Natalie
Hey, it’s Nat.
Rebecca
And Bec — two very different sisters who come together to reframe some of life’s big and small problems. We’re moms, writers.
Natalie
We have soft boundaries. We see the world differently, but we both lean into vulnerability together and with our guests, because we like deep dives. So come with us — let’s reframe something.
Remember when we met our next guest?
Rebecca
Yup. I think we were out of breath from climbing so many stairs to get to her office, and I immediately commented on her nice hardwood.
Natalie
Which I actually remember she appreciated. And honestly, though, we should have taken the elevator — like Anna Kendrick did when she went to one of her parties and got stuck in it between two floors.
Rebecca
The point? Many famous people have been through her doors.
Natalie
I admit it: I’m enamored.
Rebecca
Same. Today, we’re chatting with Laurie May, co-founder and president of Elevation Pictures and one of Toronto Life’s most influential Torontonians.
Natalie
We talked about our mothers and our own experiences of motherhood.
Rebecca
What it means to be resilient in the face of hard business decisions as a woman in leadership.
Natalie
Manifesting gratitude, and, of course, some celebrities.
Rebecca
We could have kept going, to be honest — she’s easy to talk to. So here you have it: reframing resilience with Laurie May.
Natalie
What were you just saying about nobody wants this?
Laurie
I feel like I’m on that podcast. And I was like, “Two pretty sisters interviewing me, and so that means one of you is in love with or about to date a rabbi.”
Natalie
Oh yeah, that’s right. Except that that would complicate our lives right now, so…
Rebecca
I do find the idea of dating a rabbi kind of hot, though.
Natalie
They did a good job.
Laurie
Well, they certainly picked a hot guy to play it.
Rebecca
Yeah.
Laurie
Yeah. And it’s actually her true story. But those sisters are amazing. Do you follow those sisters?
Natalie
Yeah. Well, we follow one of them.
Rebecca
We do.
Laurie
Sara and Erin Foster.
Natalie
Yeah.
Laurie
I think their dad’s David Foster. And their brand Favorite Daughter is very cool. And I got it for my daughter, actually — well, she’s my only daughter though, so…
Natalie
It’s clothing. Like, that’s their…
Laurie
Yes.
Natalie
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started digging into it after…
Laurie
It would be hard for one of you to wear a shirt saying ‘Favorite Daughter’ because you’re sisters. So there can’t be a favourite daughter.
Natalie
But isn’t that kind of their whole joke between the two of them? I think that’s why they did it that way.
Laurie
Probably, yeah.
Natalie
Like, they came up with this little brand because that was sort of…
Laurie
Yeah. I’m the favourite oldest daughter, my mom says.
Natalie
Exactly.
Laurie
Because I have two sisters. It’s because your mom was smart to sort of frame it that way. My mom’s a therapist — and actually she was a couples therapist, but she used to introduce herself to people as a sex therapist. So that made our dinner parties very interesting.
Natalie
That’s great.
Rebecca
Were you always like, “Oh mom, do you have to say it that way?”
Laurie
Totally, totally. But it also worked out in our favour because, like, once my dad was like, “Oh, I found some cigarette butts in the little pit behind our house.” Like, we all sort of went like that, you know, in our teens. And my mom said, “Norman, the kids have to know that they have some spots that are just their own. You’re not supposed to be wandering around in their pit.” And I was like, “All right!” And she also said, like, “You never just walk into their room. You have to knock.” So she was respectful of our space, which was good.
And interestingly, actually, the best advice my mom ever gave me, and I have taught this to my kids, is she used to say, like, “I know you’re not going to tell me everything you do, but I want you to use me as your moral compass.” And so if you’re thinking of doing something, just think, “What would my mom think if I told her this?” So when my friends were, like, hitchhiking in Europe, I was like, “What would my mom think if I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we got stranded in the south of France and we hitchhiked?’” — and her face would drop. And so I said, “No, I’m good, I’ll take the train.”
Rebecca
So it worked because it gave you still your own agency.
Laurie
I didn’t feel, like, the need to rebel because I was allowed to do what I want within limits, right? So I didn’t feel like, “Oh, I need to sneak men into my room every night,” because I was sort of allowed to have boys in my room as long as I was respectful. I didn’t need to rebel against anything and it sort of gave me a guidance inside my own head.
Natalie
What would she have said about resilience?
Laurie
You know what my mom said about resilience is also I do credit her with, it’s interesting. I had a mom who was a therapist and a dad who was a lawyer. And so I think I have a little bit of both of them in me and I credit both, right? I used to credit my dad a little bit more because I went to law school and he sort of taught me about, you know, the integrity of: make sure you like yourself at the end of the day, make sure you look in the mirror and like who you are. My mom taught me, like, the psychology part — about really understanding people and all those dynamics. I also credit my mom because she had a lot of clients who were women that their husbands didn’t come home for a few days in a row or went on trips, like, no questions asked, whatever, and they sort of felt like, “I have a nice life, I have a nice whatever.”
And my mom said to me when I was very young, “You’re getting a career, you’re living on your own before you get married. You’re not going right from our house into a house with a husband. You need to know how to do everything.” Because there’s a lot of women who are like, “I don’t know how to live alone, I don’t know how to pay bills,” — like, that’s ridiculous. More her generation obviously, not this generation. But I did live by myself and I did do all of that.
