Steven Paul has been to Mar-a-Lago many times over the years. The producer and longtime manager to Jon Voight was there again last weekend, along with producer Scott Karol, to pitch President Trump on their plan to save Hollywood.
“I always enjoy being there and seeing the president,” Paul told Variety on Friday. “It’s fun to see the amount of energy that the president has and how many things he’s working on simultaneously.”
Voight, the 86-year-old Oscar winner, is one of three “special ambassadors” to Trump on Hollywood. Paul is Voight’s “special adviser” and Karol is the president and COO of Paul’s company. They are both experienced in putting together financing to film overseas — including a string of recent films shot in Bulgaria.
Paul said they spent a “nice amount of time” at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday and Sunday. Trump’s takeaway from those meetings was that Hollywood is “DYING” and that — with a stroke of a pen — he can do something about it. On Sunday night, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was authorizing 100% tariffs on films produced in “Foreign Lands.”
That announcement prompted a bit of a freakout around the world the week before the Cannes Film Festival kicks off. On Monday, the White House walked it back. Trump then got into a multi-day feud with Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he called “incompetent” for allowing Hollywood jobs to vanish, before turning his fire on the Emmys, which had nominated “60 Minutes” for an award for interviewing Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, Paul and Karol — who was making his first visit to the president’s weekend home — have had a whirlwind week. Their five-page policy outline — containing numerous ideas, some more thoroughly developed than others — was leaked to Deadline, prompting them to clarify that it was intended as a discussion document and not a formal proposal. Lawmakers, unions and industry figures have all waded into the debate.
By Friday, not much was clear, other than that Trump believes there’s a problem and that all options are on the table. Paul and Karol agreed to speak with Variety — perhaps under the impression it was the Hollywood Reporter — to try to make some sense of it all.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Steven Paul: First of all, I love the Hollywood Reporter.
You’re talking to Variety.
SP: All right, there you go. You guys have been looking after us and done nice stories for us. So we are happy with Variety.
Well, I just want to pick your brain I guess. You made a very comprehensive proposal. It includes things like federal film incentives and fin-syn rules and on and on. Trump heard that, and out of all of that, he picked out tariffs and said, “That’s what I’m about.”
Do you think that means he’s not interested in the other stuff?
What I know is that the president loves the entertainment business, wants to see the business healthy, and would not want to be hurting the business. He wants to see Americans working here. He wants to see, as he said, a bigger and better Hollywood.
Do you think he’s serious about imposing a tariff on foreign-produced films?
I don’t want to speak for the president and say what it is that he’s thinking and not thinking. But I think that if it was just a tariff for movies in general, just that could end up hurting the industry instead of helping the industry. So I would hope that that would not be the final takeaway of it.
Our idea, and what we were putting on the table was things that had a federal tax incentive and other tax things that can help motivate people to put monies into movies and get productions going here in the United States.
And when you pitched that to the president, what did he say?
His takeaway is that he’d love to see the business thrive and do everything here. So what that will finally look like — y’know, he’s asked us to work with his people, and we are trying to do that. And now we’re trying to pull everybody in our industry together to help so that we can see if we can get some important things done at this particular time.
One the things that jumped out to me was the American cultural test. Britain has a cultural test where they want to preserve British culture, obviously. How would that work in a U.S. context?
SP: I don’t think we have specifics exactly how anything like that would work. But the idea is, if you’re filming here in the United States — to make films here in the United States, and employ Americans to do it. What other particulars, that obviously would have to be worked out.
Scott Karol: I just want to say the vast majority of the British “cultural test” isn’t really a cultural test at all. You look at it, it’s like “shot in the English language, using British cast and crew, takes place in the U.K.” But the concept is a point system like what is utilized in a lot of foreign jurisdictions for incentives. It’s a point system. It’s not really focusing on culture as much as it is focusing on elements from the country of origin.
So it’s not about trying to promote “Yellowstone” or something that really speaks to the heartland of America.
SK: It’s not our intent to try and control content. We want to bring film production back to the United States.
In terms of your professional background, it’s just very interesting that you find yourselves on a weekend at Mar-a-Lago talking to the president about this stuff. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s not like you’ve been involved in public policy before.
