Meet Hollywood’s Secret TikTok Weapon
When Reece Feldman posted the TikTok that changed his entire career, he knew he was breaking almost every single rule imaginable.
A Queens native, Feldman had spent the months after graduating from college floating from production assistant gig to production assistant gig in New York. On advice from a few career mentors, he downloaded TikTok — bringing a few hundred thousand followers along with him to daily jobs like picking up coffee, driving crew vehicles, and taking out the trash. Eventually, he moved up from reality sets and Mormon children’s television to the big leagues: Amazon’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. A bigger responsibility also meant a legitimate NDA — one that would keep him from making those freewheeling videos of the past. But he still wanted to share with his audience. So he decided to break the rules.
“I love sharing about entertainment. I just want people to watch things and have the reverence for it that I do,” Feldman tells Rolling Stone. “ I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to try something. If it doesn’t do well, no harm no foul. No one will ever know. And if it does well, then it’s a conversation.’”
It was a conversation all right. The video performed so well, garnering a fast 1.2 million views on his account @guywithamoviecamera, that Amazon execs made a decision: Feldman could keep making videos, but they had to be with the permission of the studio. Four years later, Feldman has gone from the average movie TikToker with a strong following to the not-so-secret weapon of major Hollywood studios. He’s worked red carpets at the Met Gala, the Cannes Film Festival, and almost every major American awards show. On a regular Tuesday, his followers aren’t surprised to see a dorky cinema meme followed by an in-depth interview with Christopher Nolan, or a fashion get-ready-with-me immediately overtaken by the stars of a summer blockbuster. With more than 2 million followers and counting, Feldman has become the face of a movie generation desperate to bring back behind-the-scenes access — and a one-of-a-kind creator redefining how studios can succeed online.
Online, Feldman’s videos are easily recognizable, either by the plethora of celebrities and film stars they feature or by the sight of his signature curly mop of hair. When we meet up on a sweltering day in Williamsburg for coffee, he’s instantly recognizable, but I don’t get a glimpse of his highly popularized TikTok persona until he joyfully notices our barista has an Avatar: The Last Airbender tattoo. He continues to light up when he talks about movies, a pattern that highlights just how much Feldman is in this job — this work — for the love of the screen.
“As a kid, I was just always obsessed with movies,” Feldman says. “Going to sleep very late to stay up and watch things was the easiest way for me to relate to people. I just never really felt like I belonged anywhere. [That was] the easiest way for me to make sense of my surroundings. I was trying to watch as much as possible because I just wanted to see what was out there.”
Feldman took his love of film to Tulane University, where he studied communications, film, and business (a combination he says has now become his whole life). But much of his desire to first start making TikToks came from the invaluable hands-on learning experiences he got while being a production assistant— none of which he could have got without being on set.
“PAs are literally the backbone of the industry. Production was tough but I was having so much fun,” he says, laughing. “Like, for Real Housewives of New Jersey, I was the one that picked up the charcuterie board that was thrown at Teresa. It’s a thankless job, but it’s such a great starting point. However, the goal of every PA is to no longer PA ever again. And that was me.”
The success of Feldman’s videos at Maisel proved his hypothesis: people online are desperate to see the nitty-gritty of how the things they’re watching get made. When he was contacted by Director Quinn Shephard and actress Zoe Deutsch to create content while they filmed their 2022 social media satire flick Not Okay, Feldman dove in headfirst, becoming the go-to content creator filming with cast on sets like Last Night In Soho, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Abigail under direct contracts from studios. Even now, his simple red-carpet interviews often rake in millions of views by centering on the intimate, technical details of filmmaking. There’s often a striking tension between studios trying to connect their films to wider (read: younger) audiences and the professionals in them. Creatives can easily get worn out during a promotion process, especially one that feels antithetical — or downright degrading — to their work. Feldman’s work actively confronts this battle head-on by starting the promotion well before the film is even ready and tailoring his videos to what his guests are most comfortable with.
“I want [creatives] to be able to feel like they’re trying to reach a younger audience in a way that’s natural to the platform but also they don’t feel like they’re betraying themselves,” he says. “You don’t have to have Christopher Nolan do the fucking renegade to sell his movie. But we’re able to do [social media] in a way that’s comfortable for them. It feels like the perfect coupling of old-age Hollywood cinema and this new kind of digital age.”
Creating an entirely new job that straddles the line between marketing and production hasn’t been daunting for Feldman (though de finds it continually amusing that studios have created entire marketing teams around social media but still can’t figure out what to call him in the credits). What’s been hard is reconciling the major impact he’s had on studio promotion with the fact that his job has placed him firmly in front of the camera. Because even though fans can spot a @guywithamoviecamera video miles away, what makes or breaks a video’s success is often whether Feldman is in it. A constant on red carpets, Feldman’s also started dating two-time Tony-winning producer and actress Alyah Chanelle Scott, which has taken him from observer to someone often in the spotlight — something Feldman seems intrinsically uncomfortable with.
“I don’t think I’m a public figure but I do think there are a lot of film nerds who recognize me which is nice,” he says. “I can talk about movies and I could talk about TV, and I’m comfortable doing that. I don’t think I’d be able to be in front of the camera if it was for anything else.”
While being photographed — or even interviewed — might make his shoulders rise, what’s immediately clear is Feldman’s absolute bursting-at-the-seams love of all things film. The creator tells Rolling Stone his goal has always been to write his own coming-of-age stories. After all, he knows the power of what a project big or small could have to a kid in Queens, or a recent college grad desperate to find a place in the world. And sometime soon, he wants to be the one to make it.
“I want to create stories and worlds where others feel safe and feel like they’re being challenged. That’s my goal, to make things that invigorate people to question what’s around them and their beliefs,” Feldman says. “At the end of the day, everything I do might not change lives immensely. Like, no one dies. But if someone is able to find their favorite movie or their comfort show, I’ve done my job. And I’m happy.”
