Donna Langley

A movie is never a sure thing. Doesn’t matter who’s in it, who’s making it, the script, or the budget; it’s almost impossible to predict what film will be good or successful or both. This tension means that most people you meet in Hollywood are driven first and foremost by fear. This fear can be poisonous.

Donna Langley doesn’t operate from a place of fear. She doesn’t make decisions based on fear. She makes decisions based on trust, strategy, compassion, and a deep love of film. As NBCUniversal studio group chair and chief content officer, she’s not afraid to take bold risks—whether it’s a $100 million drama about a theoretical physicist or a horror film about a Black man being trapped by his white girlfriend’s parents. She has a talent for trusting odd pitches with a strange prophetic confidence. And that confidence is contagious.

So much of who she is and the grace with which she carries herself is defined by that confidence. Donna’s presence always seems to remind and assure that at the end of the day, despite what many in this town may think, movies are not actually the
most important thing in the world. That sense of real values makes all
the difference. 

Peele is an Oscar-winning filmmaker

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