Gavin POLONE'S Monday morning staff meeting is only five minutes old and so far he's described the stars of "Friends" as "the six morons America loves," dismissed one of his production executives as a "dogmatic liberal" and, having just read the most recent issue of Vanity Fair (before the recent spate of stories about Graydon Carter's cozy Hollywood connections), described the glossy monthly as "basically what Kitty Kelley would do if she had a magazine." Being in a room with Polone, one of Hollywood's smartest and most prickly producers, is clearly not for the faint of heart.
One minute the staff is discussing a "Celebrity Blackjack" series for the Game Show Network, the next they're listening to Polone's idea for a legal TV series (His pitch: "I want to do 'From Earth to the Moon' about the Supreme Court."), which leads to a lively debate over Antonin Scalia, abortion clinics and civil disobedience. On the other hand, a new horror movie script has just come in. "Is it scary?" Polone asks, taking a sip from his bottle of Smart Water. "It's very, very scary," says one of the half dozen execs at the table, all young, smart and fast on their feet. "Then I ought to read it," says Polone. One of his executives mentions that Lindsay Lohan, star of the film "Mean Girls," would be right for a movie project they're developing. Polone grimaces, as if he's taken a bite of a sour lemon. OK, they scratch her from the list.
What Polone really wants to discuss is "The Jesus Factor," the recent "Frontline" documentary about President Bush and his embrace of evangelical Christianity. Polone has been thinking about religion a lot lately, having just completed a pilot for the TV drama "Revelations" ("it's an 'X-Files'-type show that takes place before the Rapture," he explains) that NBC will launch in November. Polone thinks a story based on "The Jesus Factor" could make a great TV movie. "It's about a guy, the black sheep of his family, who's drinking like crazy and is failing in business when he finds Jesus, and that turns his life around and puts him on the path to being the most powerful man in the world," Polone explains. "I would never vote for him, but there's something fascinating about Bush and how he used religion to change his life." In most Hollywood meetings, this would inspire a burst of derisive hoots, but not when it comes from Polone, something of a black sheep in left-of-center Hollywood.
"What I like about Bush is that he's not a hypocrite like [Sen. John] Kerry," adds the 40-year-old producer about the Democratic presidential candidate. "It's so phony for Kerry to say he's getting a hybrid now, when his family has eight cars, including a Chevy Suburban. At least Bush has a consistent point of view. He's not searching for an answer that will get him votes." A staffer reminds Polone, who drives an electric car, that Bush's environmental track record is pretty abysmal. Polone's response pretty much explains why he has managed at one time or another to drive everyone, friend or foe, around the bend. "If you believe Christ is coming and we'll all live in the Kingdom of God, then why care if you destroy the environment along the way?"
Hollywood is an incredibly insular world where conventional wisdom rules; nearly everyone goes to the same restaurants, has the same politics and drives the same cars. By those standards, Polone is an iconoclast, even something of a heretic. In a town of limousine liberals, he's an ardent Republican. In an industry that preaches family values, he is outspokenly adverse to marriage and children. Asked why he calls his company Pariah Productions, he answers: "Because I feel like one." With his five-day stubble, trim physique and slightly forbidding air, he looks more like a martial-arts instructor than a producer.
At 22, he was already so bored with being an assistant at ICM that he applied to join the CIA. The agency turned him down, which, to one who has seen Polone on the phone, gathering intelligence, appears to be yet another agency blunder. Reading Variety online one afternoon, he sees that a story about the potential network pickups for the fall TV season fails to mention his NBC pilot, "D.O.T.S." In an instant, Polone has the Variety reporter on the phone: "I hear 'The Office' is dead," he says, "but you mention it and not my show?" In Variety the next day, Polone's show is in the story. (The reporter's initial assessment was right; NBC picked up "The Office" but not Polone's show.)
