There are always a million posters and signs up in Newhouse, but one in particular caught my eye. It said something about Jimmy Fallon. I’ve been a big Jimmy Fallon fan since SNL, so I was immediately interested. But it wasn’t actually Jimmy Fallon who was coming to speak at Newhouse, it was his talent booker, Lisa Phillips.
Lisa was an ’03 graduate of the Syracuse TRF program who had gone on, after a year off, to be a page at NBC, much like Kenneth on 30 rock. She wore the suit and tie and took people on tours all through NBC. But the best part of being a page was all the connections she made. She said the best day of her being a page was when she got to tell Steven Spielberg where the bathroom was. Lisa got to interview for little side projects and eventually jobs on whatever NBC program or department had an opening. Lisa had always been really into sports, so she thought that that was her calling and figured she would end up in the sports department of NBC. However, she eventually ended up being a talent assistant on the Conan O’Brian show, and when that moved to L.A. she got a job as talent booker on the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Lisa was super talkative and friendly and made her job sound really fun. Although she only stayed for an hour, every minute of her talk and Q&A was really interesting. I never even really knew that job existed. She basically chooses and books everyone who isn’t an A-list celebrity on the Jimmy Fallon show and deals with them and tells them what to do. Her proudest moment was when she booked an up and coming tennis player before anyone else even thought to and now he’s really famous, in part due to her. When asked about the worst part of her job, Lisa said there’s only been one time when a client didn’t show up and she got yelled at, so dealing withe aftermath of that was pretty bad. But she loves her job and has been there for three years.
I’m an advertising major, but listening to Lisa Phillips almost made me want to change to TRF just because her job sounds so fun. I’ve always loved TV and this is a side of it I’ve never seen of or heard about before. Lisa was a very cool lady who was very easy to connect with and easy to understand and I really hope she comes back to talk more, and hopefully brings Jimmy Fallon with her!