SK: I’m a lawyer. I’ve got a finance degree. I’ve been in the entertainment industry, in business and legal affairs, production, and finance and distribution for over 30 years now. I’ve been involved in productions in Kentucky, New York, California, Alaska… I’ve done international co-productions all over the world. So I’ve got an expertise in soft money and tax incentives, going back for 30-plus years. And I am talking to people every day who are trying to make movies and raise financing for movies and television shows. So I think I’m uniquely situated to speak on this issue.
And Steven?
SP: I’m not a lawyer and I’m not political, and none of those things — except I have been working in the industry all of my life, and producing films and financing them all over the world. So, yes, we’ve been involved in all of these things, in — I don’t want to say every country — but in many, many, many countries all around the world.
That experience overseas, I’m sure, has given you a perspective on why it is that productions go overseas?
SP: Unfortunately, we have been one of the ones that have had to go film overseas as well. It just happens. It’s the make or break — whether you can make a movie or not make a movie.
As producers, we have to look at all these things and say, “OK, where would be the best place to make the film?” We go, “OK it’d be great if we can make it here.” But then we have to look at, well, how do we finance it? Even though we’d love to be filming there, can we film it there?
And we go, “Oh, wow, we can’t figure out how to film it there.” We have to figure out where we can actually get it made. And then sometimes we got to figure out how we how we alter the movie a bit to make it work in that area that we have to film it in — just so we can get it financed. And I think a lot of especially independent producers, unfortunately, have to look at movies that way.
SK: That’s also a studio issue as well. We come at this primarily as independent producers, but the studios have the same problems. If you take a $100 million movie, and there’s a $15 or $20 million swing in the cost of production, that could be the difference between a film being profitable or a film losing money. That’s the reality we all face.
So I understand the mechanics here: If you’re a producer and you’re thinking, “OK, maybe I’m going to go shoot overseas and they’re going to give me a $10 million incentive to do that.” Is the idea of a tariff like, “OK, well, if I do that, now I’m going to have to pay a $12 million tariff. So I might as well stay home and shoot it here”?
SK: The idea behind what we were proposing is — because we had heard from every producer that we spoke to, every studio head and every streaming head, that all things being even close to being relatively equal, they would always choose to film in the U.S.
We don’t want to institute some kind of a race to the bottom, where we have this arms race of tax credits. So if we can put in a structure that lowers the net cost to the filmmaker and makes it a reality to be able to shoot in the U.S., and it’s a film that should be made in the U.S. — it’s U.S. subject matter, it takes place in the U.S., it’s primarily U.S. crew and cast — but they still elect to take that movie overseas, because you’re getting a little bit better incentive, that there is a penalty for doing that.
So that would neutralize the advantage of going overseas.
SK: Exactly.
SP: I want to say something else regarding that. The document that we put forward was not actually a proposal. It was put forward as talking points, where you’ll put a paper together and say, “Here are all the thoughts that need to be talked out.” Because some could contradict each other, right? It represents many thoughts in that document. And as you can see, not all of it could be practical.
What did you think when Newsom came out and said, “I hope the president will work with me to make a $7.5 billion federal incentive”?
SP: I don’t want him to be mad at me, because I’m looking for some of these California tax credits right now. But I’ve heard a lot of people that are not happy with the program there. So I don’t know if that’s the right program to be copying for a potential federal tax credit.
But is that dollar figure in the right ballpark?
I don’t know if that would be the right number.
Adam Schiff has been working on this as well.
We haven’t had any conversations with him, but I’ve heard that. We had lunch with the mayor though.
Karen Bass?
Yeah. We enjoyed the lunch with her. She was very supportive of the industry and wants to try to do everything she can, and I believe that. And I told her that she should set up the meeting with the governor and us, and she said that she would try to do that, because we haven’t had any luck seeing him.
Where did the tariff idea originate?
Well, he’s been doing tariffs, as you’ve seen.
Yeah, he’s been doing tariffs. But nobody’s ever tariffed a movie before.
I think it’s probably come from the idea that if we do incentives and create incentives here, that maybe there would be a way of penalizing an incentive over there. It probably stems from something like that.
And if the studios are saying, “Please, please, please, don’t do that,” I suppose he would listen to that. But who knows.
Again, I can’t speak for what he would do and what he wouldn’t do. But I do know for sure, he wants to help the industry and do the right thing.
