ATouchOfTheMadness.com

Transcript of Interview with Larry Kasanoff

Joanna: Larry Kasanoff is the CEO of Threshold Entertainment and has made over 200 films as a producer or studio head. Some of his credits include Mortal Kombat, True Lies, Terminator 2, Dirty Dancing, and Academy Award-Winning Best Picture, Platoon.

He's also worked in the music business with artists like Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones, which is like, wow. He has a new book, which is A Touch of the Madness: How to Be More Innovative in Work and Life . . . by Being a Little Crazy. So welcome to the show, Larry.

Larry: Thank you. It's really nice to be here.

Joanna: Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you. Let's just start with a really obvious question. You are so successful in film and music videos—

Why write a book at this point in your career?

Larry: Well, there are two reasons. First of all, we had a year last year where there were strikes. The actor’s union struck and the writers’ union struck, so we couldn't actually work, couldn't make movies.

More than that, over the last few years, I've seen in a way I never have before, people, not only in my industry, but in every industry, scared to move on their creative ideas or their entrepreneurial ideas. I've never seen it like that.

What if it's wrong? What if it fails? What if I get canceled? What if someone doesn't like it?

I was whining to my brother one day about it, and he said, “Why don't you do something about it? Write a book.” My brother's a writer, and so I did.

It was really just to inspire people that that creative idea, that that nutso thing that your wife, husband, father, mother, daughter, boss will think it's too nuts, that's the one that you should embrace and go for it. So that was really my only purpose.

Joanna: We'll come back to that, but—

Why do you think people are more scared now?

Is it that the environment is more difficult, or do you think something has changed, like, I don't know, since the pandemic, like the personality of people?

Larry: In a way, it doesn't matter why, but I mean, my opinion is the world ebbs and flows. We talk about how conservative political correctness was in the last five years. You know, after the Italian Renaissance, a few years later they covered up the Botticelli's because it was a whole movement that they were too racy.

So this is just part of human nature, it just goes. I think this one is a little bit worse because social media and technology and communications means anything that happens gets broadcast immediately all over the world.

So I think it's the political correctness that has instilled fear of speaking out in people.

Joanna: I mean, that is a challenge, and we'll come back to some of these challenges. First of all, just the challenge for you in writing a book. You have written a lot of different mediums, screenplays and visual and audio things.

What were the challenges you faced in writing the book?

Larry: It was really fun because the book is really all stories that happened to me, which I used to illustrate my points on why you should embrace the madness and how to do it.

So honestly, once I decided to write it—these are stories I tell my assistants, and I torture everyone with—it only took me 10 days to write the whole book. So it was actually very lovely. It was fun.

I mean, I was just remembering things, and every now and then I would call on my brother and say, “Can I tell this story?” He goes, “No! That's too much!” you know, if I was offensive. It was really a fun process.

Then when I was finished with the book, I called a friend and said, “I need a book agent. I know agent agents, but I don't know book agents.” So he introduced me to a guy named Greg Reed. Greg introduced me to an agent named Bill Gladstone.

I mean, I had one call with Greg. I had one call with Bill, and we hit it off. Bill said, “I love it. Send me the book today.” That was a Monday, and on Tuesday he said, “I want to rep you.”

So we got on the phone with our publisher. He read the book by Wednesday, and by Friday, I had a signed deal. So the whole thing was really very lovely and fun and quick and easy, the writing of the book.

Joanna: I love this. I just want to point out to everyone listening, many people would be like, oh, that's all right for him. I'm looking at your career, and a lot of people listening are just starting out.

The reason this was easy for you to get a book deal and an agent—and you know, we'll come back to the writing—but you have worked for decades to get to a point in your life where people want to work with you, right?

Do you have any thoughts for people who are just starting out, in whatever industry?

Larry: Well, you know, first of all, everyone says that to me, “Oh, it must be so easy now.” Imagine you're a professional boxer, and you've done well, and you've won 30 matches. You think in your 31st, the guy in the ring is going to go easy on you because you won some? That doesn't happen at all.

So I would love to think that, gee, when I call everyone wants to work with me, everyone says yes, no one doesn't call me back. It's just not true. I still have to sometimes slug my way through it, and it still doesn't go.

So that skill of persevering, and one of the things I say in the book is that one of the absolute tenets is ask, ask, as