Hollywood is obsessed with size. It is why Disney bought ABC, why Seagram purchased Polygram Records for its Universal unit and why Paramount's parent, Viacom, grabbed CBS. Yet the bigger-is-better mind-set is rejected by one of the most successful hitmakers in the entertainment industry: a producer and talent manager named Brad Grey. In his 23-year career he has never been hotter: His HBO TV franchise, The Sopranos, is about to begin its fourth season, and Just Shoot Me, on NBC, is beginning to reap a fortune from reruns. But he professes no desire to turn his boutique into a synergistic beast. "We're just a small-time player," Grey says of his Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, which manages such stars as Jennifer Anis-ton and Brad Pitt and―in an unabashed conflict of duties―tries to plant clients in the shows it produces. Grey, 44, who built Hollywood's most successful management and production firm with his mentor and former partner, the venerable producer Bernie Brillstein, is no small-timer; he wields sole control over it. But, he insists, "It's not that we don't have aspirations to continue to grow; but it has to be done in a measured way, because we understand what our core business is." That is "representing [actors and writers] and doing TV and film production," he says.
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