Signed & Sold - Interview with Charlie Peppers

Tell us a little bit about your writing background?
I began writing when I was 7 years-old. My mother let me accompany her to film school courses. To keep me busy, she handed me scripts and tasked me highlighting lines for the actors. At 11 years old, I wrote my first season of TV — fifteen episodes — in spiral notebooks. I moved to LA in 2011 to get my masters degree in filmmaking from the New York Film Academy.

You got signed with Gersh last year. Can you share with us what the process was like? How did you know it was the right fit?
It took many years to get signed. That was one of the hardest won accomplishments of my life. After finishing my masters program, I worked a myriad of restaurant jobs at night and got up early to write. I even worked two internships during this time. It was crazy busy. It wasn’t until I wrote, produced and starred in a concept trailer for one of my passion projects, SAVAGE, that agents took notice of me. Also, I was staffed on MIDDLE WEST, which gave me a bit more credibility than I’d had before.

Congrats on your pilot sale! How did that come about and what has the process been like so far?
I have an incredible team. My agents, Sam Sekoff and Danny Toth, knocked it out of the park. My attorney, David Matlof, knows his stuff and truly went to bat for me. I just had to show up and pitch to the studios who’d taken a shine to the material. The icing on the cake was getting Jeremy Pope attached to star as the lead character.