00:02
Asger Hussain
I've chosen a photograph by Jesper Rasmussen, called Dumbo Brooklyn New York. Dumbo used to be an area with sweatshops and industry and has since transformed into apartment buildings, tourist attractions, and restaurants.

00:20
Asger Hussain
The picture shows a nondescript building. Jesper Rasmussen's erasing people, and erasing signs, erasing certain windows. He has manipulated the picture digitally.

00:35
Asger Hussain
These were places that were completely deserted, completely empty 20, 25 years ago when I first moved to New York. I would walk in between all these buildings, I would crawl in through fences and take pictures. I've walked past that building a hundred times at least, yet there is something a little off there that I can't quite explain.

00:56
Asger Hussain
He was removing things that catches the eye. And I thought about that, and it was such an interesting way of looking at things that we recognize, yet it's a little bit off.

01:08
Asger Hussain
That's how I approach work in general as well. Once you see that little thing that's off, you start thinking, what was there? What could be there? What is it that I haven't thought of? And that's also a catalyst for some of the things in my daily work.

01:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the National Gallery of Denmark and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Asger Hussain, a Danish producer based in Los Angeles. Welcome, Asger.

01:53
Asger Hussain
Thank you.

01:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You traveled to New York in 2003 to intern at a film production company. You never left the US. What made you stay?

02:03
Asger Hussain
I wasn't supposed to stay there for more than three months, which then turned into another six months, which then turned into another couple of years. And at one point I realized that I loved what I was doing, and I was getting better at it, and I decided to stay.

02:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What made you move to LA, the City of Angels?

02:26
Asger Hussain
Our trip out here was a pandemic move. Around 2020, I think there was a lot of migration going on from different cities. And at that point, my wife and I had been in New York for I think 16 or 17 years and it was time to try something else.

02:44
Asger Hussain
And also I think there is a natural break in what I wanted to do with work and try something else as well. And New York is very different than Los Angeles when it comes to the film and television industry.

02:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is Los Angeles like for you from a professional point of view? It is the movie industry's capital, you could say.

03:06
Asger Hussain
It is, absolutely. I don't think you can overstate how much goes on here in terms of putting things together. It's similar to some of the tech companies. Apple has the IP presence here and then it gets made everywhere else, the actual product.

03:23
Asger Hussain
And it's a similar thing with Los Angeles. A lot of things shot for film and television are shot in Atlanta or New Mexico, even in New York a little bit, but it's here that it all comes together. The decision making is here, the gatekeepers are here, and a lot of the creatives that create this product are concentrated here.

03:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where in the city do you live and do you feel at home in Los Angeles?

03:50
Asger Hussain
I live in a little place called Silver Lake, which is tucked in between some bigger neighborhoods, reasonably close to where we're sitting today.

04:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We're in Glendale, by the way.

04:03
Asger Hussain
Three years in, we're still treating it as an extended trip. I think there are things that are absolutely wonderful about living in Los Angeles. You have the beaches, you have hiking, you have skiing. And that's a luxury that you don't have in many other places, all within an hour's drive. And I think life here is quite manageable compared to a city like New York. New York is probably still more home. And then, we're obviously very far from Copenhagen, but that's something that is easier to deal with now.

04:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Silver Lake is a pretty artistic part of town. It's a creative community. Are you part of the creative community in your local environment?

04:45
Asger Hussain
I think so. There's a lot of musicians. There are a lot of actors. There's a lot of writers and directors. We didn't know that when we moved out here. We simply just landed there and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.

04:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You worked for Lee Daniels Entertainment, and you were one of the producers of the Oscar winning 2009 American drama film Precious. It was nominated for an impressive six Oscars, and it won two Oscars in 2010. The film did so incredibly well in general. What was it like being part of this journey?

05:23
Asger Hussain
It was a wild journey. For many different reasons, the film speaks for itself. It was very rewarding to make that film. Then there's that added layer of seeing what happens when a film hits at the exact time in a moment where people respond to it. And the things that we saw in regards to those reactions were interesting and rewarding and wild, as you can imagine. And we traveled a lot. And just making that film was not easy.