And I think it’s an important lesson for women because, you know, as in every marriage, things go up and down. I mean, I love my marriage and I love my family, but I’m also fine by myself. I can support myself. I like my own company. I have my own hobbies and interests. And obviously the shared family values are great, but I think it’s really important for women to understand that they really can stand up by themselves as well. And I think that gives you sort of the power to be resilient when somebody throws something tough at you. Like, I don’t know, a spouse who does something, or you lose your job or whatever it is. You can, to use your word, reframe it and be like, “Ok, this doesn’t feel great at the moment, but how can I use this as a universal lesson telling me, like, ‘I can do this, I’m going do something else, and I’m going to be fine.’”
Natalie
Yeah, you’re really set up for success with that specific thinking from the get go.
Laurie
Yeah.
Natalie
I would say, as the divorcee in the room, I learned all of those things about myself after we broke up.
Laurie
Which is hard.
Natalie
Which was hard. And I was so young when we got married that those years, like, those seven years, were a lot of learning in its own way.
Laurie
Right.
Natalie
But what you’re describing came after the fact for me. Your mom’s advice would have been very good for me early on. Interesting.
Laurie
You know what’s funny actually? Yeah, my mom had a bunch of my friends talk to her and because she respected the confidentiality, they never told me. And one of my friends actually just wrote a book, How to Share an Egg, because her father was a Holocaust survivor. He became a restaurateur, and she got very involved in food as well. She’s actually a food editor. And she called me and said, “Can I credit your mom with helping me get through my first…” Her first marriage ended in divorce, and she then ended up marrying the love of her life. My mom helped her through all that, I never knew — which is great.
Natalie
I think that’s one of the reasons why we thought of resilience for this specific series — is it really does match with our notion of reframing, which is not just about turning something on its head and then seeing the other side, but really about a process, which is essentially what you’ve just described there. Like, it’s about how do you kind of make your way through an experience to the other side of it?
Laurie
My relationship with my mom isn’t perfect. Nobody’s is. You know, I think my mom went into therapy because she herself had come from a bereaved family. Her parents were first generation immigrants. You know, it was a different world. And I think she went into therapy because she had her own issues, right? So sometimes we also spar a little bit because she can focus on the negative. And maybe to balance that in the beginning, I was always like Little Miss Sunshine. Mary Poppins, fun, dancing around the hall.
But sometimes when I say to my mom, if she’s complaining about something, I’m like, “Can we focus on the positive? And she will say to me, like, “Ok, Mary Sunshine, just because you see it.” And it’s like, you’re insulting me for trying to focus on the positive. I mean, obviously my whole life isn’t puppy dogs and rainbows. But like, as an example, I live in a very old, like, Forest Hill, lovely red brick home. My home literally looks like the little emoji of home. And for years, my bathroom window didn’t really close and the –30 degree weather would come in and I would get out of the shower and it’d be freezing.
And instead of thinking, “Oh, that stupid window, this stupid old house,” I literally was like, “Well, this is my wellness. I’m Wim Hof and this is my cold blast, and my magical house is taking care of me.” And so, yeah, I really do try to see the positive in things. And that being said, this week I did have a guy come fix my window because, you know, now I’m a little older and it is freezing. I think by trying to look for the positive in things has helped me be resilient, right?
Rebecca
Like, I would say, are we a positive family? You’re positive. I think we decided that we were a bit similar.
Natalie
Yeah. Laurie and I are a little alike.
Rebecca
But then I just had Mel Robbins…
Laurie
I love Mel Robbins.
Rebecca
She has her whole thing of: high-five the mirror in the morning.
Laurie
I do that.
Rebecca
Do you do that? Now I was telling my whole family to do it. I was like, “You guys…” We have this Irish self-deprecating thing. I was like, “No more of that. Every morning, come on. All of us separately, high-five the fucking mirror and let’s, like…” you know?
Laurie
Yes.
Natalie
My husband came down the stairs and did it the other day and Rebecca’s like, “Yes, I am influencing people.”
Rebecca
Do you do it?
Laurie
I do. So look, I’ve been in the film industry for almost 30 years — first as a lawyer, then running a company. You know, as Lionsgate’s lawyer. Lionsgate spun off their Canadian division, Maple Pictures, which was bought by Alliance Films. Alliance was bought by Entertainment One. And with CAA and our partner Black Bear Pictures, we launched Elevation over 11 years ago. So I’ve always had to sort of be resilient in terms of a woman at a law firm, a woman in a male-dominated world, and all of that. But in the last eight years, I’ve really had to level up. My dad got very sick for two years. He passed. My mom was, with respect, a bit of a needy widow. You know, I’m the oldest daughter, so a lot of it fell on me — while running a company, while my husband lost his business during COVID, while my daughter went through a breakup, and then my son didn’t get into the program he wanted and then he did.
And sort of juggling all that, I was like, “I can’t handle all this unless I take care of myself.” Like, everybody says that you’ve got to put the airplane mask on yourself before you can help other people because if you pass out, it’s useless. So I really have tried to level up, you know, meditation and grounding and reading books that will help me, and following people that I think can help me with good advice — Huberman, Peter Attia, all of that. And one of the things that really resonated with me was to start the day on a positive note. So literally when I get out of bed in the morning, out loud (sometimes in my head, but it’s more helpful out loud) I’ll sort of hum to myself, “Show me how great today can be, show me how great today can be, show me how great today can be, show me how great today can be,” while I open my window and stand up and stretch. And so during the day, I’m looking for positive things. You know the red car theory?
