Producer and documentary filmmaker Jody Hassett Sanchez is the president of Pointy Shoe Productions, a film company that focuses on issues of faith and culture; previously, she was a producer at ABC News. Before moderating a panel on cultural depictions of heaven and hell, she talked Ai Wei Wei, time-machine dating websites, and why she wishes she could get lost more often.
What’s hanging on your living room walls?
Art, nails where art was, and a turtle shell my son found the other day on the beach on Cape Cod.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
I’m blissfully free of guilt, but I have a lot of pleasures. I’d rank lobster right up there.
What’s the last documentary you saw?
I just saw an amazing film about the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei. Extraordinary—what a charismatic personality. It’s hard to do wrong on a film with someone that articulate about their art.
What’s the last lie you told?
I think that I’m not tired. I told myself and a ton of people that I wasn’t tired, and I haven’t slept for eight hours in a really long time.
What’s your favorite thing about Los Angeles?
The fact that everyone blue skies it here—everyone has big ideas. I sat at a café today at lunch and I heard three people pitching things—and no one said any of them were outrageous. That’s why big things happen here.
What’s your favorite part about being out of the TV news business?
Having the final cut on all of my work.
How many pairs of shoes do you own?
The name of my company is Pointy Shoes Productions, so I refuse to answer on the grounds that it could incriminate me.
Which website would you use for online dating?
I’d go to the site where you can date people from earlier time periods. It’s just lunch with people from the 1700s.
What’s the one interview you wish you could have gotten as a producer?
It was actually Fidel Castro. I was invited to go down to Cuba and spend five days with some foreign policy journalists. He’s notorious for keeping people waiting, and I had to go home—and the interview happened after we left. He likes to call journalists in the middle of the night and have them come in at 3 a.m. But I still love Havana, and I ended up marrying a Cuban two years later.
When’s the last time you got really lost?
I wish I could get lost more often. I think the more you travel the more you have this built-in, refined GPS system. I yearn to get lost and discover things in a foreign city.