05:55
Asger Hussain
Then seeing the reactions from people everywhere, and being in a taxi somewhere and looking at the screen and a clip from the movie plays or you hear about it on the radio or you walk into a bookstore and the book is being republished and you see a full wall of books at Barnes & Noble.

06:14
Asger Hussain
The people that it attracted in terms of people that wanted to watch it, that wanted to support it, we got to meet a lot of wonderful people and a lot of people outside of the film industry. There are people from music, there are people from politics, there's literally people from everywhere.

06:33
Asger Hussain
So being part of that was very good. It was one of my first times producing something. And I was quite junior. And there were a lot of producers in the beginning. But it was a bit of a challenging process, and many people fell apart. And in the end, it was the director, one other person, and myself standing. And we got the whole experience from start to finish. So that in itself showed me the inner mechanics of making a film.

06:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Maybe you could talk a little bit about what the movie was about and what it was that you think made it become part of the zeitgeist.

07:08
Asger Hussain
The film is about a young girl in Harlem who has two kids. She's been impregnated twice by her father, so she's a brutal victim. Her mother is abusive, she can't read or write. And she gets enrolled into a special school, which is where we start our story, essentially. And through that, she meets like-minded kids that have been through the same types of abuse that she has, in more or less form.

07:39
Asger Hussain
And she meets a teacher that believes in her, and she realizes the power of learning and language and words. And she's determined to break out, even though we know at that time — the film takes place in the early '90s — we know that she has contracted HIV through her pregnancy by her father.

07:59
Asger Hussain
And we know that she's not going to survive this, and we know this early on. But still, she manages to live and learn and pass that onto her kids, and it becomes a very uplifting story. And in the process, when she meets these other kids in school, they have a wonderful time together.

08:19
Asger Hussain
And I think what we learned when we were making the film, that there was so much laughter, there was so much humor, because that's one way of dealing with this. When you don't have anything else, that's what you do, you laugh. We certainly did when we made the film, after crying, then we laughed.

08:35
Asger Hussain
So it was a constant. Even as we were shooting some of the very difficult scenes, we were seeing crew members, 40 people standing within three meters because they're working. And a lot of people, very experienced grip, electrical people dropped what they were doing and started crying. And then we would yell "Cut!" and everyone would realize that they're actually at work and they need to pick up what they're doing.

09:01
Asger Hussain
And I think that sentiment translated so well to the audience. What we really pushed hard for, is that people saw it in the theater. It was a theatrical experience. There were a lot of festivals, and we traveled to every festival. And we gave people permission, we said, we know you're gonna cry, but you have permission to laugh as well.

09:23
Asger Hussain
And I think once people realized that, it became such a collective experience, a communal experience. And the film just caught on. And maybe there weren't other films like it at the time. Had it been released a year before or a year later, maybe it wouldn't have been the same. But it caught something.

09:42
Asger Hussain
And then we obviously got some very big advocates in the form of Oprah Winfrey and like-minded people, as I said, from all strands. Politicians, musicians, and a lot of people saw this film. And a lot of people helped us promote this film. When you catch that wave, you never know how it's going to go, but it was obviously a wonderful experience.

10:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How does one get somebody like Oprah involved and how significant is it that you have someone of her caliber to help you in that process?

10:16
Asger Hussain
For the first part, how do you get to her — you go through official channels. And we sent her a finished cut of the film. We were actually at the Sundance Film Festival when she called. She knew the book very well. So once she saw what the film was, she wanted to support it in every way she could. And then she joined us at certain film festivals. She joined us up on stage, she introduced the film.

10:43
Asger Hussain
When you have been on stage with Oprah, that's like being at a U2 concert. People actually leave their chairs and come up to the front and just stand there. And she's so engaged and she has this superhuman ability to zone in in the moment of what she's doing.

11:01
Asger Hussain
When we met her, she was on the Olympic committee to bring the Olympics to Chicago. She was opening a school in South Africa. She was obviously doing her show and a million other philanthropic things. But when you are with her and when you speak to her, you're the only one in the room, she's not looking away. And that focus, I think, translates to when she speaks to people.

11:25
Asger Hussain
And people sense that about her, that when she talks about a book or she talks about a film or a person, she really means it. And that's a professional skill as much as a personal taste of her, that she likes something, but she is very good at doing just that. So, that made it that much bigger. And then that becomes a thing that the press writes about right away. It becomes interesting. And then you get more eyeballs.

