My interview on the acclaimed TV Makers podcast...

Alex is the Managing Director of major UK talent agency InterTalent. He represents his clients alongside overseeing the agency's creative strategy, day-to-day operations & acquisitions.

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🎙️ My interview on the acclaimed TV Makers podcast...

At the end of 2024, I was invited onto filmmaker Ashley Golder’s highly acclaimed podcast, TV Makers.

It was a fascinating chat about the pressing topics affecting the entertainment and TV industry today, as well as taking him behind the curtain on what it’s really like to work with those in the spotlight.

The podcast was released yesterday so please do take a listen to TV Makers wherever you get your podcasts or click the link here:

I’d love to hear what you think.

Here is Ashley’s own words about the episode:

Talent Agents! — often portrayed as the masterminds behind extravagant demands, from bowls of blue M&Ms to first-class flights for star clients. But what’s the reality behind the myth?

I had the pleasure of being invited to the Soho office for this episode with Alex Segal, Managing Director of InterTalent, one of the UK’s leading talent agencies. With over a decade of experience at the helm, Alex pulls back the curtain on what it truly takes to sign, manage, and book talent.

And speaking of the word “talent”… should we even be using it? 👀 Alex shares his thoughts! In an era where some high-profile names have self-destructed publicly, we talk about the critical role agents play in keeping their clients grounded and steering them back on track when things go sideways.

A lot of you reading this (and perhaps listening to the episode) will have your own tales, good or bad, when working with both Agent and "Talent". What are your stories? Demands..negotiations...catastrophes?

Ashley has very kindly allowed me to post a short snippet of our conversation here for subscribers of Dealmakers… but to listen to the whole conversation please head to your nearest podcast app.

Ashley Golder: How do you learn to be the therapist, the person to cry on, but also the negotiator, the contract person?

Alex Segal: That's a really good question. The first thing to say is, is that you should learn it by working your way up like you would do in most professions. I wouldn't be where I am in my career if I wasn't an assistant at amazing places. Starting as an intern, then an assistant, and working with top agents. Like anyone learns in any job, you know, you just gain experience, right? And you learn by working with those that have knowledge of your industry and why things happen. Why? What does that mean? What does that mean for this? What does it mean for that? This is what your clients are expecting of you, that you have knowledge. And those things like just knowing our industry are things that I think are really obvious. But a lot of people don't. So learning opens up a big (and maybe we're too early into this), but it opens up a big conversation about whether agents should be regulated to do the job that they do… because the truth is in entertainment you don't have to be. You could wake up tomorrow, have a friend who's gone viral on TikTok and go, I'm going to manage you and you can. Legally you can represent that person with no knowledge, no experience, no nothing. And what that means is you do have a lot of people who don't know what they're doing, but our industry allows for that. And we often find talent, great talent, who come to us having had a really bad experience. And nine times out of ten they're not experiences with our competitors who, like us, have got great grounding and have been around for a long time and really train their staff.

Ashley Golder: So what goes wrong then for the people who rock up and do it? What's the worst thing that could happen then, if they don't have the grounding that you have spoken about?

Alex Segal: Well, very clearly you can ruin a person's career. That's that's the worst that can happen. I'm not stopping people wanting to come into the industry, and not some people wanting to be an agent. I'm just thinking about things from my own personal experience that, you know, I spent four years assisting a great agent, but in those four years, I learned. And that was a great acting agency. And my old boss represents Daniel Radcliffe, Liam Neeson, Adrian Lester and Imelda Staunton. My experiences come from working with those people and others.

Ashley Golder: How do you guide? How do you manage, especially when people have maybe gone too far? How do you bring them back?

Alex Segal: You have to be able to manage your client and not let your client manage you. A talent will say, ‘I'm great’. And the agent goes, yes you are. Of course you are. You're the best. ‘I deserve this.’ Yes you do. They're scared. They don't want to lose their client. And I understand that comes from a place of anxiety and stress. And yes, losing a client, maybe a great client, is not great. And I guess everyone's scared to lose clients, you know, so they go, ‘whatever you want’. You want to do that? Yes. But that's the wrong way to manage your talent. They're not paying you a commission to just agree with them. They're paying you to give honest advice.

Ashley Golder: In your experience, what are the biggest mistakes talent agents can make?

Alex Segal: Guessing.

Ashley Golder: Guessing what?

Alex Segal: Everything. I think that a lot of people panic and say things when they actually don't know the answer. So when a client calls and says, ‘is that show fully cast?’ and you don't know, you should say, ‘let me find out and I'll come back to you.’ I see it often. The answer goes back to knowing our industry, and actually with confidence and experience comes the absolute acknowledgement that you don't know everything. It's always okay to say, I don't know. It doesn't make you a bad agent.

Listen to the full 45 minute conversation…

📥 I would love to hear from you. Any ideas, thoughts and feedback via alex@intertalentgroup.com are always most welcome.

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See you next time.

Alex