Christopher Gilbert Amell
- Executive
Christopher Gilbert Amell first escaped into film that day in 1982 at the age of four when his parents took him to see E.T. on the big screen and announced their separation. He dove headfirst into computing on Christmas Day 1989 at the age of twelve upon the introduction to the command line of his very own IBM Tandy TL2.
The small town of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania, and a factory-working family forged an insatiably curious student and disciplined Division I athlete at Villanova and Penn State Universities, and ultimately a global citizen and graduate of The American University of Paris.
Chris then came full circle after driving cross country to Hollywood and studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute, to table-read with E.T. child star Henry Thomas in Red Velvet, and peer over the shoulder of Director Steven Spielberg on A.I. as a Mecha robot alongside Jude Law, and again as a stand-in for Cameron Crowe in Minority Report on a train car with Tom Cruise.
Chris Amell has been running deep background on Hollywood since 2000, and can be seen doing it only if you hit the pause button at exactly the right moment, like in the roller-skating scene behind Foxxy Cleopatra and Austin Powers in Goldmember.
His combined passion for film and technology led him to develop "The Auditioner" with Macromedia Flash and ActionScript, which was later acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.
Demonstrating the technology early on, every CSA casting director who witnessed it noted the "webcam" needed to be placed too close to the performer and impaired their ability to "emote." Plus, no auditions could take place without the casting director being present in the room to feel the chemistry between the actors, stating it would never take off.
Of course, they were wrong.
Christopher Gilbert Amell has been in stealth mode as the founder and executive director of INTERDEPENDENT LLC since 2017, and in 2024 became the studiorunner of INTERDEPENDENT Studio 0, a vertically integrated finance, development, production, distribution, and exhibition company behind several upcoming productions including Mark A. Burley's The Carrier by Todd Restler.
His own son, Tristan Amell, twenty in 2024, also became a DI cross-country and middle-distance athlete at UCLA. The two work together often at the UCLA Anderson Accelerator Lab, where they have offices. Chris and Tristan's mother Grace Mazzilli raised Tristan in NY, Paris, Toronto, Hong Kong, Beverly Hills, and back home in rural PA while Tristan attended Stanford OHS, and ultimately graduated from SAMOHI.
Plots Inc., Tristan's startup, was formed in an apartment in Santa Monica when Tristan was still in high school, nurtured through the VMS program at MIT, became venture capital-backed by Ethos Fund, and added the founding CTO of Tinder, Ryan Ogle, to the team in February 2024.
Plots focuses on creating in-person events and experiences and is how father and son have partnered for INTERDEPENDENT to bring together moviemakers and moviegoers still in love with the idea of getting together IRL to share magical on screen moments and collaborate side by side throughout the entire moviemaking process.
Chris Amell is a man who unapologetically walks to the beat of his own drum. He has been the architect of his own best life and is passionately and sincerely committed to a vision for show business post-Hollywood; a business model that hasn't fundamentally changed since Chris' role model W.W. Hodkinson abolished states' rights in 1911 and established Paramount Pictures.
Whether it's bringing self-tapes online to shine a spotlight on the craft and talent of unknown actors amidst dissenting professional opinion, or releasing a theatrical trailer to secure audiences and statistical confidence in the profitability of a film before investing in the feature, Chris Amell and INTERDEPENDENT stand poised to reshape the malleable landscape of Hollywood in 2024 for generations to come.
The small town of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania, and a factory-working family forged an insatiably curious student and disciplined Division I athlete at Villanova and Penn State Universities, and ultimately a global citizen and graduate of The American University of Paris.
Chris then came full circle after driving cross country to Hollywood and studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute, to table-read with E.T. child star Henry Thomas in Red Velvet, and peer over the shoulder of Director Steven Spielberg on A.I. as a Mecha robot alongside Jude Law, and again as a stand-in for Cameron Crowe in Minority Report on a train car with Tom Cruise.
Chris Amell has been running deep background on Hollywood since 2000, and can be seen doing it only if you hit the pause button at exactly the right moment, like in the roller-skating scene behind Foxxy Cleopatra and Austin Powers in Goldmember.
His combined passion for film and technology led him to develop "The Auditioner" with Macromedia Flash and ActionScript, which was later acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.
Demonstrating the technology early on, every CSA casting director who witnessed it noted the "webcam" needed to be placed too close to the performer and impaired their ability to "emote." Plus, no auditions could take place without the casting director being present in the room to feel the chemistry between the actors, stating it would never take off.
Of course, they were wrong.
Christopher Gilbert Amell has been in stealth mode as the founder and executive director of INTERDEPENDENT LLC since 2017, and in 2024 became the studiorunner of INTERDEPENDENT Studio 0, a vertically integrated finance, development, production, distribution, and exhibition company behind several upcoming productions including Mark A. Burley's The Carrier by Todd Restler.
His own son, Tristan Amell, twenty in 2024, also became a DI cross-country and middle-distance athlete at UCLA. The two work together often at the UCLA Anderson Accelerator Lab, where they have offices. Chris and Tristan's mother Grace Mazzilli raised Tristan in NY, Paris, Toronto, Hong Kong, Beverly Hills, and back home in rural PA while Tristan attended Stanford OHS, and ultimately graduated from SAMOHI.
Plots Inc., Tristan's startup, was formed in an apartment in Santa Monica when Tristan was still in high school, nurtured through the VMS program at MIT, became venture capital-backed by Ethos Fund, and added the founding CTO of Tinder, Ryan Ogle, to the team in February 2024.
Plots focuses on creating in-person events and experiences and is how father and son have partnered for INTERDEPENDENT to bring together moviemakers and moviegoers still in love with the idea of getting together IRL to share magical on screen moments and collaborate side by side throughout the entire moviemaking process.
Chris Amell is a man who unapologetically walks to the beat of his own drum. He has been the architect of his own best life and is passionately and sincerely committed to a vision for show business post-Hollywood; a business model that hasn't fundamentally changed since Chris' role model W.W. Hodkinson abolished states' rights in 1911 and established Paramount Pictures.
Whether it's bringing self-tapes online to shine a spotlight on the craft and talent of unknown actors amidst dissenting professional opinion, or releasing a theatrical trailer to secure audiences and statistical confidence in the profitability of a film before investing in the feature, Chris Amell and INTERDEPENDENT stand poised to reshape the malleable landscape of Hollywood in 2024 for generations to come.