11:52
Asger Hussain
And it was just a few years before social media caught on. So many of these things were still in newspapers and magazines and had to be planned out appropriately with the timeline. We were so lucky and fortunate that she was into it and became a great champion.

12:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You went to the Academy Awards, I assume, because you were the producer on the film?

12:14
Asger Hussain
Correct.

12:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was that experience like? And please tell the listeners something that we don't see on TV that takes us a little behind the scenes.

12:26
Asger Hussain
On the day, I called my parents in the morning, I had a cup of coffee, and then I had to get ready and put on my best clothes and go meet with the team. There were road closures, so just getting there is a big thing. You get a time, and I believe we have to get there at one in the afternoon or two in the afternoon.

12:47
Asger Hussain
So you get there and then you have to go through metal detectors. And while you're getting out of cars and people are fixing their dresses right before they get on the camera and red carpet, everyone is talking to each other, hugging each other. You're not allowed to take phones with you, so people are frantically packing them in little plastic bags. It's all quite a production.

13:08
Asger Hussain
And then the minute you see the camera, everything looks nice and clean. That process takes hours. It's inside basically a shopping mall and they've made it very nice over the years, listing all the films that have won over time. People stand and have a drink and I don't think there is any food as far as I recall. And you stand there for hours until you're ready to go in and then you go in and then the show starts.

13:34
Asger Hussain
With all these things, it's made for television. So every couple of minutes there's a break for commercials. Everyone gets up, everyone's running around and then they do the countdown. And then everyone is rushing back, holding up their dresses, trying to look as glamorous as possible and sit down and look surprised when the next award comes up.

13:58
Asger Hussain
And the other thing that's interesting. This is the very end. This is the biggest award. It's the end of a long season. So people have been dressing up and doing this at minor shows that are not as televised for a couple of months at this point.

14:14
Asger Hussain
So the Oscars is the final destination, and so I think everyone is ready at this point. You don't have to get up the next morning unless you win, then you have to be interviewed. But everyone's ready to let loose a little bit. After the show, there are different sets of receptions. People have to show up. Each film studio has their own little party, and then after that is when the actual party starts at two in the morning and goes very late.

14:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what people might not know at home is that the awards season is several months. And there are so many award shows that everybody goes to. So people are exhausted by the time that the Oscars are on, right?

14:57
Asger Hussain
Yeah, it's really a marathon. It's not a short race.

15:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You worked for Lee Daniels Entertainment for more than six years. And you're back with the company since 2022 as Senior Vice President of Television. What is your relationship with the director Lee Daniels like?

15:14
Asger Hussain
We've known each other for 20 years now, and we have worked together on and off for 12 years, and I think half of that time I have worked for him, and the other times I have worked with him. And the dynamics is still the same, which is that he is a larger than life figure.

15:32
Asger Hussain
He has done the rare jump of being a film producer first, then a director, and then a creator of television shows. So my most recent role with him is in television for the Walt Disney Company, a subsidiary called 20th Television.

15:51
Asger Hussain
Working with him has been quite the journey. There has been an enormous amount of things that we've done together. And then there's obviously the personal relationship of having known someone for that long and work with them and getting to know them a little bit, which has been quite rewarding as well.

16:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What's the big difference in producing film and producing television?

16:15
Asger Hussain
As a film producer, it was a much more detailed enterprise. I'm involved in every single decision there is to be made. Sometimes I explain it in the way that if you pause your television, and you look at the picture, I can explain everything that went into that particular picture.

16:34
Asger Hussain
I know where we shot it. I know what day it was. I know that even though the location looks nice, it's done right next to a gas station and a school. I know what actors we had, I know what actors we didn't have, I know who got replaced. I know why the actor is doing what he or she is doing.

16:54
Asger Hussain
I know everything that happened in terms of getting that particular shot on that particular day. And that's the kind of intimacy you have when you work on a film. Even the bigger films. Obviously you have more people involved, but you do have that level of control and presence on everything. That's the best way, I think, to explain how movie making works.

