“I’m quitting. I’m not doing this. I don’t know, if this show doesn’t sell, I don’t know what people want, I don’t know what to bring them,” Biel commented when pitching ‘The Sinner’ to networks after facing frustrating setbacks from her production company, Iron Ocean Studios.
It was because of this experience that actress and producer Jessica Biel came very close to exiting Hollywood altogether.
While being interviewed on the The Bright Side podcast earlier this week, Biel spoke about the struggles she faced after starting her production company, Iron Ocean studios, alongside her business partner, Michelle Purple.
“Doors did not open at all, even being in the business for so long,” According to Biel, who started the company back 2004. “I started it with [Purple] when I was twenty-two, and for the first ten years, we had almost no success at all. We had a very challenging time getting any story told.”
It was “a labor of love” for quite some time, Biel stated, with the two facing countless setbacks, until they were introduced to The Sinner.
The crime anthology was Biel and Purple’s last effort to win studios over.
“When we were actually selling that show, Michelle and I looked at each other and she said, ‘If we don’t sell this show, I’m quitting.’ And I said, ‘Me too, I’m quitting. I’m not doing this,” Biel explained. “I don’t know – if this show doesn’t sell, I don’t know what people want, I don’t know what to bring them. I don’t understand this business anymore. I just don’t get it anymore.'”
“And then we sold it in the room,” she added of the USA network series, which premiered in 2017 and ran for four seasons. “It was so weird.”