How Emerson ‘Built’ Writer/Producer Seth Grahame-Smith ’98

When novelist, screenwriter, and producer Seth Grahame-Smith ’98 was about to graduate from Emerson, he confided in faculty member Pete Chvany that he was nervous about what was next, scared that he wouldn’t make it in the entertainment industry.

“[Chvany] put his hand on me, and he looked at me with this crazy earnestness … and he said, ‘That’s what we built you for.’ I was like, wait a second, yes! All of this stuff – this education, this collaboration, all this teaching, all this experience… He made me feel ready, he made me feel proud, and I carried that with me,” he said.

Grahame-Smith, an Emerson trustee whose movies have grossed nearly $2.5 billion at the box office, spoke with his classmate, Jared Bowen ’98, host of WGBH’s The Culture Show, on Thursday, Sept. 25, for “What Emerson Built You For,” a callback to the late Chvany’s words of support, and the first Boston installment of the Emerson Master Class series.

Master Classes are opportunities for accomplished Emerson alums, partners, parents, and friends to share their expertise and experience with the community. Earlier this month, casting executive Dawn Steinberg ’83 spoke at Emerson Los Angeles. Next week, creative director Bunny Kinney ’07 will speak at the Cutler Majestic on Sept. 29, and on Sept. 30, global executive and brand builder Michael Mendenhall ’84 will speak at the Bordy Theater.

In addition to the Sept. 25 conversation, Grahame-Smith, author of the books and screenplays Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, writer of The Lego Batman Movie and producer of Stephen King’s It, among others, gave a workshop on preparing pitches, and visited a number of classrooms and orgs around campus.

Read: 5 Things to Know About Pitching, From Seth Grahame-Smith ’98

Finding Your People

On Thursday, he told the Paramount Center audience that after hanging out with students for two days, he learned that though Emerson’s campus today is virtually unrecognizable from the one he attended in the ‘90s, the students are “exactly the same.”

“And what I mean by that is you come here with a passion of some kind. You come in here with a vision of ‘I’m here to accomplish something,’ right? But what you also do when you come here is to find your people,” he said.

It was when he found his people and began to collaborate with them, Grahame-Smith said, that Emerson really began to work its magic.

“Let’s be honest, the classes are amazing, but the classes are the beginning of the education that you get here,” he said. “The stuff that really changes you happens after class. It happens when you work on somebody’s project, it happens when you work on the EVVYs or [Emerson Independent Video], and it happens when you collaborate and feel other people’s voices and talent and absorb that.”

‘You can’t see the path while you’re on the path’

Grahame-Smith set out for LA after graduation, sleeping on a friend’s couch and going to his day job as a production assistant for alum and former trustee Gary Grossman’s production company. Because they had so much work, Grahame-Smith kept getting asked to take on bigger and bigger roles — writing for History Channel documentaries, then shooting them, then developing and producing new shows.

He was grateful for the work and experience, but he felt like he wasn’t where he should be, which was working with Spielberg or screening his latest indie film at SXSW. Then one day, two brothers came in to pitch a show. They had a small publishing company in Philadelphia, and they asked Grahame-Smith if he’d ever consider writing a book. So on the side, in addition to writing his own screenplays, he began writing “quirky humor books” for the brothers. One of those books was Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. The novel blew up, and so did Grahame-Smith’s career.

“You can’t see the path when you’re on the path,” Grahame-Smith told the audience. “There’s no timeline. In fact, I’m suspicious if you make it too quickly, because are you ready for the moment? I was 32 when that book came out, and I was ready because I had spent 10 years trying and failing.”

Grahame-Smith also drove home the point that “it’s not your discipline, it’s your discipline.” Whether you want to be a director, screenwriter, author, marketing executive, journalist, or anything else, you need to keep doing it. Even if no one is paying you to work your craft, keep writing, shooting, making art, and telling stories, because that’s the only way to get better and get noticed, he said. Even while he held day jobs at the production company, he said, he was writing and pitching scripts.

Hollywood is rapidly changing and current students looking to work in entertainment are going to be entering a shrinking industry with fewer jobs and stiffer competition. But the good news, Grahame-Smith said, is that Emerson students will be well prepared to do the work, get the jobs, and bring their creative visions to life.

“You chose the right place to come to school … I know in my heart this school is full of people who are self-starters, and who are collaborators, and who are driven,” he said.

Coming full-circle

When he was 13, Grahame-Smith said, he went to see Edward Scissorhands, a film by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp. As he left the theater that night, he knew that making movies was what he wanted to do with his life. Twenty years later, he found himself in London, sitting around a table with Burton and Depp, drinking expensive wine and talking movies.

“I was like, ‘Seth, please zoom out of your head and just look at this moment for a second. … this full-circle moment that life has given you for some reason, and appreciate it,’” he said. “And that feeling is all I want, that’s all I chase. And I hope every single one of you has that moment, because you realize that fulfillment is so much more valuable than anything else.”

Kate McCandless ’26, a Media Arts Production major, went to the previous day’s session about pitching with Grahame-Smith, and decided to check out “What Emerson Builds You For” to find out what her job prospects might be when she graduates in a few short months.

She said she could relate to what he said about being “the creative kid” in high school, then finding yourself in a sea of creatives at Emerson, but also like Grahame-Smith, she plans to lean into her Emerson connections and relationships once she graduates.

“I’m looking forward to the future,” McCandless said.

As a first-year student, Priya Mittal ’29 has been on campus for just a hot second, but she also was struck by the longstanding relationships Grahame-Smith built at Emerson.

“I liked how he said Emerson was really a sense of community, and how his friends today, he went to college with and he’s still connected with, and I really hope to make some friends here and gain those connections,” Mittal said.