17:19
Asger Hussain
Television is a much greater enterprise. And in my most recent job with 20th Television, which is a television studio under the Walt Disney Company, the demands are so much greater both in terms of volume, but also in terms of what the different platforms require.

17:39
Asger Hussain
You have different platforms such as Hulu or ABC. They are two different things that require different formats within a TV show. One thing has commercial breaks and you need to create the product so it fits that format. And an episode of a Hulu television show can be 48 minutes or it can be an hour and five minutes. So it's a different creative process to get to that point.

18:06
Asger Hussain
So my job in that world is to make sure that we constantly find the material, the books, the articles, the writers to pair with these things and then bring them forward to the appropriate platforms. And then being part of the Walt Disney Company also means that the demand for volume is so great because they know they're only going to do one thing out of the 20 things that you develop and bring to them.

18:35
Asger Hussain
So that process is really intensive. So my time can't be spent on looking at every episode on set. Instead, I start at the beginning of the process where we put the development of the show together. So the packaging of the show, getting all the right people involved with the show, and once it goes to actually filming, the studio will bring on a lot of different people that have great expertise in taking the show to another city and staying there for six months.

19:08
Asger Hussain
And what you do then, you still check in every 48 hours or 72 hours. You look at all the footage, but I don't know if someone ordered the catering or not, or if it was raining or the sun was shining on set that day. That you know on film. On film you know everything.

19:26
Asger Hussain
When you're a film producer, you chase things that have to be really good and resonate with you. But when you're making television, there is an added layer that I have to put myself in the mindset of the person who's sitting across the table and see what exactly are they looking for at this moment in time. So that becomes the exercise. That and then of course handling 30 or 35 things at once and trying to get those across the finish line.

19:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow. Okay. Nice explanation. You were the co-founder of Game 7 Films. Here you produced The Paper Boy, also directed by Lee Daniels and starring very big names like Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo and Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. What made you want to create this company?

20:25
Asger Hussain
Game 7 was a time after Lee Daniels Entertainment where I was in New York and I needed to figure out what to do with my life. And there is actually a practical reason behind it in terms of starting this company and having paperwork that allowed me to stay in the United States before I had permanent residence, which is a green card. You have to be attached to a job or a profession in order to be able to stay in the country.

20:56
Asger Hussain
At that time, I'd done my boot camp with Lee Daniels. I knew old Hollywood style, and I realized this was a great launch to do more things. It was time to put it to a test. And I did it with a couple of partners. We did a few documentaries. We did movies for other filmmakers. And that lasted for seven or eight years and was quite rewarding.

21:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you also produced a South African Western called Five Fingers for Marseilles. Marseilles is a town in South Africa. And you shot it partly in the Maloti Mountains, which is close to the border of Lesotho. What was this experience like?

21:35
Asger Hussain
I've been doing this for close to 20 years. This stands as the single most rewarding film experience that I've had. We found this script years ago, in 2011, and we thought we were going to make it several times. That's another thing about movie making. They don't always get made when you want them to.

21:56
Asger Hussain
And I think I might have pushed some very significant life events in order to accommodate this movie and because we thought we were making this movie. And when we finally got there, it was amazing.

22:09
Asger Hussain
First of all, this is a movie that took an original South African premise and put it in the context of the American Western. So we took all the visuals and the tropes and the mechanics of a Western and put him into present-day post-apartheid South Africa. So that in itself was wildly inventive.

22:31
Asger Hussain
And the visuals were something that I had never seen before. You would have motorcycles and horses next to each other. You would have people in Western clothes and traditional South African blankets, the basotho blankets that I think the greater public saw in Black Panther around the same time, maybe it was a little before or a little after, I don't remember.

22:53
Asger Hussain
So being part of that and sort of melding these two worlds together was something that I had never seen before. And then there is the actual shoot, which, as you mentioned, took place in the Maloti Mountains. And these are up in almost 2,000 meters or just about. So it gets cold up there in Africa and it snows up there and it rains up there. So the elements were brutal.

23:20
Asger Hussain
It's what I imagined, on a bigger scale, The Revenant went through when they were making it. And we got out there and there were so many different aspects to making this movie. First of all, you had a hundred people from Cape Town and Johannesburg, predominantly black, coming to a very rural white South African town, still segregated into three areas.

