The Westwood offices of producer and manager Steven Paul resemble a time capsule of Hollywood lore. On one wall hangs a framed 1971 New Yorker profile of Paul as a precocious 12-year-old actor in a Kurt Vonnegut play. Nearby sits a vintage Hollywood Reporter clipping chronicling his first major feature, Falling in Love Again, which introduced audiences to a young Michelle Pfeiffer. A coffee table shelf holds stacks of Atlas Comics — the Marvel precursor in which Paul took a majority stake — a reminder of his knack for unlikely bets.

Now Paul is wagering on his most improbable role yet: as an industry liaison to President Trump. Since the president tapped Jon Voight — Paul’s longtime client and business partner — as one of three “special ambassadors” to Hollywood in January, alongside Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson, Paul has embraced a portfolio that stretches from Santa Monica Boulevard to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Voight and Paul, joined by SP Media Group president Scott Karol, have leaned into Trump’s directive to bring Hollywood back “BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER.” Their focus: reversing the decades-long flight of film and television production to international hubs offering aggressive tax incentives.

“It’s gotten worse and worse,” Paul told The Hollywood Reporter from his Westwood office, located above a café named for his father, Hank. “You see people leaving, you have friends that are leaving town. They just can’t afford it anymore.”

The irony isn’t lost on observers that Paul’s company has recently mounted a slate of action films in Bulgaria, which offers a 25 percent rebate. Still, industry leaders who’ve met with the trio say they’ve been struck by the group’s seriousness. After meetings with guilds and studio reps, Paul and company presented a menu of proposals to Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, ranging from infrastructure subsidies for exhibitors to extending Section 181 of the tax code. The president, in typical fashion, briefly latched onto the idea of tariffs on foreign-shot films before aides walked it back.

The centerpiece of their pitch is a federal film and television tax incentive, designed to stack with state credits and finally give Hollywood a national program to rival Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The idea isn’t new — unions have lobbied for it for more than a decade — but it has gained fresh urgency amid Trump’s “America First” rhetoric.

“Hollywood needs this to survive,” Paul says, adding that bipartisan talks are underway in Washington. Democrats Adam Schiff and Laura Friedman have been engaged on the issue, and Karol insists Republicans are also at the table. “We are not stopping until we accomplish this mission,” Paul says.

Skeptics note the politics are complicated. Schiff, long a punching bag for Trumpworld, may not be the ideal public face of such a bill. And questions linger over how committed the Trump administration is to an industry it often casts as hostile. Paul brushes off the doubts. “[Trump] loves the entertainment business, and it’s not a Democrat or Republican business,” he says.

Meanwhile, Paul has put his money where his mouth is, purchasing Avenue Six Studios in Van Nuys this spring. His first production there, The Last Firefighter starring Voight and Kelsey Grammer, is due in 2026. Shooting in Southern California came at a steep cost — 33 to 50 percent higher than abroad, Karol estimates — but Paul says the gamble was deliberate. “We’ve made a statement that we need to bring production back,” he explains. “So we wanted to make a statement: here we are, filming here.”

With Avenue Six, Paul hopes to lure both domestic and international projects, citing partnerships with equipment houses and permitted facilities. “Build it and they will come,” he says, quoting Field of Dreams.

For an executive best known for shepherding the family comedy Baby Geniuses, it’s an unlikely turn. But Paul seems energized by the role, his optimism undimmed. Hanging in his elevator is a quote attributed to Walt Disney: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Whether Hollywood’s dream of a federal tax incentive is one of them remains to be seen.