Utopic has brought Lauren Gray on board as producer. She most recently served as integrated broadcast production manager at Energy BBDO and prior to that honed her PR, marketing and social media chops at Weber Shandwick. Her experience spans such multinational accounts as SC Johnson, Unilever, Bayer, Wrigley and Quaker. Gray also has diverse experience in film production, having served as cinematographer, photographer and editor on several films through a program with the American Film Institute (AFI).
Gray will play an integral role at her new roost alongside Utopic’s executive producer, Heather Mitchell. Gray fortifies the production department on the heels of the company adding to its editorial acumen with the hiring of principal/editor Craig Lewandowski.
Utopic is a creative consortium of artists, editors, designers and directors who offer a seamless approach to postproduction, motion design, content production and everything in between. Lately, Utopic has been telling stories and building campaigns for clients such as Samsung, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Nissan, NBC, Kraft, Chicago Ideas Week and Fifth Third Bank.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More