23:45
Asger Hussain
So you have the white part of town, you have the black part of town, and you have what they call the colored part of town. So to come in and say we need 100 rooms — 'coz there wasn't any hotel that could accommodate us — for this crew to stay with your local people, that in itself was something that had taken us close to two years to massage.

24:08
Asger Hussain
So we had made several trips. I'd made a trip to South Africa to that little town two years prior, where we met with local government, we'd met with members from the ANC, we'd met with the big landowners. And once we had buy-in from three, four, five very influential people, that's when the city opened.

24:30
Asger Hussain
And to give you an example. We were looking to shoot a scene in a prison one day, and one of these gentlemen that we stayed with, he just drove up to the prison and he went to the police officer and just told him to open the prison, so we could go in and take a look at it. And he has no law enforcement background, he's not a judge, he's not a mayor, he doesn't have any other authority other than being fifth generation of someone who has been a landowner and possessing power in this town.

25:02
Asger Hussain
So seeing those types of things when you come from Denmark is wild. And then having the privilege of seeing all these different personalities, all these different local politics at play was very rewarding. And then the film itself was shot in a locale where we didn't have to cheat anything for the camera.

25:25
Asger Hussain
We could put it anywhere we wanted to and there was just open space. And we got to build a life-size tavern and burn it down in the middle of a township. So we got to do things that you don't very often get to do even in Hollywood. And I think we did it at a time where no one else was doing it. So that was a wonderful experience.

25:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Sounds very exciting. What made you want to do a film about South Africa?

25:53
Asger Hussain
I was the only one with one other person that was from the United States. For me, it was the Western. I've always been a huge fan of Westerns. And to see that play out in a different setting made me realize that these basic structures could apply to anything. Over the years, we've talked about making the Bollywood remake, making the Korean cowboy remake, all sorts of things.

26:19
Asger Hussain
It's basically taking a world and a format and trying to put it together. And for me, that was the most interesting thing. And I remember being a kid and watching John Wayne movies. And for me, there was a direct link between those moments and then being on set and watching it. And, again, it's one of those things. You get to do it once in your life and then it's not the same anymore.

26:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have been to major film festivals with your films, like Cannes, Toronto, and Sundance, which is a very important American film festival for independent film. How important is the film festival circuit for filmmakers, and what is your job when you're at a festival?

27:07
Asger Hussain
It is the most important launching pad for a variety of reasons. This is where you get your film out. Sometimes a film doesn't have distribution, so this is where you find your buyers. So there is a business component to it. Then the second component is, this is where everyone gets to meet everyone, and everyone gets to have conversations, and those are the relationships that last for a long time.

27:32
Asger Hussain
And oftentimes at film festivals, you'll have first and second time filmmakers that show up with their film, and they get to meet other producers, they get to meet other actors, they get to meet other directors. And everyone watches films. You'll stand in line, you'll get popcorn, you'll wait for your turn, and next to you is a movie star who's also waiting to go in and see the same film and a movie star that's wearing jeans and a sweater without makeup.

27:59
Asger Hussain
So I think that part of it is what is so invigorating and what we so need as a community to keep doing even as the overall experience is moving away from theatrical to streaming and television. I think this is a launch pad where those who make the things get to interact with each other in the most unfiltered way.

28:22
Asger Hussain
And then my job, unfortunately, is not so relaxed. My primary job at a festival is to get as much attention for the film, And trying to get it sold to a distributor if we don't have distribution up front. So that's the job, which means that you are trying to optimize press for the filmmakers. You are trying to optimize how many people come and watch your movie.

28:48
Asger Hussain
You want it to be sold out if you get to show your film three times at a festival. You want to make sure that the line is out the door. So invite more people that you could possibly accommodate. And then finally, if the reactions are good, try to amplify those moments and convert them into a sale. That sounds very technical and corporate, but in the end, it is a product that has to be sold in order for it to show up in someone's living room.

29:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What makes a producer great from your point of view?

29:23
Asger Hussain
I shouldn't be this silent for this many seconds.

29:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, you shouldn't. No, I am kidding.

