Hollywood dreams

Film producer left Manchester with ambition she realised in Tinsel Town... and now has an Emmy to prove it

- By NEAL KEELING

AT the age of 11, Louise Lovegrove watched a documentary about the making of the movie Empire of the Sun at home in Manchester.

She was spellbound by how the coming of age epic by Steven Spielberg was created.

"I just thought, ooh, the person with the megaphone yelling 'cut' and 'we are doing this, that's what I want to do," she recalls.

It was the moment a seed was sown which would take her to Hollywood. Now that career has been crowned with an Emmy - the TV equivalent of an Oscar.

With colleagues, she won the Outstanding Television Movie Award for Rebel Ridge, a Netflix movie, on which was executive producer.

The intelligent crime thriller starring Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson tells how a former Marine collides with police corruption and racism when he arrives in a Louisiana town to post bail for his cousin.

Born in Withington before moving to Heaton Mersey, Louise attended St Paul's Primary School, then Parrs Wood High, and went on to study at the University of Manchester.

At 21, she moved to Los Angeles to begin her career in film, starting out as a production assistant.