Natalie
I don’t know that one.
Rebecca
I don’t think so.
Laurie
The red car theory is like if I say to you, “How many red cars did you see on the way to work today when you were driving?” And you’ll think about it. You know, if I said to you, like, “How many red things do you see in this room?” And you look around, and then I’m like, “Ok, actually I wanted to know how many blue things you were seeing in this room.” What you’re looking for, you’ll feed, because there’s so much going on around out there. So if I’m looking for good things, I will notice a pretty flower, I will notice a cute dog, I will notice the sweet gesture of someone in my office buying me that little Christmas tree because they know I like it. And I think positivity attracts positivity and negativity attracts negativity. You sort of plant the seeds and then that grows, right? Now that’s not to say that everything is amazing. It’s not like because I’ll wake up and sing that little song that, you know, God forbid that I never get sick, but things happen to people. But again, I think it’s like when that thing happens, how you approach it.
Natalie
Absolutely. As somebody who has been sick, right — like, navigating blood clots is a thing that’s ongoing. And yet it’s been amazing what has come from everything that we’ve navigated as a family because of my illness over the years. And maybe that actually inspired in some ways my desire to be a bit more positive post-divorce. I’m trying to think of if it was always me — like, when we were kids, was I always chipper? I don’t think it’s that easy. Maybe it shifted. I don’t know. I think there’s something about hope and resilience that comes through suffering at some level that can allow for a shift in perspective.
Laurie
Yeah, for sure.
Natalie
For me that’s certainly been a way, and I’m hearing it in your story.
Laurie
One of my good friends, Ellen Schwartz, she had a son that, like, at six months old she noticed he wasn’t reaching the milestones, and it turns out he had Canavan’s disease and the doctors told him he would probably not live past age five. And he lived to 21, and it was incredibly inspiring. They started a charity to raise money for those genetic diseases. But he couldn’t see, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t digest, but he loved music. So they started this whole community, this Sunday music circle, Jams for Jacob, and all these young kids would come and just play music with him, and they wrote a song about him. And he passed a 21, now Ellen has written a lot of books — Lessons from Jacob. And she’s like, “Look, I’m not going to pretend that it was all easy.” You know, her and her husband had to take night shifts, making sure that he was ok and that he could breathe and all this crazy stuff. But he taught them so many lessons about: even though there was so much he couldn’t do, how much he did with what he had.
Natalie
Yeah.
Laurie
And I think he really taught a whole generation of kids about the importance of being a good person. Because Ellen actually is also a teacher and she has this thing called Project Give Back where she teaches kids about charitable work and picks something that means something to them. She used to bring her son in, and at first all the little kids would, like, sit pretty far back from him because, you know, he’s in a wheelchair, he looked a little different. And then the more and more that she normalized him, and was sort of talking about, “You know what Jakey loves? Jakey loves music.” They would move closer and closer to him. So her energy was like, “He looks different, it is different, but he’s loving and you’re loving and let’s figure it out.” And, like, there’s so many lessons in that. And again, resilience — and it’s not to say, like, if some kid goes home and break their arm, that that doesn’t suck because now they can’t be on the baseball team.
Natalie
Absolutely.
Laurie
Like, we are human beings that have human emotions. But maybe by seeing a kid that, like, will never play baseball makes you realize, “Ok, my arm’s broken for six weeks. I have a cool cast, people can sign it, I’ll be ok.” So I think resilience is a very important lesson to learn, and really to learn as early as you can. Sometimes you’re going to get your lessons later in life. But the thing that would be nice is to sort of figure it out in middle life at least, so that you don’t sort of hit 80 and say, “I never really expressed how I felt. I never really tried what I wanted to do. I was so afraid of failure I never started that business.” Because, you know, as far as we know we’re here once, or this is this life, so ask the boy that you like out for a drink. Try to get into the film industry. It might not work and then pivot and do something else. Whatever it is, just follow your passion. And you will get kicked in the face and that’s part of it, and then you just have to get back up.
Rebecca
Sometimes people ask us if we make money doing this podcast. The answer is we don’t. In fact, every hour we spend on Reframables is time not spent at a paying gig. And the steps to making a podcast are actually many. Finding the guests, booking the guests, reading the books, planning the questions, editing the interview, uploading it into the podcast world, making the artwork. So if you value this podcast, please consider supporting it with a financial contribution. Memberships start at $6 a month on Patreon and include a monthly extra where we record our five things in a week. In this world we have to support what we love, and with that support an energy comes back to us — so thanks for going to patreon.com/reframables and becoming a supporter. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to be making a podcast, but here we are, three years later, still doing it with your help. So go to patreon.com/reframables — now, on to the show.
If you, like, reflect on your life, are you able to identify: this is the biggest obstacle I encounter? Do you have one, or would you say life is just a series of…?
Laurie
I think life is a series of. I really also think practicing gratitude is very important. Like literally, when I go to bed at night, like, I literally say, “Thank you for everything wonderful that I’ve received in the past. Thank you for everything wonderful that I will receive in the future. Please guide me to be my best self so I can help make the world a better place.” And, “For everything that I have right now.” I say that three times: “For everything that I have right now, right now, right now.” I say, “Thank you, amen, and God bless.”
