They’ve been together for over 30 years. He wrote the script. She stars in it. And nobody asked them to do any of it — which is exactly the point.
Anne-Marie Johnson and Martin Gottlieb came on the Film Threat YouTube channel to talk about The Addiction of Hope, their self-funded independent feature about an aging actress confronting ageism, reinvention, and the peculiar cruelty of an industry that sustains itself on people’s dreams while quietly pushing them out the door.
The film has been making the festival rounds to strong responses and is now heading to streaming after a theatrical run across the country. But the conversation around it is bigger than the movie — it’s about who gets to tell certain stories, and what happens when you stop waiting for permission.
The Idea Came From COVID
Gottlieb traces the project’s origins to the pandemic. Locked down, watching friends feel sidelined and invisible, he started thinking seriously about the particular indignity of being pushed out of something you’ve devoted your life to — not because your skills declined, but because an industry decided you’d aged out of relevance.
“It felt like so many of our friends are getting pushed out of doing what they love to do,” Gottlieb said. “The industry considers us old and gray-haired and not useful anymore.”
He started writing. He talked to Johnson — who, as it turned out, was the right person for the role in more ways than one.
43 Years In, Still Auditioning for 99% of Her Jobs
Johnson has been working in this business for four decades. Sketch comedy, broad comedy, deep dramas, the extremes on both ends. She was vice president of the Screen Actors Guild. She has credits going back further than most working actors today have been alive. And no one was offering her a role like this.
“No one was knocking down my door to star in an independent film,” she said. “I auditioned for 99% of the jobs I get.”
That’s the thing the industry doesn’t advertise. The unemployment rate among SAG members hovers around 95%. Johnson knows that number firsthand — she spent years sending newsletters to thousands of members trying to tell the truth about it. The dream is real, but it’s also a mechanism that keeps people in a holding pattern, hoping their phone rings.
When Gottlieb showed her the script, she saw immediately what it could be. She also saw what it needed. The character, Joe, is a woman — specifically a Black woman — and those stories are rarely written with that specificity. Johnson worked closely with Gottlieb to make sure the female POV was always present and that the perspective of a woman of color was authentic, not incidental.
“These types of films are rarely written for women like me,” she said. “It’s usually written for white women. We rarely see the trials and tribulations of a Black woman.”
A Full-Length Film, Not Shot on a Phone
Johnson is quick to head off any assumptions about the production. This is a proper feature film — theatrical length, traditional presentation, professional execution. The only thing that separates it from a studio picture is that it wasn’t shot on film, and that it was self-funded because no one else was going to fund it.
“There need not be a telethon for Marty and Anne-Marie,” Johnson said with some amusement. “Our careers have been exceptionally blessed, but really, it is the best way to express your art where you’re not beholden to someone else’s agenda.”
Gottlieb echoes that: technology has made real filmmaking accessible in a way it simply wasn’t a generation ago. Cameras, editing software, the ability to distribute — the barrier to entry has dropped enough that the only thing stopping you is you. His pride in the result is unambiguous. “I feel like there’s not a dishonest note,” he said about the performances.
What the Audiences at Festivals Told Them
The film has been playing to strong responses wherever it’s screened. Gottlieb says there wasn’t a single festival where the reaction fell short of expectations. But the responses that stick with Johnson are the personal ones.
After a screening at Cinema 21 in Portland, a woman in her eighties walked up to Johnson and asked, simply: “How did you know what was going on with me?”
That’s the film working exactly as intended. Joe is an actor, but she’s also anyone who has ever felt forced out, aged out, marginalized — anyone who’s been told their time has passed on someone else’s schedule. Men have been responding to the character in numbers that surprised even the filmmakers. The story is specific enough to feel real and universal enough to resonate with people who’ve never been within a thousand miles of a film set.
“People stay and talk to us for hours,” Johnson said. “I’m still getting emails from people saying, ‘I’m still talking about this film, and I saw it last month.'”
The Drama Problem
Gottlieb and Johnson are both frustrated by the state of theatrical drama—and Chris shares their concern. The tentpole cycle has crowded out the kind of mid-budget, character-driven storytelling that once anchored a studio’s awards season. Ordinary People won Best Picture. Now the genre barely has a seat at the table.
Ironically, Johnson noted, Hamnet winning at the most recent Oscars suggests the appetite hasn’t gone away — it’s just that Hollywood has mostly stopped feeding it. The foreign films are picking up the slack.
“There are no special effects in our film,” Johnson said. “All you need is a great script, a great cast, and a really strong director and crew.” She’s also quick to note that dramas are relatively cheap to make, which makes Hollywood’s indifference to them all the more baffling and all the more an opportunity for independents willing to go do it themselves.
Hope as Trap
The title does a lot of work. Gottlieb is thoughtful about the double-edged nature of it. Hope is what gets you out of bed. It’s what keeps you showing up to auditions and sending out reels and believing the call is coming. But hope can also be the thing that keeps you from hearing the truth — false hope that holds you in place when what you actually need is to pivot.
“Hope is not a plan,” Gottlieb said. “It’s important that people understand — it’s great to be hopeful, but it’s also okay to come to the realization that maybe what you used to do isn’t working for you in the same way it did. And it’s okay to change.”
Johnson connects that to a larger point about ageism as a prejudice that hasn’t been named with the same clarity as others. She puts it bluntly: cosmetic companies use the phrase “anti-aging” without blinking. Swap that out for “anti-gay” or “anti-Black” and see how it lands. “These cosmetic companies — anti-aging. Martin wrote a screenplay to talk about that in an honest way.”
Where to Find It
The Addiction of Hope is available on streaming platforms. More information — including festival history, cast details, and social media links — is at theaddictionofhopefilm.com.
Anne-Marie Johnson and Martin Gottlieb appeared on the Film Threat YouTube channel.
