Victoria Hargett ’20
Theatre Publicist, Davidson & Choy Publicity
Los Angeles, California
WFU Class of 2020
Majors: Communication & Theatre
Kaylah Bozkurtian ’22 (DeacLink): What did you study at Wake? What year did you graduate?
Victoria Hargett: I was a Theatre and Communication double-major at Wake, and I graduated in 2020. [laughing] Honestly, did I even graduate? I feel like having no grad photos means, “No.”
KB: Could you walk me through your path from graduation day to your current job?
VH: Like so many others, after I graduated, I was at home with family for a little while—taking care of some family issues, dealing with the pandemic—and I would constantly check on an alumni group that I’m actually a part of through Elon [University]. I saw this one job posting that was about working as a talent chaperone, and I wasn’t exactly sure what that was, but my friends said, “Apply!” I applied just to see what would happen.
I got an interview, and I ended up working for about five-and-a-half weeks as a talent chaperone for Love Island, U.S.A. I lived in a hotel in Vegas for 5 and a half weeks, and I took care of a specific contestant who was supposed to go on the show—it was basically adult babysitting. But it was my first job, and I really loved it! I met some great people through that, and they’re actually the reason I got my next job. My next job was only two weeks later. I went home to North Carolina and expected to move to Los Angeles that January with some friends, and around that time I saw another posting in that Elon group. A company was looking for Covid compliance officers for the spring of 2021, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh! That’s perfect! That’s when I’m going to move to L.A.!”
So I applied and got an interview, and it was a short one. Technically, my resume said that I already lived in Los Angeles, so on that call I told them that I was visiting home for a bit but would be back in L.A. in two weeks, which… Well, I was actually only originally planning to visit Los Angeles two weeks from then. But, of course, they said, “When you get back, we need you to start immediately.” So that two-week “vacation”-slash-visit turned into my official move to Los Angeles.
I moved to L.A. in October of 2020, and I’ve been living here since I worked as a Covid compliance officer for American Crime Story: Impeachment. Those days were really long and exhausting—I was working 14-hour days every day. Eventually, one of the office production assistants left the show, and my thought was, “Why not throw my hat in the ring?” My boss, who was awesome, put me forward for the job, even though she didn’t want me to leave her team.
I did end up switching teams, and I worked as an office production assistant on that show for the next five months. The show wrapped in September, and that’s when I stopped. At that point, I knew that I wanted to go back to publicity, and jobs were finally coming back. My boss set me up with a connection to interview with some talent PR companies; those were good, and I made it pretty far into the interview process, but at the last minute, they told me they didn’t think I would be a great fit for their clients.
I got a call from my boss at my old internship, where I worked as a theatre publicity intern at the time, and he said, “The guy that I’ve been wanting to quit finally quit. Do you want his job?” I was really taken aback, but we talked it through and agreed on a day for me to start—it was a Tuesday, random thing to remember, I know—and my [current] boss said, “Okay, great, I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll talk money.”
I’d always been interested in working there, but it’s such a small company that jobs don’t open up very often. I got really lucky. We’re a company of four people, and I’m the newest hire. I’m 24 right now, and my next-youngest coworker is 57, and it’s really great. We’ve gotten a lot of work since I started, so it’s been a crazy ride.
KB: How much did your studies and general experience at Wake inform or drive your career path?
VH: Something that’s really great about Wake is the way they program their education—making you take those divisional classes. I wasn’t planning on majoring in Communication because I didn’t see how that would benefit me, at the time; I thought I wanted to be a Theatre major with English and Psychology minors. Obviously, I didn’t do some of those things at all. But I think the built-in exploration aspect of Wake’s academics lets you find things you never thought you’d be interested in. You never know, at first glance, what’s going to help you with your future job or give you the skills you need to try something new.
The same goes for the Theatre major at Wake. People outside of the institution sometimes undervalue a theatre degree that’s not a BFA or isn’t specific, and I think they’re wrong to do that, because while they were learning one discipline, we were learning everything. That portfolio of skills is really transferable to jobs, because you’re almost never going to be doing just one thing. When people are looking to hire you, they’re looking to hire you for your applicable skills, not necessarily because you’ve been in that exact role before.
I didn’t have true set experience before I started that first TV production job, but what I did have was management skills from being a COVID compliance officer and spreadsheet skills. I also learned every single person’s name on set, and people noticed. Wake is a pretty small community, which makes you social in a different way—it lets you really get to know your professors and your peers.
KB: How did you find and apply to the various positions you’ve held? Any tips and suggestions for students on networking, interviewing and applying for jobs?
VH: Networking has a negative connotation, sometimes, because it implies that you only want to connect with people because you want or need something from them. I don’t think about it that way. A lot of networking is really just making friends with people, showing people who you are, and being kind to people.