And I tried with my kids — I do this at night too, but with my kids, if we’re lucky enough to be on the beach in Hawaii, even when they were really little, I’d be like, “What do you see?” I see the ocean. “What do you feel?” I feel the heat and the wind. “What do you taste?” I taste the salt on my lips. And just, like, practice being in the moment because 20 years from now you would give anything to be right here right now, wouldn’t you? In this healthy body, right?
And so, look, some people might not say that if you’re in a terrible circumstance — like if you’re in a very bad marriage or if you’re, you know, a single mother that’s really struggling, it might be hard to find the things you’re grateful for, or if you’re sick. But I think by trying to practice the gratitude and try to feed that, it’s not going to cure every disease in the world, but it’s certainly going to help you manage it better.
Natalie
Absolutely.
Rebecca
Yeah. So have your kids taken on this gratitude themselves? Do you see that?
Laurie
Yes and no, and in different ways. I mean, kids are very different. What I’m very, very proud of is that they both have very good values. Like yesterday, it was very sweet because my son interviewed somewhere for a summer internship. My husband had set up the interview for him, and he said, “First of all, your son is so cute. He arrived in a suit. He doesn’t need to wear a suit.” And then he said, “Second of all, he was a pleasure to speak with. He’s very articulate.” And he said, “Third of all, and most importantly, he went out of his way to go back and thank the receptionist for getting him a glass of water. Well raised, nicely done.”
Natalie
Yes.
Rebecca
Aww. Exactly.
Laurie
And that’s what I’m most proud of, right? Like, just be kind and be a good person, right? And so that’s why it broke my little heart — like, he had his little heart broken. And I’m like, “Why, why? He’s such a good kid.” But then you also realize, “Ok, this was not the right person for him.” He learned some lessons from this. He’ll be stronger for it. That’s all nice and good, but watching your son be sad isn’t fun. Right?
Natalie
No.
Laurie
And unfortunately you do have to let those emotions flow through. When you have a kid, like, they cut their finger. I don’t know, I’m like, “Ow!” And I sort of grab my own finger. I would have been a terrible doctor. If people walk in with, like, something in their head, I’d be like, “Oh my god, that’s disgusting.” But when their heart gets broken, you’re literally like, “My heart hurts.”
Natalie
Oh yeah.
Laurie
Right?
Natalie
Yeah.
Laurie
And the thing that I had to learn that my husband taught me is, like, you can’t fix it. Like, I would be like, “What if we do this? What if you do that? What if we do this?” And my husband’s like, “Just let it be and let him go through it, and you can’t fix everything.” That is something I needed to learn because I think in my ‘I’m going to make the world better’ thing, I try to fix everything. And in fixing everything that’s controlling everything, and the truth is you can’t control everything. People don’t like to be controlled, and, you know, you can only control yourself.
Natalie
Yeah — and it can work against those relationships you’re actually trying to take care of because of resentment that can build up from that desire to control. I’m speaking from very personal experience.
Laurie
Same.
Natalie
I’m so alike. I really get that. That really can be a challenge when you care so deeply that you can end up getting in your own way.
Rebecca
Because you do that even to me — like, you do it in very small ways, and in a very loving way, but, like, we’re literally in the subway and I’m, like, balancing an orange and she’s like, “Tell me to take the peels.” I’m like, “No, don’t take my fucking peels. I am fine.” But just the instinct for you to take care of me if I articulate anything uncomfortable.
Natalie
Yeah — as opposed to just letting you feel uncomfortable with your orange peels, which was hard for me. I was like, “Ok, I’ll just march up those stairs.”
Rebecca
You’re really insulted.
Natalie
Yeah.
Rebecca
Yeah, it’s been good for me because Elsie, when she says, “This is hard, on my test,” and I’m like, “Should we call somebody?” She’s like, “Mommy, just don’t.”
Laurie
She just wants you to acknowledge that it’s hard.
Rebecca
“I’m just saying that it’s hard. Why are you trying to fix it?”
Laurie
Right, I know — exactly.
Rebecca
She will call it out and then it’s like, “Yeah.”
Laurie
Yeah. It’s interesting actually because my kids are old enough now (like, they’re 22 and 20), I’m very honest with them and very, like, there for them. But my husband will sometimes say, like, “You’re not their friend, you’re their parent. You need to parent.” And it is a fine line because sometimes I look at my daughter and I’m like, “Yeah, that girl you’ve been hanging out with, she’s not got a good vibe. I don’t like that vibe.” Like I’m at junior high and I just could see something and it’s like, “I’ve been there. I know this is not a good kid.”
Rebecca
“I could stop this right now.”
Laurie
“I could stop this now.” And then of course that did not turn into a good kid, and it did go through a little bad period and then it came around. But you have to let people go through their own things, right? And so that’s tricky.
Rebecca
It’s really tricky. And, like, my husband is a bit wise in that way too — and what’s with the men being wise in that way? Like, they don’t feel the same. They’re a little bit detached, or…?
Laurie
I think it’s wise-slash-they think less about everything around them.
Natalie
Yeah, I think some of it’s a socialized thing.
