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Sall Grover: Hollywood & #Metoo · The Slippery Slope

• 0:03
  The way you started Giggle. And and even before that, I saw
• 0:08
  that you were a screenwriter in the in the states.
• 0:10
  Some very interesting for the put it that way, events happens.
• 0:16
  I'll it sounded like some, some things happen in that kind of
• 0:19
  forms or helped form. Formulate this idea and I think
• 0:24
  you might have processed it with your mother, I think.
• 0:28
  Yeah. And that is used, both came up
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  with this Single giggle, which well when I read it, I thought.
• 0:32
  Well, that's a good. It is a good idea.
• 0:34
  I think it's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, basically I yet so I
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  moved to LA in 2009 as a 24 year old and got.
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  If I, if I knew then what I know.
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  Now, what I've gone as is naive 24 year old with no contacts,
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  nothing. I just got on a plane.
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  And when I'm going to go and write movies and things like a
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  great idea at the time and it was a I was really lucky.
• 1:00
  I within I think was like 15 months.
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  I sold my first script, which I had to do to be able to stay
• 1:06
  there because I had to get a working Visa because I was like,
• 1:08
  leaving the country. Every three months I was doing
• 1:10
  the Visa, waiver to be able to stay sold my first screenplay
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  which got me signed to WME which is one of the biggest talent
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  agencies and Hollywood got to go.
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  Agents got managers who are all men and so you have got in the
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  industry quite easily. And And it's sort of the Visa
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  part of it is important because my Visa was a was had to be
• 1:35
  signed off by my agents and managers like that's who was
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  sponsoring it basically. And the first bees are ahead of
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  sponsored by my agents in the second because it was by my
• 1:43
  managers. And so the Visa lasted for three
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  years and so it meant that the and so I could only earn money
• 1:51
  by selling screenplays. I couldn't do any other work.
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  I couldn't even, there was one deal that I had where they
• 1:56
  wanted to put me on as a producer.
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  But they couldn't because I was Legally allowed through
• 2:01
  immigration to write, just make money selling screenplays.
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  So I couldn't even at that point B have any extra work or paid as
• 2:07
  a producer. So I was so the control over my
• 2:13
  own life was limited. You have sort of an is very
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  vulnerable situation. Yeah.
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  And when you sell screenplays or write screenplays in Hollywood
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  basically they send your script out your agents, managed to send
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  your script out to all producers and and Executives in the
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  industry that would fit be a potential fit and either some
• 2:36
  over some of those bids for it or some will take it to a
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  studio, all different things anyway, so either it gets bought
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  or it doesn't regardless of whether it gets bought or not,
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  you then go out on what the called General meetings because
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  everyone then wants to meet you, this person who wrote the script
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  and see what else you have. If there's anything that maybe
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  ideas that they have, that you would be the right person to
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  write the screenplay now. Most writers in Hollywood are
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  men very few women and I would actually say at the moment
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  there's even less because knee to hasn't really kind of
• 3:12
  welcomed women into the industry.
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  They've just gone well we just won't have women that it was too
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  difficult. Look, what happens.
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  So yeah, most screenwriters are meant to the point where like
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  most even movies for women are written by men.
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  Like I remember I was still working in the industry, when
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  that movie Movie, Bad mum came out, it was like a Miller Kunis
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  comedy and it was. Yeah, my men and I was like, you
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  couldn't find a woman to write a movie about a comedy about
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  motherhood really. And so it's always this like
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  little battle and so I was just finding myself in these rooms
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  with male execs and producers because again most of them
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  mostly men who would it would be started off?
• 3:57
  Like sometimes it would just be flirtatious and I had some that
• 4:01
  would go like oh instead of a daytime meeting will go and have
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  a drinks meeting and remember Then mostly meeting men.
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  So meeting like some 27 year old woman from Australia.
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  I would have called very much referred to myself as a girl at
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  that point. I mean, I was so young and
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  naive. Yeah, it changes the nature of
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  the meeting to some of these men are, at least it did at the time
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  and I you, when you're on my side of it, you just in a
• 4:30
  Perpetual state of desperation. Because you just like I have to
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  get the next job class to me or I'm going to stopped it.
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  Yeah. Pack to move back like give up
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  everything that I've sacrificed and worked hard for him to move
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  back to Australia. And so basically, the sexual
• 4:45
  harassment have started. Like, I always say I got into
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  the industry quite quickly and easily and it was quite lovely.
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  And then once I was in it, the help again, whereas I always
• 4:55
  thought that would be held to get into the industry, but
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  that's just how it was. And so just basically the first
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  one happened, I had this producer basically, in the end
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  of the meeting, please put his hand down, my pants and grabbed
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  me and just bruised. Just the Grossest experience
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  I've ever had one of the but that way I had that I'd ever had
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  and I immediately went and told Mike my look at all the guys
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  that represented me and they were like yeah.
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  Oh God, what a prick like that's just what happens?
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  Like putting lots of scripts used to just write him a great
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  script and it will be, you know, all will be good and I was like,
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  no I don't want to do that because I don't want to ever be
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  in a room with this guy. Again, I never want to see him
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  again and so I didn't write the script and so whose professional
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  reputation do you think was affected mine?
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  So it happened to other times and I and no one cared.
