By Kristin Marguerite Doidge
Emmy-winning picture editor Nena Erb, ACE, counts herself lucky after being mentored by several esteemed editors, including Jillian Moul, ACE, Lillian Benson, ACE, and Steven Rasch, ACE.
“Jillian and I worked together when I was an assistant,” Erb said. “I would get my work done, sit behind her, and quietly observe. What really stuck with me was Jillian’s talent and how intentional she was about every decision, making sure every moment landed and the composition felt just right. Those lessons set me up well for my career.”
It was natural, then, to pay her good fortune forward and become a mentor herself. Over the past decade, Erb has built a reputation not just for her work in the room, but for who she brings into it, including assistant editors Lynarion Hubbard and Gioia Caruso, both of whom credit Erb with shaping the editors they’re becoming.
Caruso and Erb worked together most recently on Disney/Marvel’s “Wonder Man” series, which premiered in January, and on the 2023 comedy film “Joy Ride.” The film follows four Asian friends on a hilarious and heartfelt trip through China in search of one of their birth mothers.
“Nena and I met right when I was just getting into scripted TV, through networking events,” Caruso said. “But then a different editor had passed my resume to Nena without me even realizing it. I remember getting an email that said, ‘Oh, hello. I hear you’re looking for a job. I’m looking for an assistant editor.’ It just felt like the timing was perfect — this is someone that I’ve looked up to and have always wanted to work with.”
What stood out to Erb was Caruso’s calm demeanor. She pointed to a challenging stretch on “Joy Ride” when she was working in Vancouver while Caruso held things down alone in Los Angeles. “Gioia was in LA by herself during this demanding phase of the finishing process and didn’t miss a beat,” Erb recalled. “There were a million requests from every direction all at once. She handled it with ease and without mistakes. That really stayed with me.”
So when Erb went to work on “Wonder Man” for Marvel, she reached back out to Caruso and said, “You’re probably tired, but do you want to come work with me again?”
They both found the experience of working within Marvel’s creative culture helpful in encouraging bold experimentation and risk-taking on “Wonder Man,” which isn’t always a given. Caruso served as first assistant editor and received additional editor credit on two episodes in the series.
When production resumed after the WGA strike, Erb noted that the show had an all-female editorial crew until the end, when one of the coordinators moved on to another Marvel project. The team included picture editor Gina Sansom and her first assistant editor Cassie Dixon, as well as second assistant editor Katie Z. Langton, who was bumped up to first assistant on the two episodes where Caruso was bumped up to additional editor.
“It’s very rare for this to happen,” Erb said. “It was quite amazing that we had so many talented women on this show. The only other time this happened was on ‘Joy Ride,’ which had an all-female team as well.”
As for Caruso, she said her love of film and television began at an early age, and she discovered her passion for editing while making short films with friends. Today, she counts Erb as both a mentor and a friend. And importantly, she set an example by showing, not just telling.
Lynarion Hubbard.
“Nena always made me feel a part of the creative process, so much so that she would bring me into the rooms with the producers and showrunners,” Caruso said. “It was such an invaluable experience because I got to see how she ran her room — she was just so confident and calm. After they’d all leave, I’d say, ‘Can we dig into that scene? How did you know to do that?’ Her taking the time to talk me through what she did really meant a lot to me.”
‘This is your seat’
When she first met Benson at the Television Academy roughly two decades ago, Erb recalls being a newcomer entering a room full of established ACE editors. “I didn’t feel like I belonged at all, but Lillian was there,” Erb said. “She made room for me immediately and took me under her wing. She helped me navigate the politics of the room. … Without so much as saying so, she made me feel like I had a right to be there: This is your seat. You can claim it.”
‘WONDER’-FUL: A scene from “Wonder Man.” PHOTO: DISNEY
She also credits Rasch with offering a different kind of perspective. “Whenever wonky things would happen, I would call Steve and say, ‘This is what’s happening. This doesn’t feel right. What’s your take on it?’ And he was very honest with me. All three of them [Moul, Benson, Rasch] helped me navigate the industry in such different ways. They set up the foundation for how I mentor going forward.”
That solid foundation allowed her to build a working relationship with picture editor Lynarion Hubbard, whom Erb hired as an assistant editor on Issa Rae’s hit series, “Insecure.” The team won the Emmy for “Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series” in 2020, and Erb earned two additional ACE Eddie Awards for her work on the show.
Erb’s mentorship on “Insecure” — and her friendship and guidance since then — have led Hubbard to describe the relationship as “better than winning the lottery.” She’s currently working as a picture editor on Season 4 of “Reasonable Doubt” for Hulu.
“I don’t know if I would’ve built the confidence that I have now without having been in the room with her and seeing how she manages multiple different viewpoints,” Hubbard said. “Working with Nena, I learned so many things — managing a room, being creative, and keeping the creative juices flowing, especially in stressful situations when you don’t have time.”
Erb sees pushing her assistants past their comfort zones as part of the same process: “I was always telling both Gioia and Lynarion, ‘Cut whatever you want. … If it’s great, I’m going to put it in the show. If it isn’t, we’ll talk about it later.’ I pushed them out of the nest very fast, and both of them really rose to the challenge.”
Gioia Caruso.
Erb is currently editing the second season of the “Legally Blonde” prequel series, “Elle,” for Amazon, while Caruso is working on the Netflix miniseries “All the Sinners Bleed.” In her free time, Erb volunteers as a mentor in ACE’s Diversity Mentorship and Internship programs.
“As a woman and a woman of color, there’s a lot of pressure for you to never make a mistake, because if you do, you’re messing it up for everybody else that’s going to come after you,” Erb said. “We have to be excellent, articulate, composed, unflappable, all at the same time while we’re trying to figure out what our voice is. So I think it’s helpful to have someone in your corner to explain the unspoken rules. It’s not just about representation; it’s about us connecting and advocating for one another. I think that’s really how we’re going to be able to build a place for ourselves in this industry.”