Laurie
A little bit of both, right? So, like, I think what women end up doing in the house a lot, and I do have a husband that at least, like, changed diapers and stuff — the previous generation, I think it was, like, a lot of men didn’t engage until the kid was, like, you know, eight and could throw a football. But, you know, all that stuff that happens in the house, like the spring clothes that miraculously go away and everything that doesn’t fit gets donated or given to a friend, and the winter boots that arrive.
Rebecca
How does that happen?
Natalie
How does that all go down?
Laurie
And the birthday party that, you know, there’s a nut-free cake because there’s a nut-free kid in the class. Like, women have so many things going on in their head that men would never... Do you think that my husband thought we need to check if there’s an allergy for the cake for the five-year-old birthday? No. And so that’s why too, I think. Right? I am the reverse of, like, the hoarders, I think that show Hoarders would, like, make me throw up. I like things organized so I know where things are. But it drives my husband crazy. He’ll say, like, “Kids, mom’s spring cleaning. You better protect your stuff.” There is that episode of Modern Family where she would, like, do the spring cleaning every year and then they’re like, “Oh, we’re so sad, we miss this toy.” And then the father is like, “Ha-ha, joke’s on your mom. Everything she threw out he stored.” And then they went and looked at it and they’re all like, “Yeah, this is a bunch of shit. We don’t need it.”
I think women take on juggling more of, like, the family’s emotional load. Whereas men are a little bit like, you know, “Ok, his girlfriend, whatever, he’ll be fine, he’ll learn.” And I’m like, “Are you ok, honey?” Probably a little bit of both is helpful. I’m not big on the tough love, but sometimes it’s like, “Ok, you’ve got to feel that and then whatever.” I would like to just make it pretty and make it go away, and sometimes that’s not realistic.
Natalie
I want to jump on that in terms of the women helping women. I really think that that is an interesting link because something we were talking about before this interview was: do we even ask this question of whether women supporting women as a concept is something that you see in this industry as sort of, like, resilience-driven? Is it a thing?
Laurie
I’m huge on women supporting women, right? Like, I was a mentor for women in film and television, and just even the women in our office, and my daughter and her friends. Like, because I’ve had to battle up a hill, I think as you try to go through your life, as you walk up a hill, you know, you start carrying more rocks. You’ve got an ailing parent, a kid who has an issue, a husband who loses his job, whatever. You’re carrying your own rocks, and then people at the top of the mountain are throwing rocks at you — like, “Get off my mountain, there’s only room at the top for one.” And so I think it’s important that women help women.
Unfortunately, there are some women that I think the vibe is, “There’s not that much room at the top. So I’m going to grab it for myself and not go out of my way to help other people.” Like, there is a competitiveness among women just because it feels like there’s less room for them. And I come at it from another perspective, which is why don’t we just try to make more room? There’s room for more, right?
Rebecca
Yeah. Because we were at some event yesterday and we were speaking with a woman and she was just kind of saying, “I’m just really great at business. I’ve made successful businesses. This is just another one of my successful businesses.” And I was thinking, like, “I appreciate that confidence, but I also don’t think you’re presenting a full picture of how you just have a knack for great business,” because then it suggests that…
Natalie
Other people don’t.
Rebecca
Yeah, so you just have a knack for… this is your third excellent business. And she was just kind of, like, looking at me like, “Yeah.” I’m thinking, “So I don’t.” I was like, “Are you? Are you supporting women right now? Are you a woman supporting women right now, by saying that you just have an excellent knack?”
Laurie
Well, she’s focused on herself instead of the whole village that it takes to get there. I’m very acknowledging of the village — like, you know, I’m co-president of this company, but if my team wasn’t out here doing what they’re doing… And also I really want to make sure that women elevate at the same rate as men. And obviously it’s merit-based as well, but I think sometimes women aren’t given the same opportunities to shine. I just want to make sure that everyone is, like, given the opportunity to shine and given the tools to shine. And what’s interesting is, you know, I think I told you in my 20s, everyone has no idea what they’re doing and trying to figure it out. And I think the best advice there is just follow your passion, right? To the woman who has three successful businesses, like, is she happy because she has a lot of money? She’s made a lot of money for herself. She’s made a lot of money for other people. Or is she proud of the product that she’s contributing? Like, I still have the fantasy, even though I’m very happy to run a film company because I love the power of film and shared stories and humanity. At some point, I would love to own a bookstore that’s also a flower shop and has coffee and good pastries, right? I think it’s every woman’s fantasy of owning a flower store, right? It’s kind of like a Hallmark movie.
People define success very differently, right? In my thirties, I was actually handed a company to run, Maple Pictures, because when they spun off from Lionsgate and I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Big imposter syndrome. Build a good team that can help me get there. And I think by empowering people at that level — like Cat Simmons, who’s now at Warner Brothers, she started as my assistant and moved over all the way through, followed her path of loving publicity, and now she sadly left us a year ago to be the publicity at Warner Brothers. And when she met my daughter, she passed on that — like, “Your mom encouraged me to follow my passion, but also just to roll up my sleeves and do whatever I needed to do.” So everybody at our company — like, if it’s TIFF, like, “Let’s all help.” I literally will stand there as co-president and hold an umbrella while a director’s speaking. Like, we’re all in it together and we’re all sharing the reward.