Unfortunately—for this point of the interview, at least—I found my first jobs through the Elon Entertainment Empire portal. But there’s more to it than that, because once I had those jobs, I moved up by consistently doing good work and taking the time to get to know people. The directors knew what my name was because I was kind, respectful, and polite. Not everyone could say that.
My first internship was back in 2018, with the company I work for now. I maintained a relationship with them after my internship, and they asked me to come back in 2019, and then in 2020—pre-pandemic—my boss called to say he’d offer me a job as soon as he could. So I maintained that relationship with him, just kept talking to him and reaching out, asking him how he was doing. I think that that’s what networking is: maintaining relationships and recognizing that the people that you’re connecting with are people, too. And you never know when you can help them.
KB: What is your favorite part of living and working in Los Angeles? What is the most interesting thing going on in the art scene there at the moment, in your opinion?
VH: Well, my favorite part of living and working in L.A. is that everything is always changing. (Especially the people.) There’s always a new event or place to see, or you can go to the beach or the mountains, both within miles of each other. It’s a really beautiful place [to live].
I also think it’s a place where people prioritize their mental health. I know the joke of L.A. is the wellness culture and the juice shots, but people really revere therapy and taking care of yourself, here—with the exception of the film industry, sometimes. I think that people here are more ready and willing to take care of their mental health and do things at a slower pace than other job markets and cultures.
In terms of the art scene, a lot of people asked me why I wasn’t moving to New York, if I wanted to be a theatre publicist. If you’re a publicist in New York, you get assigned to a long-running show and then you’re their publicist, and your focus is really trying to come up with larger creative ideas to keep people understanding that one show. Where I work, all the tours come through, we have all of this regional and professional theater that creates new productions and world premieres, and we also don’t just do theater. We do opera, dance, classical music, jazz… Instead of working on one show, I’m seeing everything that comes through, and I haven’t seen this much theatre before in my entire life. I think one of the most interesting things going on in L.A. right now is the resurgence of theatre.
KB: What is your favorite part about working for Davidson & Choy Publicity?
VH: Finding a company that really understands you and accepts you for who you are on your good days (and bad days) and is willing to help you learn and grow is so important. If you can help it, never settle for finding a company who just wants a person. Find a company who wants you, wants all of you, and wants to be there with you each day in the office, because you’ll spend a lot of time working with those people. You need to trust that they care about you as an individual, and not just as another worker.
I feel like in the arts, especially, it’s possible to find people who care about you, people who are willing to listen to and learn from you regardless of your age, gender, race, or sexuality. That’s something I really appreciate about my job. As soon as I started, I was treated like a legitimate adult and publicist—because I am! But I’ve unfortunately experienced a lot of ageism in the entertainment industry. I was the youngest person in all three of my jobs before this, and people treated me differently because of my age regardless of the fact that my work was the same quality as theirs—or better, in some cases.
But in terms of the “fun stuff”? I love the red carpets! I keep up with celebrities a lot, and I love organizing and managing events like that, and that kind of responsibility makes me feel important. My coworkers know when to rely on my skill-set in that area, since that’s where some of my work background is, so it’s kind of a funny experience. Most of the celebrities are sort of like mid- or mini-celebrities who are just super excited to be there, having the best time ever, and they tend to be really nice. I’ve had a number of interactions with people I never expected to meet.
KB: What and where is next for you?
VH: I plan to stay in Los Angeles long term. I’ve really made a home for myself here with my boyfriend, and with my friends, and I don’t really plan on ever leaving this company. It’s run by one person, and then are my two co-workers, and they all see me as the next person to run the company. I don’t know if I want to do that exactly, but I really do imagine being with the company long term.
As a company, we make a point of hiring people who’ll stay for a long time. My coworkers have been there like 18 years, so they’ve really made this job a lifestyle for themselves. And, for me, it helps to already know the writers and journalists and editors at organizations and publications, as well as our clients at our theaters. There’s turnover at our theaters, of course, like anywhere else, but we’ve been with some of these theatres for 20–25 years, and the industry is now bringing in the younger generation to be the next set of leaders.
KB: Kernel of advice you’d like to impart to the readers?
VH: When I was living at home during the pandemic, I had this unexpected opportunity to meet with a script writer in Hollywood, and she told me a story about how she used to work in production. She spent ten years moving up, until one day she looked around and realized she was the president of Jodi Foster’s production company. And she sort of thought to herself, “How did I end up here? I wanted to be a writer!” She moved here to be a writer; she just got caught up taking one job after another because they were there, and she fell into this track of finding the next opportunity, instead of the next right opportunity. That’s really stuck with me.
Of course, I took those first jobs during the pandemic to get on my feet, and I think that that’s totally fine, because i’m so glad that I had those experiences that I never expected to have for a whole year of my life. I learned so much from that. But after that year, I felt like it was time to move on. I really stuck to that, and I’m so glad I did, because I wouldn’t have ended up where I am if I had just taken the next job rather than the next right job. I guess the essence of what I want to say is this: keep focused on what you want next.