page_title: Creative Artists Agency
section_title: Agents
hierarchical_section_title: Creative Artists Agency / Agents
caption_attribution_description: English: Will Ferrell at Anchorman 2 The Australian Premiere 2013.
context_page_description: Creative Artists Agency LLC or CAA is an American talent and sports agency based in Los Angeles, California. It is regarded as a dominant and influential company in the talent agency business and manages numerous clients. In March 2016, CAA had 1,800 employees.
context_section_description: CAA has employed top sports agents such as Tom Condon.
  CAA president Richard Lovett is regarded as shunning media attention and keeping a low profile. Lovett took the job position at CAA in 1995, and he was described as a "skillful agent" with a "trademark ever-ready smile" adept at schmoozing and hobnobbing with colleagues and studio heads. Lovett was described in The Wall Street Journal as being "elegantly aggressive."
  Top agencies frequently raid each other's staff, and when key people defect to rivals, it makes news headlines and often leads to legal battles over breach-of-contract claims. When agents defect, the rivalry can degenerate quickly into vicious battles played out in courtrooms and in the media. When key CAA clients Will Ferrell and Chris Pratt defected to rival United Talent Agency (UTA) in 2015, and were later followed by ten agents, it erupted into a full-frontal legal battle between the warring agencies. In the lawsuit, CAA accused UTA of conducting a "lawless, midnight raid" as part of an "illegal and unethical conspiracy" with agents deliberately delaying meetings with clients to divert business to UTA. In a bitter lawsuit and countersuit between CAA and UTA in 2015, which began after a slew of CAA's agents departed for UTA, there were accusations of fraud, malicious untruths, lying, and a range of charges including a "breach of duty of loyalty" as well as "conspiracy to breach fiduciary duty."
  Rivalry is not limited to rank-and-file agents, but can take the form of public barbs by company CEOs. Grudges can last for years; for example, movie producer Jay Weston sued CAA in 1979 about the rights to a film, and years later, it was revealed that Weston was "totally ostracized" by the agency. In effect, CAA would do the minimally required legal tasks of passing along required offers but otherwise staying uninvolved.
  Some agents have had a reputation in the public's mind of living in a world of "fast cars, rooftop bars and foul-mouthed, phone-throwing power brokers," according to an account in the Los Angeles Times. CAA agent Jay Moloney led a colorful yet self-destructive life. Moloney interned at CAA while studying at USC, became the right-hand man of Michael Ovitz, worked with clients such as Leonardo DiCaprio and made millions, dated actresses such as Jennifer Grey and Gina Gershon, and "battled personal demons" and became a "slave to cocaine"; Moloney committed suicide at age 35. In 2004, the HBO production entitled Entourage was made about a fictional Hollywood agent named Ari Gold. According to one report, the fictional Ari Gold character may have been based on a hybrid between an "even-keeled" Creative Artists Agency agent named Jeff Jacobs and an "abrasive 'go-for-the-jugular'" William Morris Endeavor agent named Ari Emanuel. The report suggested that images like these may contribute to the public perception of agents as foul-mouthed and aggressive bullies. Perhaps because of its dominance in the industry, CAA agents have a reputation for being "coldhearted Hollywood power brokers," according to one report in The Wall Street Journal. The agency has been accused of blacklisting people who did or said things that the agency did not want publicized; for example, Courtney Love said that she was "eternally banned" beginning 2005 by CAA after making a negative comment about Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein. Uma Thurman left CAA on November 22, 2017, the day before making an Instagram post addressing accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
caption: The departure of comedy star Will Ferrell led to major legal battling.
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