So then in my forties, I was like, “Wait a minute, I do know what I’m doing,” and felt kind of a little angry — like a few, a few. Now in my fifties, I think I’ve hit more like, “Ok, I know what my strengths are. I know what my weaknesses are.” And if somebody is disrespectful to me, instead of holding it in or feeling I deserve it or yelling back, I sort of reflect on it and think, “Are they making a valid critique of me or are they just being rude?” And if it’s just being rude, I’ll say, like, “What did you just say to me?” And so it’s approaching it from a calm perspective of empowering open speak, but also in a respectful and kind way. The interesting part, though, is that some of the people in the office said to me, like, “When people throw a jab at you in a group meeting, we don’t like that you don’t react anymore.” Like, they want me to…
Natalie
Quote-unquote, ‘fight back.’ Even if you’re fighting back, it looks different.
Laurie
Correct.
Natalie
That’s interesting.
Laurie
You know, if you really passionately believe in something, you know, you can sort of stand your ground a little bit. But at the same time, I really am trying to be open to when people give me constructive criticism. What can I take out of it? You know, I’m now running a company, but I can still learn — of course, I want to still learn. And this is why I always tell my kids, too — like, last year I took them both to Florida and I said, “Here’s the thing: for the holidays, you’re both getting a book — a book that you love.” So my son, I gave a book on Jeff Bezos because he’s interested in business. My daughter, I gave her something on Studio Ghibli because she’s very interested in anime and, like, where he got his inspiration. And I thought, “Alright, this is going to last five minutes at the pool.” They both whipped through the books and then were like, “Mom, you know what? That was really actually helpful.” If there’s people in different areas that have, like, spent their life learning something, why not read that book and learn from them, right? And not all of it’s going to resonate with you, but what does, learn from. And I do that myself too, all the time. Like, I want to read… you know Martha Beck? She just wrote a book, Beyond Anxiety.
Rebecca
Yeah, and I listened to a great podcast with her. She’s very interesting.
Laurie
I think she’s, like, a relationship guru too, and she was on Huberman Lab. I’m just very interested in learning, myself, how I can be a better person, and honestly, how I can translate that into helping things around me be better. Somebody said to me, “Oh, you should go into politics.” I don’t know if I would have the strength for that, but the world has become so divided that I really think we need to sort of kind of find our common ground. It’s not like right and wrong — there’s like a little bit of shades of, “Ok, let’s try to find the common ground here.” And so, like, every person working here has their own perspective, their own issues, their own feedback. And so, why not try to be better from all that?
Rebecca
And I heard… is it Martha Beck that tried honesty?
Laurie
Oh, I didn’t know that.
Rebecca
Is it her that… I think she was. I hope I’m not saying the wrong person.
Laurie
Oh, but Brené Brown vulnerability is a big one too.
Rebecca
Yeah — like, it’s kind of akin to that. I think it was her. She decided to be, like, radically honest for a year.
Laurie
Yeah — authentic.
Rebecca
Yeah, so it must be connected to that, but so honest — like, she just refused to lie. She had, I guess, a troubled relationship with her mom a little bit, and her mom was like, “I wish she would come, blah, blah, blah.” And her response was something like, “I know, mom — I wish I wanted to.”
Laurie
Oh, yeah.
Rebecca
She refuses to say, “I know, I want to, too,” and like, not come, but just pretend.
Natalie
Wild.
Rebecca
She was just like… I think it was her.
Laurie
Right, that’s good. Authenticity is a great one, too. I really believe in that, because for sure, when I was younger, as a woman, I would try to make everything be perfect.
Natalie
Right.
Laurie
I was a big perfectionist — like, it’s got to look pretty, I’ve got to look pretty, my house has to look pretty. And sometimes when you get together with your friends, it’s much better just to be like, “I’m having a really hard week, I’m feeling really low.” And that honesty and authenticity opens yourself up to more real relationships. Now, can I walk into a meeting today, when people say, “How are you?” You say, “Actually not so great, because my mom, oh my God…” You know, there is time and place to have that authenticity. But I do think that it is a superpower to be able to acknowledge, like, “I’m not good at this, I need your help.”
Natalie
And that it doesn’t have to be negative. Like, I’m just thinking to the beginning of our conversation here when we’re talking about reframing and resilience and starting the day positively. Being authentic doesn’t have to be, like, an oppositional perspective — like, they can actually work together if the authenticity is in that moment feeling negative. Like, they don’t have to be fighting.
Laurie
Right. I do try to end my day, like, with gratitude for what’s happened. But you have to acknowledge like some days are not going to be good and things are just not going to go your way.
Natalie
Exactly.
Laurie
Everyone’s going to cut you off on the way home, and whatever — like, just some days… just the milk spills, and whatever. But I think it’s what you then do with it and what you can learn from it and how you can get a little stronger from it. Build the muscle.
Rebecca
I was just thinking how about you — because you co-president with a man. How do you see it and is that something you wrestle with, or is that part of your resilience?
Laurie
I don’t even know if it’s man-woman, or this particular man and this particular woman. But we’re very, very different people and we’ve actually acknowledged it’s like, you know that Seinfeld episode with the black and white cookie? It’s like half icing black, half icing white. And Jerry’s like, “Sometimes these are delicious and sometimes it’s two worlds collide,” and he runs to the bathroom. And so I say to my partner Noah… like, he calls me his work wife. And actually people in our office call us mom and dad. We’ll spar, but we had to stop that because the sparring feeds down. And so if he does something a little disrespectful to me in a meeting, like “Next!” with his hand in my face, which I get sometimes, then you’ll see other male executives doing that — not just to women, to each other. Like, interrupting each other or putting their hand up. And so we did bring in an HR consultant and she said, like, “These little daily microaggressions, you don’t realize how much they…”
Natalie
Trickle down.
