Creative and digital agency We Are Royale (Royale) has hired executive producer Rhys Demery. He brings nearly 15 years of experience within brand, entertainment, and sports marketing, and will help oversee Royale’s client relationships and maintain quality in-house production workflows and processes.
Demery has worked with a wide range of brands, including advertising campaigns for Intel, Jeep, Nike, Sony, Ubisoft, and EA Sports. Working in entertainment marketing, some of his biggest clients include traditional and OTT networks, such as NBC, FX, Hulu, and Amazon.
Demery arrives at Royale following a stint as executive producer at Big Block Content, where he oversaw national projects for Under Armour, ESPN, and Ford. Before that, he was EP at loyalkaspar and ModOp, where he worked on client-direct accounts like Anheuser-Busch InBev and CBS Sports. From 2014-2016, he was managing executive producer at Troika, where he initially met and worked with Heidi Netzley, Royale’s current director of business development. Together at Royale, Demery and Netzley will oversee new and existing account relationships, focusing on elevating client services.
Demery forged his career as a producer at Dentsu America and Think C, but his unlikely foray into the entertainment and advertising industry was preceded by a five-year career in the financial world, where he sat on the bond and futures trading desks of the index-fund giant Barclays Global Investors.
Founded in 2007 by managing director Jen Lucero and partners/ECDs Brien Holman and Jayson Whitmore, Royale maintains offices in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More