BANFF, Alta. - Stephanie Savage is 38 but could pass for 20, pursued a PhD in film history but found herself writing for frothy nighttime teen soaps, and is one of the most successful women in the cut-throat Hollywood TV business after growing up in Ottawa and Calgary.
She might seem like a study in contradictions, but Savage is in fact anything but. Her singular refusal to turn her back on her dreams has led to almost unimaginable Hollywood success as the executive producer and writer of the steamy and addictive "Gossip Girl," about a group of young Manhattan socialites.
The petite, blond and impossibly youthful Savage is humble when discussing how her show was recently described by New York Magazine as the best series ever made.
"They may have been exaggerating slightly," a beaming Savage says in an interview at the Banff World Television Festival, where she's travelled to share tips and advice with other aspiring television producers.
Is this typical Canadian modesty? It seems so, as Savage discusses what Canadian sensibilities she brings to her work.
"I grew up in a family where the thing that was valued most was being a hard worker, and if you commit to something, you follow through," she says.
"And that may be considered a Canadian value, but it's definitely something that's served me well in my writing and my working in television. It's a hard, hard industry - there's so much work, so many details, and you just really have to commit to it."
Savage's Hollywood career began when she travelled to L.A. to research her PhD while attending the University of Iowa. But a job opening came up in Drew Barrymore's production company in 1995 and Savage, a University of Toronto grad, decided to go for it and eventually gave up the notion of completing her dissertation.
As an intern at the company she soon began dabbling in scriptwriting for the film "Charlie's Angels." It was the lure of "Charlie's Angels," in fact, that was impossible to resist.
"I was a huge 'Charlie's Angels' fan when I was a little girl, and I can go back to sitting on my couch in Ottawa, Ontario, watching TV and thinking: 'How do I get to there from here, because that looks way better,"' she said to laughs from the crowd at a question-and-answer session at Banff.
It was the beginning of an impressive ascent that prompted Glamour magazine to add Savage to its annual list of powerful women in 2005, two years after the Hollywood Reporter named her one of the top "35 under 35."
After starting as an intern doing just about everything, including fetching coffee, at Barrymore's Flower Films, Savage became friends with the "Charlie's Angels" director - known as McG - and by 2001, had started up Wonderland Vision and Sound with him.
Wonderland created and produced "The O.C.," but Savage left the company to write exclusively for the show, penning the famous "Chrismukkah" episode. As "The O.C." was nearing its conclusion, Josh Schwarz, co-creator of the show, was approached by the CW network to adapt the popular "Gossip Girl" books into a television series, and called upon Savage to join him.
"Gossip Girl" is now one of the most buzzed-about shows on television, with a huge online presence.
The show has attracted such avid interest, Savage says, that the presence of the paparazzi during shoots is an ongoing concern.
"There's paparazzi who know before I do where we're going to be shooting - I feel I should call them instead of the other way around," she says, adding it's forced producers to shoot scenes indoors for fear photos will show up on celebrity gossip blogs that will ruin any surprises for fans.
In addition to working on "Gossip Girl," the hard-working Savage just finished her first feature film script, an adaptation of the young adult novel "The Au Pairs."
Savage says the secret to her success is simply an utter refusal to be thwarted from pursuing her dreams.
"The thing that has led me to the place that I am is that every moment in my life, I've been following my dream," Savage says. "Following my dream to go to the University of Toronto, following my dream to get my PhD, following my dream to work in Hollywood."
Her success often involved ignoring the naysayers, she adds.
"Every time I've made a big decision in my life, it's been about letting in the possibility that maybe I could do something that I actually wanted to do and not letting people tell me that I should compromise, or that it's too big of a dream. Which is also a Canadian quality sometimes - to say you're dreaming too big ... I just refused to accept that."
News from �The Canadian Press, 2008
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