29:29
Asger Hussain
Again, it's not one thing. I think there are different producers and they bring different strengths. I think the best thing a producer can do is try to visualize the thing that we're reading and whether that is going to resonate with other people. And for me, I have, over the years, I know what works for me in terms of that gut feeling of knowing, is this something that I want to spend the next many years of my life on doing? And will it be relevant by the time it comes out?

30:03
Asger Hussain
And if you believe in that, then you sign on to something and then your job becomes practical, mechanical, all those things. But the other big thing you have to do is support your writer, support your director. If you do that and make them the best versions of themselves that they can be, then that's what a producer does, summarized in very few words.

30:28
Asger Hussain
Then there is the whole sort of manual of 300 pages of things that you need to be able to do, well — financing, marketing, creative development. But at the core, if you do not visualize it yourself, and if you can't articulate that vision, and have a conversation about it with a writer and or a director, then it becomes very difficult.

30:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Financing a film is hard work. What is it like to be part of this process? I assume that you need a lot of patience and stamina. What else do you need? How is the process?

31:07
Asger Hussain
There is no government funding in the US the way that there is in Europe and many other places. There are other types of tax breaks that you can get after you're done, so that always helps. But essentially, movies are made with private money, if they're below a certain scale. And if they're above a certain scale, they are made by film studios, the way television shows are.

31:33
Asger Hussain
But for anything that's $5, $10, even up to $15 million, those are privately funded films. Now that can be an individual, or it can be a small company that specializes in these types of things and has a little bit more money available. But any movie you're working on requires a lot of different components.

32:57
Asger Hussain
I did a film a few years back called The Inspection, which we co-financed with a studio called A24. And we had half the money from the studio and half the money came from maybe 10 or 12 individual investors who put varying degrees of cash into this film. So in order to do that, you have to obviously find 50 people or 100 people that have that level of cash available.

32:33
Asger Hussain
Then you have to convince everyone and their lawyers and their accountants that they have to work under the same terms. And then you have to say this up front, that there is no guarantee that this will ever come back. This could all be gone. So it's a constant balance to try to articulate what the film is, how you're putting it together practically, but then also temper the expectations by saying, listen, this may or may not come back.

33:04
Asger Hussain
And I have seen films that have not made anything back. And then there are films such as Precious, which was financed by one couple who made their money back many times over. The best way to explain it is film as a product, you should consider it as venture capital that goes into something. One out of ten may make money.

33:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What do you like being part of the film business, creating content and what motivates you?

33:34
Asger Hussain
I daydream a lot, and I world-build a lot in my head. And I've always done so, even before I knew that there was something called the film and television industry, which I didn't learn until much later in life. I always could walk around being completely absorbed in my own world and not pay attention to what was going on around me, much to the annoyance of other people.

34:00
Asger Hussain
So I think that there is something deeply rooted in me that just is always creating things in my head. So latching on to people that actually know how to do it, who can actually write, who can actually direct is such a fun thing and a huge privilege, if you look at it. So I think that has definitely drawn me to that world.

34:26
Asger Hussain
And then you start realizing, there's a lot of different components day to day. Some of them you do better. Some of them you don't. You get to rely on, for me, a big team at times. And I think over the years, I've also sharpened my focus on what it is that I'm good at and where I can be the best value added for other people too.

34:49
Asger Hussain
And once you find that spot, then things get really much easier on a pure creative level. But it can really all be traced back to that joy that comes from watching something or for me, even more than watching, it's reading, because I didn't grow up in a household with a lot of movies or a lot of music or a lot of art. But reading was always very prominent for me.

35:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You studied at the Copenhagen Business School. You didn't go to film school. So I'd like to know what made you segue into filmmaking? You mentioned you went to New York to try it out, but what gave you the idea in the first place?

35:31
Asger Hussain
I was in business school. I was writing my thesis. I had had a couple of jobs previously, while studying, in advertising, that wasn't quite what I was looking for, and I wasn't very good at it. During lunch break one day, I flipped through a book with business cases and there was one page about film production. And there was a case study of something and I thought that was wildly interesting.

35:58
Asger Hussain
It was a good natural break right after I finished school to try something new. So I started sending out applications via the library at business schools and back then it was portals. So you had to log on to the Paramount Pictures portal and see if you could get an application in. And I did those quite a bit and nothing happened. And then I started looking in directories and I can't even remember where I found them for smaller companies, and see if I could write them an email. And of course nothing happened.

