Like her great-grandmother, whose name she shares, Sue Carls ’09 is a Hollywood talent agent, representing artists and negotiating deals in the entertainment industry.
Her great-grandmother, Sue Carol, was an actress who established her own talent agency in the 1930s and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“I feel very much that we have a kindred connection,” says Carls, who in 2021 was named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen 2021 – 35 rising executives 35 and under, “poised to take over the town.”
Except for her years at Duke and in law school in New York, Carls has spent her life in Los Angeles. The daughter of a film producer and granddaughter of a head of production for Columbia Pictures, she grew up around movie lovers. Still, she thought film would always be just a hobby for her.
“Yet my great-grandmother had laid the groundwork,” she says. “I feel like this was destined from her for sure.”
When it came time for college, it was Carls’ volleyball prowess that took her across the country, when she was recruited to join Duke’s varsity team.
“Volleyball helped me get into an incredible school,” she says. “It was love at first sight. I remember driving to the campus and through the forest and thinking, ‘This is just too magical and too special.’”
She immediately felt at home. “I loved the coaches and the team. I loved being in Cameron Indoor Stadium. With the prestigious academic experience, I had the best of both worlds.”
With an affinity for the arts from a young age, Carls majored in art history and liked “examining history through that lens. I loved the creative spirit in the department.” She also liked the Triangle area so much that she stayed on for a year after graduation to work as a paralegal in Durham, before heading to New York Law School.
There, her favorite classes were in intellectual property, copyright contracts and First Amendment law. She considered a career in entertainment law but feared it would take years to get where she wanted to be.
So, in 2013, law degree in hand, she went home to L.A., where a friend from elementary school invited her to work as an assistant in business affairs at Creative Arts Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports agencies. And there she has stayed, climbing steadily to become an agent with her own clients, which include Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Pedro Pascal and Olivia Wilde, among others.
“I started when I was a little bit older, but I didn’t have any real practical film experience. So I wanted a place that could help me learn about entertainment and use my legal background. After growing up hearing about the agencies, I knew CAA would be an amazing place to learn.”
Experience has taught her that “as an agent, you’re basically an advocate. You speak on behalf of artists, which is one of my favorite things about my job. You negotiate deals and help bring them to fruition. In some ways, you’re a high-level matchmaker, a creative confidant, on the journey with your clients, helping figure out how to amplify their voice and make people aware of their work.”
Not surprisingly, in her free time, Carls loves to go to the movies. She also likes to spend time with her family and friends, read books that aren’t scripts and visit museums.
But then she’s glad to get back to her job.
“I hope I always get to work with artists in this way,” she says. “It makes me so happy and inspired every day.”