Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
With a record-breaking 16 nominations, “Sinners” performance at the 98th Academy Awards is highly anticipated by the Trojan family. Directed and produced by USC alumni Ryan Coogler and Sev Ohanian, respectively, the film is a prime example of how deep the Trojan network runs.
Along with fellow producers Zinzi and Ryan Coogler, the three formed a company called Proximity Media. The three famously met at SCA as students and have since gone on to form the powerhouse behind the “Sinners” production.
In an exclusive interview, Ohanian tells Annenberg Media his story from his time at SCA to preparing for the big night.
Describe your experience getting to work with fellow alums Ryan and Zinzi.
It was incredible. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to work with Ryan and Zinzi many times before then, but “Sinners” was our first time working on a project that Ryan was directing for our company, Proximity, in which we had no other producing partners. In other words, it was really like a homegrown production. On one hand, that was freeing and liberating and honestly quite exciting and fun, but on the other hand, it also came with a lot of responsibility. We had to figure it out together.
What was your reaction to all the nominations and success?
It’s really gratifying because the truth is, we never made “Sinners” thinking about awards. That was something that we read about later, after the movie had come out. People would be writing, “Oh, this movie might be a contender,” and we were like, “That’s fantastic.” We never thought about that, because, frankly, we were so busy making the movie that we had no time to think about it. But for me, the end goal is never an award, the end goal is always to make more movies. If this film getting recognized [in] the way it has leads to us being able to make more movies in the future, then it’s a total victory.
How did your experiences and connections at USC impact your film career?
I always talk about how I met three very important collaborators in my life when it comes to USC: Ryan Coogler, of course. I met Aneesh Chaganty, who is my writing partner, and then I also met my wife, Natalie Qasabian, who was one of my number one producing partners. But, another collaborator that I don’t often talk about, that I’d love to talk about, is Dezi Gallegos. He was my teaching assistant when I was an adjunct professor at USC, and he was so talented and had such a great energy to him.
When I founded Proximity with Ryan and Zinzi, Dezi was one of our very first employees — initially my assistant — and then went on to become one of our incredible executives, and was a co-producer on the movie “Creed III” recently. USC has always been where I’ve made some of the most meaningful connections and, frankly, relationships, both in my professional and, of course, my personal life.
What was your favorite memory from your time at USC?
It’s gonna be so cheesy, you gotta throw me in the corny prison for this, but meeting my wife, Natalie. We were both in the Armenian Student Association. We had a career day where they had tables set up, and they brought all of the students who wanted to be doctors, all the students that wanted to be lawyers, business students and so forth. Then, there was a table for Armenian students who wanted to pursue filmmaking as a career, and there were only two students on there: me and Natalie. That was of course, an iconic moment for me that has realistically probably been the best event in my life because it introduced me to Natalie.
Beyond that, nothing will ever beat the experience of premiering [our student films]. I’ve been fortunate and lucky that I’ve had movies now that I’ve premiered in big Hollywood theaters in London and New York all around the world, but nothing will ever compare to that experience at the USC Norris Theater when you first premiere your student thesis film to your peers, parents, family and even industry people that show up. The stakes there somehow feel larger than premiering our movie like Sinners. I have to give a shout out to the school for facilitating those kinds of life-changing moments.
What advice would you give to aspiring USC film students?
I have practical advice, and then I have emotional advice. The practical advice is to spend your summers interning as much as you possibly can because it’s harder to land jobs when you’re out of school if you don’t have a lot of internships to put on your resume. It’s really hard to land internships if you’re not in school. If you’re in the film program, I would say spend your weekends crewing up on everyone else’s films. No job is too large or too small to do on a Saturday with your friends, with the school camera, whether it’s a school project or not, definitely spend those weekends doing that. Then, I would say spend your evenings reading: reading scripts, reading books on scripts, watching movies. That self-education will take you even further than your traditional education.
The emotional advice I have for anyone who’s a current USC student is don’t take the stairs, take the elevator. By that, I mean when you’re in the elevator, that’s when you can have conversations with fellow students. Even a little “Hello, how are you? How was your day? Hey, you look busy. You look stressed. What’s going on? Fill me in.” Those would be seeds that, in my experience, grow into full-on, 10-plus years of connections and relationships that would have real history to them now. But if you take the stairs, you’re not really having conversations. So take the elevator. That’s what I did.