36:35
Asger Hussain
And then one place wrote back and said, sure, can you come over and, and start? And they didn't know where I was, and they didn't really care. I found a place and I went and tried it out. And there were a couple of steps that led me up to Lee Daniels. But the actual job, I was in New York, I didn't have a place to stay, I didn't really know anyone.

36:59
Asger Hussain
And I was at the local Apple store and using their free internet. And I found a one line job posting that said, "Renowned film producer looking for interns." And that was it. And I replied to that blindly. And they called me back. And I went up there. And here we are today, 20 years later.

37:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow. That shows you how one little coincidental answer to an email —

37:26
Asger Hussain
Complete coincidence. Certainly not based on skill or any appropriate measure of talent at the time.

37:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No.

37:35
Asger Hussain
You get in somewhere and then of course, you know, you make your mark in different ways. At that time, Lee Daniels was a challenging figure to work with and can still be.

37:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
He probably knows himself.

37:47
Asger Hussain
He does know that himself. And I think for me, I came from a very different background. It was at once exotic, but at the same time, it didn't matter to me as much how that environment worked. I didn't take it too personally. And I think because of that, I was able to stay there and flourish.

38:07
Asger Hussain
And on the flip side of when you're working with someone that demanding, is that you get enormous freedom once you get past the fear of failing, past the fear of being yelled at, past the fear of being fired. I did get fired a number of times, only to come back a few days later, in very dramatic ways where locks had to be changed and "clear your table right now."

38:33
Asger Hussain
But Lee Daniels is such a great filmmaker. He also allowed enormous freedom in terms of finding things, in terms of helping him cut. For Precious, I saw the whole film more than 100 times in almost full length and sat with him and helped him cut it. That is a great way of seeing how a film is made. And I was very young at the time and that became my education and my film school.

39:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
About the beginning, how it started in Copenhagen, at the Copenhagen Business School, and you went to intern — what would you say looking at that time, what are you the most proud of that you created?

39:13
Asger Hussain
I'd grown up in a pretty middle of the road, sheltered — I had a very nice upbringing, nothing too adventurous in any way, the highs were not too high and the lows were not too low. I just had a very solid childhood and youth. And I think to be able to pick up and leave and not look back, I think is huge and can be applied to many things in life.

39:40
Asger Hussain
And I think we're all more capable of things that we might think. And I think there's a luxury of being from Denmark, where you can go back to Denmark if you absolutely need to. That becomes more difficult over the years, but in the beginning — I didn't have much in the first couple of weeks. I slept on some theater floor that I had found on Craigslist and that's kind of what it was in the beginning.

40:08
Asger Hussain
And then obviously also working in the English language, which is different coming from Denmark. I spoke English. I've seen subtitled movies, but not in a way where I could carry an argument or a creative conversation with someone. So that was a learning curve and something that I was definitely aware of.

40:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Would you say you brought anything particularly Danish in the way that you do business here? You mentioned that you have, from back home, a solid foundation. Do you think that has been important too in you making it here?

40:45
Asger Hussain
100%. There is no doubt that the way that "we," collectively, in quotation marks — Danish people — treat each other in the workspace is much different than the way people speak and treat each other here. Now things are changing here because there's been monumental events, criminal events, changes that have been made with the #MeToo movement as well, that have gotten people to realize, no, we need to take a step.

41:16
Asger Hussain
But it's been a result of something that has happened. It's not an ingrained cultural part to think of each other as equals here. Here, one person is the boss, and everyone is not. And at least for me, I saw a very challenging and extreme version of that, I would say, very early on. And I realized there's nothing I can do that would change that power dynamic.

41:42
Asger Hussain
So the best thing to do is actually just bring what you know. And I've also found, especially working with big stars and people outside of the movie space, if you just keep your very Danish nature and Danish outlook on things, it actually helps in the conversation in the sense that we get the superficial stuff out of the way very quickly.

42:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I googled your surname and discovered that Hussain originated from the Arabic word Hussain, meaning good or handsome. There you go, good for you!

42:18
Asger Hussain
There you go.

42:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But you might have a different story about your name.

