Sometimes, almost out of the blue, Hollywood calls, and nothing is ever the same again. The allure of making movies in an environment teeming with possibilities, where you can get very lucky, can be irresistible.
That call came for Duke grads Ilana Wolpert ’15 and Jacqueline Monetta ’18 while they were students. Neither hesitated long before answering it.
At Duke, both were drawn to the idea of filmmaking, but by different paths. They didn’t meet as students, but in 2022 worked on the same feature film, a romantic comedy titled “Anyone But You,” co-written by Wolpert and produced by Monetta.
Wolpert, a South Florida native who majored in English and Theater, got hooked on Shakespeare at Duke. A lifelong fan of “Saturday Night Live,” she especially loved the comedies. To share the Bard’s work with others, she planned to teach. But then professor Neal Bell’s screenwriting class changed everything.
“That jumpstarted my passion for that form of writing,” she says. “My best friend, who was moving to L.A., said, ‘If you want to be a writer, come with me. You’ll find a job. You’ll figure it out.’”
That’s just what she did. In L.A., she babysat, walked dogs and worked as a personal assistant. In her last assistant job, for the creator and writer of a network TV show, she got to see “every single part of how a TV show gets made.” That was followed by a four-year professional writing gig for “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.”
Then she turned back to Shakespeare, writing what would become the film “Anyone but You,” based on “Much Ado About Nothing.” In 2021 she peddled her script to producers, and one sent it to actress Sydney Sweeney, who signed on to the project. From there, the pieces fell into place. She found a home for her film at Olive Bridge Entertainment, where Monetta was working in production. The movie was released in December 2023.
Meanwhile, Monetta, from the San Francisco Bay Area, had entered Duke planning to work in finance or consulting, or become a lawyer like her dad, even though she had started making a documentary film in high school.
“There’s a big push toward jobs that make money. I was interested in that,” she says. She majored in public policy and earned certifications in Documentary Studies and Policy Journalism and Media Studies, but her favorite classes were in film. “I always wanted to do that homework first.”
Duke allowed her to do an independent study to finish her documentary, and she took directing classes. But she wasn’t set on a Hollywood career. As a senior, she received two job offers, one in consulting in New York and one in the mailroom at United Talent Agency in L.A. “The pay was double for the New York job and there was a clear career path there,” she says, while in film, “so many people don’t make it.”
Just before graduation, she consulted her dad, expecting him to recommend New York, but he said, “Absolutely go to L.A., give it a shot.”
Her face lights up as she remembers. “The floodgates opened. I had permission to take this big risk.”
The mailroom job paid minimum wage and included delivering dry cleaning or event tickets to stars like Timothée Chalamet and Will Ferrell. “It was a little bit of the charm of Old Hollywood, which I love,” she says. “I grew up watching oldies with my grandpa.”
Later she was promoted to assistant for an agent but found herself feeling jealous of the clients. “I wanted to direct and write and produce myself,” she says. Then she landed an interview with Will Gluck, a director, writer, producer, composer and co-founder of Olive Bridge. The two hit it off, and she joined the production and development team.
Gluck understands Monetta’s aspirations and allows her to work closely with him, directing and revising scripts. When she learned that Sweeney had attached herself to a script by a Duke writer, she told Gluck, “We have to read it ASAP.” They did, and both loved it, although he wanted to make some changes and came on as co-writer. The two Duke grads spent time together in Australia while the film was being shot. “We had very different Duke experiences,” says Monetta, “but it was so cool to see how we both got here.” And they are not turning back. Monetta looks forward to writing and directing, while Wolpert is at work on a script for Netflix titled “Twelfth Knight” based on, you guessed it, Shakespeare.