Born the very year that Middlesex became coeducational, Anna joined the School as a new sophomore 15 years later. While a student at the University of Richmond, she started her film career as a summer assistant to the location manager she had originally met at Middlesex during the filming of School Ties. Not long after her college graduation, Anna joined Imagine Entertainment as the assistant to producer Brian Grazer. Over the past 18 years, she has served as story editor, creative executive, director of development, vice president, and senior vice president before being promoted to executive vice president last August. Some of the films Anna has worked on include A Beautiful Mind, 8 Mile, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, and J. Edgar. Among other projects, she executive produced Inferno, directed by Ron Howard and to be released in October, the documentary Prophet’s Prey, directed by Amy Berg, and Universal’s Get On Up, directed by Tate Taylor. She co-produced Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D for Paramount Insurge and was an associate producer on Angels And Demons for Sony Pictures.
Was “coeducation” something you thought much about when you were a Middlesex student?
No, I had gone to a coed grammar school. Middlesex was a very embracing community for girls, in the best way possible. I felt incredibly supported. From my first tour to revisit day, I felt it was an environment about the person, regardless of gender or race or anything else.
What were some of the best things you remember about Middlesex?
What’s really incredible is that I was exposed to so many different things. At the forefront of that was my introduction to the world of art history, and Malcolm Russell was a very big part of that. From the first class with him, I was amazed by it – that I could sit in front of a painting, observe it, and learn about the life behind it. It married many different ways of learning and made me look at the world differently. These were the earliest signs of my wanting to be a storyteller. I relate it to that experience.
You and Ursie Ayres Ostrom ’92 carved a pair of companion plaques depicting the famous cherubs in Raphael’s The Sistine Madonna. That seems funny now given your connection to movies like Angels and Demons.
I’ve had incredible work experiences that relate to Middlesex. As a student, I had hoped I would go into French and art history, and I would say that my dream job was being curator of the Louvre Museum. Shooting the first scene in The Da Vinci Code, I found myself in the Louvre, looking at a wax figure of a dead curator. I looked down and thought, “Wow! Amazing what you put out there…and what comes back!
The filming of School Ties happened during your Middlesex career. Did you think at that time you’d end up in the movie business?
It was right at the beginning of my senior year. I always had deep love for the movies. Maybe I was in a play or two, but I just wasn’t an actress and didn’t know how you got into Hollywood without being an actress. Bridget Saltonstall introduced me to Lisa, the location manager, who took me under her wing and introduced me to every crew member – and that led me to asking every person millions of questions.
We became very good friends and stayed in touch through my freshman fall at Richmond. I called Lisa and said, “I can’t get what you do out of my mind. Is there any kind of internship I can get?” After that, I spent every summer as her assistant and started understanding what a producer does. I got this amazing education at Middlesex, but I got a career from this movie that happened to come into town!
While you are immersed in your work, do you ever think about Middlesex?
You’d be amazed how often I talk about Middlesex. I brought my Bible from English class and my art history compendium from Malcolm’s class to L.A. with me. Everybody knows the importance to me of School Ties shooting there. To be able to dream big was a huge part of my experience, and I attribute that to Middlesex.