Book excerpt: “Roll the Calls” by Ari Emanuel

September 19, 2026

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In his memoir “Roll the Calls” (to be published Tuesday by Knopf), Hollywood superagent and mogul Ari Emanuel writes of coming to blows in the competitive entertainment universe – and, in one instance, being sidelined by the business end of a truck.

Read an excerpt below, and don’t miss Ben Mankiewicz’s interview with Ari Emanuel on “CBS Sunday Morning” September 20!

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Early summer 1994. I rise early, do a hard workout, go to the office. Roll calls for several hours, speak to fifty or sixty people about fifty or sixty problems, then look up and realize I’m spent. And famished.

I walk down the street to Kate Mantilini’s. I like their omelets.

The restaurant is on the corner of Doheny and Wilshire. One block east of there, I stop, wait for the light. Cars whipping by. I take note of how fast they’re going. Faster than usual.

Someone could really get hurt right here.

At the restaurant I sit by myself at a corner table, wolfing my omelet while reading a script. No dessert.

Half an hour later, head back to the office, thinking about a thousand things. At the same corner where I noted earlier how fast the cars were whipping by, I stop, wait for the light. When the WALK sign flashes, I step off the curb and turn my head just in time to see the front grille of a black pickup.

My body has been hit many times. As a wrestler I was slammed to the mat headfirst, back first, ass first. As a boy trapped in a small apartment with two violent psychopaths, a.k.a. my older brothers, I was thrown into bookcases, tables, doors. As a young man, I’ve been in bar fights, fistfights, street fights. I’ve been coldcocked, blindsided, bitch-slapped, smacked around. I’ve never felt anything like this truck hitting my knees.

Fender scooping me, flipping me like a big spatula, into the air.

As I fly, thoughts ricochet around my head. So this is what it’s like to fly. Landing isn’t going to be great.

A flood of feelings. Scared. Lonely. Inconvenienced. I have so much to do. The calls, how will I roll calls when I’m unconscious? Or dead?

Also feeling spurned. Like a jilted lover.

I loved you so much, Life. I’d have given my life for you! And this is how you do me?

But then the universe doesn’t spurn me. It embraces me. Violently. In the form of gravity. I land on the hood of the truck and roll onto the pavement. My body bounces once with a wet thud and comes to rest in the middle of the road.

Eyelids fluttering open. Did I lose consciousness? Must have. How long? Don’t know. Don’t care. Eyelids fluttering closed again.

All my parents’ stories had the same moral: Life’s a fight. And not just any fight. It’s some gladiator s**t, loser gets fed to lions. Save your white flags, your olive branches. F**k your doves. The world doesn’t care. Keep your fists clenched and your head on a swivel, unless you want to find yourself lying in the street bleeding out.

I’ve wasted my one precious life. I’ve let other people discourage me, stop me. I’ve let my own anxiety control me and lead me away from my purpose. I’ve accepted the delusion that there’s time, plenty of time.

It’s so clear now: Life is not a dress rehearsal. Everyone says this. Sooner or later, everyone in this town repeats this truism. But few act on it.

Excerpted from “Roll the Calls” by Ari Emanuel. Copyright © 2026 by Ari Emanuel. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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