Laurie
Like, you put a drop of red into water, the water all turns red. It diffuses a bit, but it’s there. And so we’ve had to be a little bit careful with that. Now I do think that the yin and yang — like, I’m a trained lawyer. I’m very process-oriented. I, like, want everything well-documented. He is like a catch what catch can, talk to everyone, turn over every rock, try to look for a deal person. And sometimes when I’m like, “Oh, that’s a really good idea,” but if I say, “I don’t think that works,” it’s like, “Ugh, Laurie’s stopping me again, how annoying.” Right?
Rebecca
Right.
Laurie
So there’s like a yin and yang there. It is very difficult though, because our executive team is five people and I am the only woman. And our HR consultant that we brought in, it was amazing because she helped really…
Rebecca
That’s so cool that you guys do stuff like that, that you’re bringing in these consultants and, like, really trying to examine.
Laurie
We’re 30 people. This is interesting — we started as really, like, a family. Like, me and my partner Noah, have known each other forever. We were at Lionsgate together way back. We brought over a bunch of people from Alliance. Like, we’ve all known each other for a long time, which makes us work really well. But also at some point you can’t just be a family. You’re a business. And you have to acknowledge that younger, new people coming into the company don’t feel part of the family. They’re, like, sort of out of it a little bit.
Rebecca
They don’t know the history.
Laurie
Right. And so for them it’s really important to not just use a shorthand and also to model proper kindness — not just act like siblings that spar. And obviously, like, I’m not always right. Sometimes I’m wrong and we’ll talk things out — but I do acknowledge as a woman sometimes I get like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway…” — and the guys have their little group think. And I don’t want to be responsible for everybody’s emotional wellbeing, but at the same time, I acknowledge that as a female leader, it’s important for me to be not just on my own journey, but we are all in this journey together. And so if there’s something positive that I’ve learned, I might as well share it so that people can have that resilience.
Now actually, fun story, the publicity girls… a lot of people in publicity are women. I don’t know why. They just like that hustle, they like the creativity. It just so happens many of our publicists are women. And my favorite expression with them is I always say, “No asky, no getty.” Because, you know, my daughter had a party and she had a YouTuber she loved and I work in the film industry and I asked somebody at Google, “Can you get this YouTuber to record a video?” And half an hour later I got a video and I played it and she freaked out.
At my son’s party, I heard Drake was in the building. We were all at a Raptors game. I was like, “Oh,” — we went downstairs and he walked out and I said, “Can we get a picture with you? It’s his birthday.” And his people were like, “No.” So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, right? And so the publicity girls were like, “Oh, for Taylor Swift, we were like, let’s reach out to Taylor Swift’s publicist. We’ll say we’re publicists. Maybe they have some extra tickets.” They got tickets — like, the day before. So if I’ve learned something along the way that I can share that can make them be better, why not?
Rebecca
Yeah. That’s probably going to be a phrase that sticks with them.
Laurie
“No asky, no getty?” Yeah.
Natalie
That’s a takeaway for us, absolutely. Because you know what? I think I had that energy when we first started. I was like, “Well, why not?” And you used to say to me, because you’ve been in the industry for so long, you were wary of asking with the expectation that it’s not going to come back because there are so many ‘no’s in this industry.
Laurie
Yeah.
Natalie
But I was so naive, coming out of education where, like, no one asks for anything, to be honest, because you just figure it out yourself.
Laurie
Right — no.
Natalie
Like, that’s what ends up happening. So I was like, “Well, I’m going to just figure it out by asking.” And then I got a few ‘yes’s that were really, like, surprises for both of us. But I’ve now been in long enough that I’m starting to feel my ‘no’ ask. You’re sort of starting to creep in — maybe because of all the ‘no’s. So I need to get back to that energy.
Laurie
You do get ‘no’s — of course you’re going to get ‘no’s.
Rebecca
But how do you stick with that energy?
Laurie
Because I know there are ‘no’s out there. Nobody just has a straight lineup. Everybody goes up and down and up and down, right? And I think that the trick is: when you go down, don’t spiral into like, “Oh God, I knew this was… what was I thinking? Oh God, I shouldn’t… I should just take the thing that’s easy.” Right? I think comfort is a wonderful thing, right? You get comfortable in your marriage, your house, your job, your whatever, and you’re like, “Why would I rock this boat?” And if you’re very happy in that place, then that’s great. But if there’s something in you that wants a little bit more, you might as well try to get it, and you might not get it on your first try.
So I thought Allied was the premier brick and beam space, and I wanted to be in an Allied building. And I think that’s where manifesting sort of comes in, right? Manifesting is really just: when we all go outside today, there’s a million versions of what you could do with your day. If you turn left, you’re going to encounter a different day than if you turn right. If you’re kind to this person, you’re going to encounter a different… than if you whatever. And every moment is like a moment to sort of shift. And you’re going to get a ‘no,’ and then you might get another ‘no,’ and then you might get another ‘no’ — and then you might get a ‘yes.’
