Bryan Lourd: Titan behind the titan of talent agencies
LA TimesThe behind-the-scenes power of a Hollywood superagent such as Bryan Lourd manifests in different ways, depending on the day. One minute, he’s putting the world’s most influential entertainment company, Walt Disney Co., on blast for, in his words, “shamelessly and falsely” criticizing Scarlett Johansson after she sued the company for the way it released her movie “Black Widow” online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lourd, 63, was promoted to chief executive officer of CAA in 2023, after the agency agreed to sell a majority stake to the billionaire Pinault family’s investment arm. The agency in 2017 issued a statement saying it apologized “to any person the agency let down for not meeting the high expectations we place on ourselves,” in response to a New York Times article detailing talent reps’ failures to respond to sexual misconduct allegations about film producer Harvey Weinstein. Last year, actor Julia Ormond sued Weinstein and CAA in New York Supreme Court, saying that she informed her agents, Lourd and Kevin Huvane, about the Miramax co-founder’s abuse, but they did nothing to help her and instead cautioned her about speaking out.
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