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  So I stopped telling anyone and it just I suppose internalizing
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  it. I just was falling deeper and
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  deeper into a pit of depression and Desperation and it affects
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  couldn't right. I got to the point.
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  I just could not right? Yep.
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  And so yeah, I mean, eventually I in 2018, I came back to
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  Australia. I was just going back for three
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  weeks is like a holiday to Just reboot and try and recover.
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  I was I was a shell of a person. Yeah.
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  And while I was here, I was like, actually no.
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  I really need to do some therapy.
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  So I went into therapy extended my trip to stay home.
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  Keep in mind, my best friend was working in New York is looking
• 6:23
  after my dog. And so I was like, I have to get
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  back to my dog. And then so yes, it was like,
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  I'm going to stay for two months.
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  Have some therapy in that time. While I was in therapy, I was My
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  therapist was saying like you need to reconnect women to build
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  your trust in people again, and you need a good female support
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  network around you. Yeah, and then Mom and I like at
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  the end of every day would talk about it over a glass of wine
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  which some horrible media people always just take cut out the
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  rest of it and go. Oh she just thought of it with
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  him um over a glass of wine. I'm like no there's a lot of
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  context there. Don't try and make me sound
• 7:01
  ridiculous. We were just sort of beat try to
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  unpack all of the stuff because my mom was also quite As by what
• 7:08
  had happened to me, just, you know, isn't a kind of being
• 7:11
  protective of a daughter and feeling out of control of it
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  all. And it was mum.
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  Who said one night she was like we should create a place where
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  women can just go and connect and there's just no men there
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  and so they can help each other. Yep.
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  And so giggle formed from that conversation.
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  So I basically came here for three weeks but have now been
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  here for four years and had a baby so apparently I'm not going
• 7:32
  back. Did you don't make it over here
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  because he Is he's half Pomeranian how Pekingese and
• 7:41
  Qantas and virgin won't bring over Pekingese because they're
• 7:45
  short snout dogs and who he could, he could die and he's 12
• 7:49
  now. So he's not he's too old to fly
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  but it actually was a happy story because my best friend's
• 7:53
  brother, I'm had a huge tragedy. His wife suddenly died, and it
• 7:59
  was horrible and herc, my dog just sort of fell in love with
• 8:04
  him and Cooks. It became his emotional support,
• 8:07
  dog. And they live together now and
• 8:09
  like, but and Diaries as I 6.5 and just as giant man was tiny
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  little fluffy dog, and they adore each other.
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  So Puck has a whole new meaning in life, and I feel like it was
• 8:20
  a meant to be in fate, and I'm very happy with how that turned
• 8:23
  out, even though I miss him. But yeah, so basically we that's
• 8:26
  that was the story behind starting Giggle and so we, you
• 8:30
  know, we worked out like we develop, we spent all of 2018
• 8:34
  and 2019, developing it, and building it and everything and
• 8:37
  then. February 20 2008 was on the App
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  Store and Google Play. And we just got thrust into this
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  transphobic bigoted category where we had.
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  No, we weren't even thinking of it in these terms and so we're
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  no idea what was going on. And so I'm at the point now
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  where I just sort of feel like my entire professional life has
• 8:58
  been attacked by guys. I've just been attacked by men
• 9:01
  for doing something for women. I mean you just have to navigate
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  it. Yes.
• 9:06
  Oh yeah. It's crazy.
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  Sorry, your story as a. I've got a, I've got a son and a
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  daughter and I'll just be devastated if I heard that story
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  from coming from my daughter's lips, I think.
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  Yeah, it's like an underdog in my mom and dad fell.
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  Yeah, they've, my mom said she'd spent her my whole your
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  childhood adolescent 10 years and early adult years trying to
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  protect me, and she's very about that.
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  And then sent me off into the world and all of her worst
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  nightmares happened. And so that's what and why we
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  sort of like, oh, creating a place where women could talk to
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  each other. Is that when, basically, when me
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  to started to happen, yeah, and like the Harvey Weinstein,
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  story, broke until all these women's.
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  And speaking up, I had, I contacted other women in the
• 10:01
  industry. They contacted me, we suddenly
• 10:02
  were reaching out to each other and being like, oh, these are
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  all the things that happen to me.
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  And we all thought we were the only ones.
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  Because that's how it'd make they the industry is so
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  isolating. And then I think even in the
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  world, like, women are always meant me to feel like it's only
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  happening to them and it's their fault.
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  They've done something wrong to deserve it.
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  It's who, like, had we been able to connect like this, and got
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  how to place we would go to, to just seal what was happening in
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  our lives without there, should have been praying, May lies
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  there, maybe this would have been different, it's a business
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  that's really where we have come from and we still maintain that.
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  And we have a bid from it. So when you know I'm taking to
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  the Human Rights Commission to be, told that I have, you know,
• 10:49
  I've got to let him male on the app.
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  I'm like absolutely no way. There's so many places for him
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  to go. Yeah, here's the gender.
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  Identity is quite irrelevant to me.
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  Yes, still a man and not only do I not want anyone, there all of
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  the other women on their don't want him there.
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  So I You can try all you want but you are fighting to be let
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  into a place. You're not welcome or wanted,
• 11:14
  which seems like an odd fight. Yeah, yeah.