Biography

Paula Wagner has worked in the top ranks of the entertainment industry as a talent agent, film producer, and studio executive. She develops and produces film, theatre, and television projects through her production company Chestnut Ridge Productions (CRP).

Wagner began her career as an agent at Creative Artists Agency where she spent 15 years representing some of some of Hollywood's top actors, directors, and writers. In 1993 she began a new phase of her career as a producer when she launched Cruise/Wagner Productions with Tom Cruise, her former CAA client. For more than a decade, C/W produced critically acclaimed films with international appeal, including the Mission: Impossible franchise films I, II, and III, Without Limits, The Others, The Last Samurai, Vanilla Sky and Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, which Wagner executive produced.

Wagner was co-owner and CEO of United Artists Entertainment from 2006 to 2008. During her tenure, UA released the Robert Redford political thriller Lions for Lambs and the World War II thriller Valkyrie.

Wagner's current film projects include Marshall (2016), starring Chadwick Boseman and Josh Gad and directed by Reggie Hudlin, based on a crucial case in the early career of U.S Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Also in development under the CRP banner is Sylvia Robinson: The Story of the Mother of Hip-Hop, which is being set up at Warner Bros., as well as the China/US co-production Moon Flower of the Flying Tigers, an epic WWII romantic drama based on a true story.

Wagner's producing credits for Broadway include TONY Award-nominated The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain & David Strathairn, Grace starring Paul Rudd & Michael Shannon and Terrence McNally's TONY Award-nominated play Mothers and Sons.

Wagner is a member of the PGA, the AMPAS, and the Broadway League. She serves on the boards for Film Forum in NY, the American Cinematheque, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. She travels the world as a visiting guest artist, and has lectured at Universities around the country, including the Harvard Business School and UCLA's School of Theatre, Film and Television. She is an adjunct faculty member and Lifetime Trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, her alma mater.

Wagner is married to Rick Nicita, CEO of management and production company RP Media. They have two sons, Zachary and Jesse.
- IMDb mini biography by: Matt Polk & Talia Shea Levin

Studios will make a movie out of Tide (laundry soap) if they think it'll work. -- on the major studios' focus on franchises and branded properties

Let's make movies, not deals. Let's write movies, not scripts. -- on the need to streamline the development of movies

I had a really strong goal, and one day I changed it completely, but the change is what made me what I am today. It's as important to be flexible as it is to be goal oriented.

Hollywood is an artistic medium, it should be leading the way, but we're not. We're not reflecting culture strongly enough, we're lagging behind. Women aren't going away. I just think we have to understand that it's not female culture and male culture, it's culture - women bring something specific, men bring something specific, and films can incorporate and encompass all of it.