From Chapin to Hollywood

“Producing movies is all about telling stories,” said Alix Madigan-Yorkin ’80, a film producer who spoke at Upper School News. Ms. Madigan-Yorkin, whose most recent credit was the Oscar-nominated film, Winter’s Bone, in 2010, had some of her own stories to tell: about working with actor Samuel Jackson; about serendipitously becoming the producer of Sunday, which won a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997; and about deciding to enter the film business after some false starts in other careers.

“When I was at Chapin, I really wanted to be a veterinarian,” Ms. Madigan-Yorkin told the students. After struggling through several Chapin science classes, though, she realized that a career as a veterinarian wasn’t in her future. Ms. Madigan-Yorkin decided to become an investment banker and spent two years after college working as an investor, which she ultimately found to be unfulfilling. What excited her, she discovered, was using her business skills to market films. Those skills later helped her land the producing job on Sunday, the film that launched her career.

Ms. Madigan-Yorkin clearly chose the right career. In addition to working on Sunday and Winter’s Bone, she produced the films Your Friends and Neighbors, Married Life, Smiley Face and Cleaner, and she has two films in production. It’s a varied list, she said, running from dramas to comedy, but that is what keeps her interested. And willing to fight through the harder aspects of her job.

“I still find myself being the only woman in the room,” Ms. Madigan-Yorkin said of the film industry meetings she often attends. “But the great thing about Chapin is that it taught me there was nothing I couldn’t do,” she added.