42:23
Asger Hussain
I don't, but can we please take that little snippet and send it to my wife, please? I am sure we can do that in post-production.

42:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We will do that.

42:32
Asger Hussain
That's excellent. I actually don't. It's my parents' name, obviously. My parents are from Pakistan and they moved to Denmark in the early '70s and they thought giving me a Danish name would help me a lot, obviously, at the time. And so that is the story. And "Asger" has similar names in Urdu and Arabic, so it's from the region. And they just gave me a Danish spelling.

42:59
Asger Hussain
Now that became the subject of much not so fun humor for me growing up because of a couple of wars and a couple of dictators here and there. But "Asger" was always solid and that would get people to just think twice for a minute and couldn't quite understand it. And then, interestingly enough, coming here, it reversed. So Hussain wasn't really something that anyone would look at, but my first name became an issue.

43:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. Asger!

43:31
Asger Hussain
Asger!

43:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have been in the US for many years now. To what extent do you feel Danish still? And I assume there's a bit of you that feels Pakistani too.

43:45
Asger Hussain
It's a question that I think about quite a bit these days. My wife is Indian, or she's American, her parents are Indian. So she was born in the US. So our daughter is Indian, Pakistani, Danish, and American. So we do talk about it quite a bit actually. I feel very Danish when it comes to certain things. And some of them are nostalgia about how summer is in Denmark or how people interact in Denmark.

44:14
Asger Hussain
When we're here, interestingly enough, I also gravitate more towards my South Asian background than I did back in Denmark. Because in Denmark, I didn't gravitate towards that as much. But when I've moved here, I see definitely values there that I like, you know, keeping in touch with your family and acting around your parents and the way that South Asians interact with each other.

44:41
Asger Hussain
You can meet someone for the first or second time and if they're older, you call them uncle, and things like that. So it's a constant balance of trying to hold on to the things that matter the most. It's hard for me to specify what American culture is as such, because it's so fragmented and the country is a continent.

45:03
Asger Hussain
Places like New York and Los Angeles might not be indicative of the greater America in itself. I try to hold on to the things that I think one day my daughter will appreciate me for. So nostalgia is my own, but I do try to hold on to certain things. And I think those values in terms of how we consider everyone equal until proven otherwise.

45:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes.

45:30
Asger Hussain
No, I'm just kidding. We consider everyone equal, I think, is something that will be a huge asset in her life. And those are the things that we try to maintain.

45:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And where is home in Denmark? Where did you grow up?

45:43
Asger Hussain
I grew up in Gladsaxe and Herlev, just a little bit outside of Copenhagen, maybe ten minutes, or not even. And I spent the first twenty years of my life there, and then I moved into the city, and I spent seven or eight years, and then in my late twenties, that's when I moved.

46:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your parents are still in Denmark?

46:06
Asger Hussain
They are still there.

46:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you go back and see them how often?

46:10
Asger Hussain
I do. It's becoming less. I would say maybe once a year. But they visit here as well. And I have a sister that also visits.

46:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your favorite Danish word and why, and how do you spell that word for all the people who don't speak Danish?

46:26
Asger Hussain
Sådan is a great word. It's s-å — which is an "a" with a circle on top — d-a-n. And I think of it in terms of an exclamation mark. Sådan! There you go. It's done. That's the way we do it. That's a great word.

46:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question for you, Asger, you have accomplished so much in your career. What would you like to still achieve in your life? Do you have a bucket list? Are there things that you have listed as to do for the future?

46:59
Asger Hussain
I think there's so many things that I would like to do still. I feel the more work you do in this space, you get more invigorated and you meet more people and sometimes the timing doesn't align or you couldn't get it done at a particular moment. So, it's one of those things that compounds.

47:19
Asger Hussain
The more you do, the more you're exposed to other fun things that could be very interesting to do and rewarding to do. I hope I'm not even halfway or a third. I can't put a number on it or a metric on it. But there is still a lot to be done and that's why this is such a phenomenal industry and line of work to be in.

47:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Well, Asger, thank you so much for being with us today.

47:44
Asger Hussain
My pleasure. Thank you so much.

47:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Asger Hussain chose Jesper Rasmussen's Dumbo Brooklyn New York from 2005 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.