And what I said to my son, for example, when he went through his first little first love and his first little breakup, he said, “I’m never falling in love again.” I said, “That’s a very normal reaction. Like, why would you expose yourself if you get your heart trumped on? But here’s the thing: you have the beauty of being able to love deeply, to think deeply, to feel deeply — which means you’re also going to hurt deeply. I would choose that over going through life mediocre.”
Rebecca
That’s such a beautiful response.
Laurie
And so the truth is: I think to get to the next level of whatever you want to do, you have to go through fire. You have to go through the fire of growth and change. Nobody likes change, right? And so back to my Allied, there’s a realism in it of like, “Ok, I’m starting a company, I’m not paying $50 a square foot for a gorgeous brick and beam.” So we were in a 2,500 square foot space that was too small — it’s like Goldilocks. And then our second one was 5,000 square feet, which was too big.
And I said to our broker during COVID, when we’re all working at home, “Can you find something, like, downtown? Right near TIFF, with, like, a real brick and beam feel, with, like, an outdoor patio, so we can host events out there?” And he called me, he’s like, “What are you, like, a magician? Allied just is converting their old restaurant Easy & the Fifth, it comes with a patio. Get down here now — but don’t act too interested because I want to negotiate the price.” I walked in, I was like, “I’ll take it.” And he’s like, “Oh, I like this.” I was like, “No, no, I’ll take it.” And every time I walk into this building, I look at that Allied sign and I’m very proud of myself because I had a vision of where I wanted us to be. I was also realistic — it took us three buildings to get here. And now we’re here and we just expanded into the space next door and we have the whole floor.
And I feel very proud of that because it’s not just like… manifesting isn’t sitting in your home being like, “I really want a big house,” and then turning on Netflix and flipping the channels. What you want, you have to go work and get. And you have to pivot — like, you know, I say to my kids: some people are born and know, “I want to be a veterinarian, I love dogs, I want to help.” And then they’re on that path, and that’s great. Other people really pivot, right? So I was like, “Ok, I’m in university, I’m taking psychology, what am I interested in? Maybe advertising, that’s kind of cool, little stories in advertising. Ok, I’ll study journalism, I’ll go work at CTV Television Network — oh, journalism. Actually now, you know what? I’ll go get a law degree, but I know that I like the media space. And so I like the media space, but I want to be in the executive level because I know myself. I’m not a physical director. I’m not a producer that can work on something for seven years.” So how can I take my interest in the law with the creative space and turn that into something where I’m working on films? So you have to pivot a little and sort of, you know, allow yourself to follow your passion. And it’s not going to be a straight easy line to success. There’s no such thing.
Natalie
Ok, we’re going to end on a funny story that you told us last time we were here about your elevator. So thinking of this beautiful building.
Laurie
So now we are 10 years old, Elevation, and we do have a bit of a brand to us. So as we go into TIFF, like, Mandy’s Salads was arriving in Toronto. Literally I DM them like, “Hey, Mandy’s X TIFF, we’re going to have a lot of celebrities here. They’ll be eating Mandy’s salads. You want to do our salads on our beautiful patio for all of the talent that’s here?” “Sure.” We had Diageo and, like, all these really cool brands branding with us. Blue Boho, the gorgeous jewelry. So we got a picture of Anna Kendrick standing out there with her Mandy’s, and it was just organic, it wasn’t even whatever.
But we do have a sign that says, “Four people in the elevator.” This is an old building. They jammed seven in. The elevator stopped. Actually, I think it’s still on her story — if you look at Andra Kendrick, she, like, did a TikTok being like, “Well, it’s a good thing I have gum in my purse.” Like, she was making a joke about it. Other people are hyperventilating. Meanwhile, all these adorable firemen show up. There’s, like, a crack. They’re pulling them out. And then they pull out Anna Kendrick and they’re like, “Can we get a picture?” So they have a picture of the firemen with Anna Kendrick as they pull her out of the elevator.
These are the fun stories — like, that’s the fun of the film business. Like, and also they’re real people. Like, we idolize these stars and then, you know, they get stuck in an elevator because they ignore the “four people” sign. I love the creative industry, and what’s so cool is our biggest party, this year we had Anora, so we had Sean Baker there and Mikey Madison and the film’s incredible, and we had Babygirl with Nicole Kidman (which we have a screening tonight, you guys should come) and Conclave and all these amazing films. What was our best party? Our influencer party, because we just had all of our brands there with all of the influencers talking about what they love and just sharing that excitement, right?
And so if we can build a world where we’re, like, helping everybody get excited and, like, come together… there’s these sweatshirts, Madhappy, have you heard of them? I think they’re Canadian. They started in LA. And I’m like, “Madhappy X TIFF, let’s make a sweatshirt. I want to do a Spindrift, those delicious drinks — like, Spindrift X TIFF. I want to start merchandising and have it on our website.” And our team was like, “Ok, let’s start with, like, an Elevation film crew bag. We’re not just getting a Madhappy collab the minute we start our merch.” And it’s like, “Ok, but dare to dream.” And some people are going to say no. And then the ones that say yes, and we’ll just do it from there.
Natalie
Resilience, dare to dream.
Rebecca
Dare to dream and…
Laurie
No asky, no getty.
Rebecca
No asky, no getty.
Laurie
Show me how great today can be. Well, today was fun.
