When I ask Martin Gage if we can speak for about 20 minutes on the phone, he says he'd be glad to but adds that he's not sure how we'll fill 20 minutes, because he isn't all that interesting. Certainly, with half a century of experience in the business, briefly as an actor and then as an agent, the founder and president of the Gage Group could fill hours of tape with stories of the great careers he's seen develop and the projects he's had a hand in. He shares such anecdotes with his students at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, though he's hesitant to offer them up for print.
Ask him about his own beginnings, however, and you'll get a pretty bare-bones response. Decades of success in a high-profile, high-powered business, it seems, have done nothing to inflate his ego, and Gage presents himself not so much as a formidable industry player as someone who hungers for and believes in thrilling, exceptional talent.
A New York native, Gage began his career as an actor on Broadway and off, and in television in the 1950s. By 1962 he "knew [he] wasn't going anywhere," so he became an agent. After a year or so as a trainee, says Gage, he figured, "'Well, now I know it all,' so I went out on my own as a personal manager for three years." Following some lean times, he joined the Fifi Oscard Agency—still an agency in New York—and after about four years he became a partner there. In 1973 he opened the Gage Group in New York and, in 1975, the Los Angeles office.
Of himself as a young actor, Gage says, "I think I was more interested in being a star than I was in really learning my craft, unfortunately." Having learned from that experience, he built his agency for the more disciplined sort.
"I like to think that we're an actor's agency," he says. "We don't handle a lot of just TV personalities; we handle real actors—back to Geraldine Page for many years, Shirley Knight.… We had Tim Robbins for years, Woody Harrelson, Halle Berry, and Kim Basinger. They weren't all great actors when we started, but they certainly learned their crafts. So people call the Gage Group for actors, and I'm pleased about that. I don't think that exists a lot anymore. The dumbing-down of America and reality shows have made it so that there are people who are not actors who are acting."
The next generation: Gage is among many in the industry frustrated with the reality-TV phenomenon and how it has caused craft to fall second to gimmick and spectacle—not only in the market but also in the minds of some who aspire to "acting" careers. He's encouraged about the fate of the new crop, however, by his experience teaching at the Strasberg Institute, where young actors can elect to take his "agency class" along with its classes in acting technique.
Says Gage, "It's nice to know that there are young people today who want to study their craft and want to learn about acting and the history of the business.… It's wonderful because they're like sponges; they're so eager to learn."
In the class, which he began teaching at the institute last spring, Gage covers such subjects as photos and resumés, correspondence with agents and casting directors, demo reels, cold-reading techniques, and preparing monologues and scenes, and he brings in industry guests from singing teachers to CDs. A key focus of the 12-week course is getting the students to begin conceptualizing themselves professionally.
"My major thing that I try to teach them is to find out who they are," says Gage. "Everybody's unique. What do you have that's unique? Why will they want to hire you and not the 400 other people who are up for the part? Because if you don't know what it is—what qualities you have, what essence you have, what you sell—how are they going to know?"
Toward the goal of self-discovery, Gage gives the students this exercise to do at home: Take off your clothes, sit alone in your room in a full-length mirror, and talk to yourself. He says, "After they get over the shock of being stark naked, maybe they'll start to see a sort of peeling away of the top layers, so that emotionally and psychologically they can get to what's underneath a little better. Sometimes they come back and say, 'Gee, I did it, and it was weird because I saw myself differently.' And a lot of people don't; a lot of them do resist."
Learning to understand and embrace what one has to offer as an actor and as a type can lead to huge career breakthroughs, Gage notes. One student of his discovered this by way of a mock agent-interview exercise in a similar class he taught, 30 years ago in New York.
He recalls, "It was really interesting because I had people from Broadway who had been in the chorus and couldn't get out of it or had been playing small parts and didn't know how to progress. I had one lady, still a client of mine, who in those days was a funny, heavyset character lady. So I gave her that exercise to do with another actor, and she came in and she was very proper and very professional and very dignified. And I said, 'Wait a minute. What are you doing? You're a funny fat lady trying to be, you know, Sarah Bernhardt or something. Why don't you just be yourself?' She started to do that and of course has been on Broadway for the past 30 years nonstop."
The agency: The Gage Group's Los Angeles office represents established actors for film and TV, Equity theatre, and commercials, and also includes a boutique literary department, which Gage runs with agent Jonathan Westover. Asked if he works primarily with name talent, Gage replies, "No, it's not all names. We have young, new people, but, as I say, we prefer to work with actors, hopefully people who have some experience as opposed to just … we don't take people off the street very easily."
Like most top agencies, the Gage Group finds many of its clients through industry referrals. But Gage emphasizes that they also look for talent on the stage. With the agency's roots in the theatre, we can assume it's not just a line.
"My New York office is one of the top theatre agencies in New York," he says. "We have leads in every show on Broadway, practically. I have a theatre background; Gerry Koch, Kitty McMillan, a lot of people who work here have theatre backgrounds. We book people [for stage work in LA], and a lot of people say to me, 'What do you bother with theatre for?' Well, because I think that's where they're going to learn more. We have people at South Coast Rep, the Old Globe, and the Geffen all the time. So we do go to the theatre; when I go to New York I see everything there, and we all try to see things here."
For the actor who gets as far as a meeting at his or another proven agency, we ask Gage for his advice on the agent interview. First, he offers, don't come in with a lot of questions or preposterous requests: "It's not really out of place to ask, 'Do you have a lot of actors like me?' because if they have five or six people of the same type, you're going to be at the end of their list. But sometimes a young person will come in and say, 'Will you call the networks and create a series for me?' No! If I did I'd lose my credibility at the networks."
As far as approach, he says, "Some people are so bloody serious—I mean, they depress you. Have a little humor, a little lightness, a little charm. And then just be yourself and chat. I think sometimes people come in with, 'I'm an intense type, and I'm going to show you how intense I am.' When you're acting you'll show me how intense you are; when you're sitting in a room talking, show me what kind of a person you are."
Toward the ideal: When asked what keeps him interested in the business and what he would change about it, Gage says, "What stays exciting for me is the discovery of new talent, putting together a writer and a director on a project, finding a wonderful young actor or actress and developing them. What I'd like to change about it is the poaching between agents; there's a lot of that stuff. Plus I'd like to get rid of all the reality shows, so that actors can work again.… I don't see it getting better, because the producers and the networks are making a lot of money on it. So why should they change it? Also, in the film industry, they're paying $20 million for the star, and then everybody else they want for scale."
While he has doubts about where the entertainment industry is heading, Gage still runs his agency with an eye toward the business reclaiming its prouder moments.
"I sound like a snob," he says with a half chuckle, after recalling his swift rejection of the reality-TV personalities who've approached him for representation. "I've lived in the golden ages of this business, in the golden years of Broadway, in the golden years of television. I'm an old fart, you know? I'm spoiled. I want to see wonderful movies again; I want to see wonderful actors; I want to see great talents; I want to see exciting, beautiful, wonderful things—not just 'Oh, my God, I can't find a date to the prom,' or things like that." BSW