'Magic Mike' producer's film life began in Lake Forest

Oh, sure, blame it on Mom.

Reid Carolin does.

"Mom was a movie addict," the Lake Forest native said. "Every night she was watching a couple of movies. I'd watch with her. She'd tell me all about them. Then she would take me to movies when I was 10 or 11. I fell in love with movies very quickly."

That love, with hard work and key college connections, has paid off for Carolin. Now 33, he possesses a professional resume that his peers would envy.

His latest project stars Channing Tatum in a sequel to "Magic Mike," the 2012 semi-autobiographical story of Tatum's career as a male stripper. "Magic Mike XXL" comes out Wednesday, July 1.

Carolin, a graduate of Lake Forest High School, wrote and produced both "Magic Mike" movies. (He also played "Paul" in the original.) In addition, Carolin has served as the executive producer for the movies "22 Jump Street" and "White House Down."

"If I had thought in college that I would be able to work on the kinds of things I've worked on at this stage of my life, I'd be the luckiest person alive!" Carolin said.

So, is he?

"Well, I am living my dream and I feel very lucky I am able to do this every day," he said.

"Hopefully, I can increase my creative output exponentially over the next decade. That's the time with the most opportunities to harness the potential you have in Hollywood. You've got to put things in action! I've got so little time left. I've got to really move."

Carolin has been really moving ever since he grew up in what he called an "idyllic" rural-like Lake Forest as the son of Christopher Carolin, an Oak Brook-based assets manager, and his film buff mom Cathy Carolin.

After making a few amateur movies in high school, Carolin trained to become a filmmaker at Harvard University.

"I couldn't believe it," Carolin said. "First, to get into Harvard. I thought I would end up in Colorado, someplace a bit more fun where people do outdoorsy stuff. Then, to have teachers such as (indie filmmaker) Hal Hartley and (documentary filmmaker) Ross McElwee, that was pretty unbelievable."

Harvard connections proved extremely valuable when he drove to Los Angeles. He used the Harvard alumni database to call fellow grads who might have a job for him.

One did. It was an unpaid internship reading scripts.

That led him to Kimberly Peirce, director of the Oscar-winning, ahead-of-the-culture-curve drama "Boys Don't Cry." She was working on a movie about U.S. soldiers coming back from Iraq. Eventually, Carolin received an associate producer credit on that movie, titled "Stop-Loss."

It turned out to be an important project for Carolin, who became friends with an up-and-coming actor named Channing Tatum. Later, they became business partners in a production company they called Free Association.

When Steven Soderbergh agreed to direct (plus photograph and edit) the original "Magic Mike," he wanted to hire a name writer for the project. Tatum told him, according to Carolin, "We don't need to go out and find an expensive guy to write this! This guy can write it!"

Soderbergh gave the OK and Carolin became a bona fide Hollywood screenwriter.

These days, Carolin travels a lot, but he devotes large chunks of time and effort to his pet charity, the Red Feather Development Group, a nonprofit organization that builds straw-bale homes on American Indian reservations.

He is also prepping for his next project, "Gambit," to be shot in New Orleans. It will star Tatum as the Marvel superhero with the power to create and manipulate pure kinetic energy - when he's not hitting on his fellow mutant Rogue.

Carolin's company had been on a short list to produce the next "Ghostbusters."

"I think we're going to let that one go," he said. "There's too much going on with that franchise right now."

Carolin will also make his directorial debut in 2016 with an untitled project.

"That I get to wake up every day and do the work that I do, being a creative person, it's unbelievable," he said.

But he should really thank Mom, don't you think?

<i>Jamie Sotonoff and Dann Gire are looking for suburbanites working in showbiz. If you know someone, contact jsotonoff@dailyherald.com or dgire@dailyherald.com.</i>

'A sense of connectedness'

Hollywood producer/writer Reid Carolin flew to Chicago to catch the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“As I walked into the game, there was this energy from all these people going in,” the Lake Forest native remembered. “There's a sense of connectedness to Chicagoans and I don't think it exists at all out here in Los Angeles.”

Carolin said he can spot fellow Chicagoans immediately.

“They are a little bit more courteous. A little bit more respectful. More connected. These are values I didn't really understand or notice when I was growing up,” he said. “It's something I wish every city could have. I realize I want that more and more as I get older. I always tell myself to remember where I came from.”

— Dann Gire