Powerful Hollywood agent turns to producing ‘Pachinko’

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Talent agent-turned-producer Theresa Kang Lowe had a pretty good idea of the challenges she’d face in adapting the novel “Pachinko” for television. A series almost entirely subtitled, largely set 100 years ago in Korea, with a huge budget — it wasn’t an obvious greenlight. “At the time when I was an agent and I came across a book, my job was to think about strategy. How are we gonna sell this?” Kang Lowe says. “So the immediate no’s were: period piece. The budget has to be significant for it to have scope and scale from a cinematic point of view. It also had to be an all Asian-led cast. And it had to be told in Korean, Japanese and English.” Kang Lowe was able to use her decades of experience to land the budget and support she needed at Apple. Kang Lowe discusses her career—including an interesting time as Ari Emanuel’s assistant, her rise to partner at William Morris Endeavor, and her move to become executive producer of the new Apple TV+ series “Pachinko.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.
0:05.5	Talent agent turned producer Teresa Kang Lowe had a pretty good idea of the challenges she'd
0:10.2	faced in adapting the novel Pachinko for television. A series almost entirely subtitled, largely
0:16.6	set 100 years ago in Korea. it wasn't an obvious green light.
0:20.9	At the time when I was an agent and I came across a book,
0:24.3	my job is to think about strategy, like how are we going to sell this?
0:26.9	Is it going to work?
0:28.1	And so the immediate nose were period piece.
0:31.0	The budget has to be significant for it to have scope and skill.
0:34.5	It was also how to be an all Asian-led cast. And it had to be told in Korean and Japanese and skill. It was also how to be an all-Asian-led cast, and it had to be told in
0:39.6	Korean and Japanese and English. Teresa Kang-Lo talks about her interesting time as Ari
0:45.4	Emmanuel's assistant, her rise to partner at William Morris Endeavor, and her move to executive
0:50.7	producer of the new Apple TV Plus series, Pachinko.
0:55.9	But first we banter.
0:56.5	Stick around.
0:58.5	It's the business from KCRW.
1:04.9	I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany.
1:05.4	Hello, Matt.
1:06.2	Hi there.
1:12.7	So as you well know, David Zaslov, the new king of the combined Discovery Warner Media Empire.
1:16.2	This is the deal that took a long time to close, finally did.
1:29.7	He has been touring around, talking to his staff, begging for patience in a town hall meeting with people in Burbank because it is a big job to integrate these companies. He has many problems,
	...

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