“Some of the greatest opportunities come from being bold enough to take a leap, even when you don’t have a safety net.”
I had the pleasure of talking with Trey Haley. Trey, the President of Tri Destined Studios and an award-winning director, stands at the forefront of a transformative era in entertainment, blending his passion for storytelling with a deep commitment to diversity and creativity. His journey from a musically inclined youth in Dallas-Fort Worth to a visionary leader in Hollywood embodies a tale of determination, talent, and the relentless pursuit of dreams.
Born and raised as an only child, Trey was nurtured in a supportive environment by his parents — a criminal defense attorney father and a sales professional mother who was the first in her family to graduate from college. This backdrop of encouragement and ambition played a crucial role in shaping his aspirations. Throughout his childhood, Trey was immersed in music, mastering the viola, trombone, and keyboards, which laid the foundation for his creative expression.
Haley’s academic and early professional experiences further cemented his path toward filmmaking. While attending the University of North Texas, majoring in Radio, Television, and Film, he seized the opportunity to intern at a local cable company. This experience, blending technical skills with creative endeavors, sparked a realization in Haley: he was meant to tell stories through the lens of a camera. The leap to Los Angeles was a calculated risk, driven by the advice of his mother to “jump off the ledge” and go after his dreams, a move that would soon pay dividends.
In Los Angeles, Haley’s career began to flourish. Starting as a production assistant, he worked his way up, learning from some of the most renowned music video directors of the time. His diverse experiences, ranging from editing local cable programs in Denton to mentoring under iconic directors, have contributed to his unique storytelling style — a blend of compelling narratives across various genres, showcased in his works from crime dramas to romantic comedies.
Under Haley’s leadership, Tri Destined Studios has emerged as a powerhouse, producing critically acclaimed and commercially successful projects like “Carl Weber’s The Family Business.” This series, a fan favorite, has garnered international acclaim and a prestigious Hollywood African Prestige Award for Haley, recognizing his directorial prowess. The studio’s success under his guidance is a testament to his vision and dedication to crafting stories that resonate with audiences worldwide.
Haley’s influence extends beyond the director’s chair. As a producer, he has overseen a slate of diverse projects, including the NAACP-nominated series “The Black Hamptons” and films like “Love Mary Kill” and “Rolling Into Christmas,” showcasing his versatility and commitment to telling diverse stories. His upcoming projects, including the eagerly anticipated “Family Business New Orleans” and the groundbreaking “Dev is Boss,” promise to further his mission of changing perceptions and breaking barriers in the entertainment industry.
Trey Haley’s journey is not just one of personal achievement but also of inspiring others to pursue their passions relentlessly. His favorite quote from Nelson Mandela, “There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living,” perfectly encapsulates his ethos. Haley’s career stands as a beacon for aspiring filmmakers and creatives, proving that with talent, dedication, and a willingness to leap into the unknown, one can indeed live a life beyond imagination.
Trey, it’s a delight and an honor to meet you. Before you dive in deep, our readers would love to learn about your personal origin story. Can you share the story of your childhood and how you grew up?
Absolutely. I grew up as an only child, and my mother was a college graduate from her family — the first time. My dad is an attorney in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a criminal defense attorney, and my mother was in sales all her career, at IBM and Kodak.
So I kind of grew up in a pretty healthy environment, with a lot of musical training. I played the viola, was in the band for a while, and then decided it wasn’t cool anymore. When I got into high school, though, I played the trombone and also played keyboards by ear. A lot of people who knew me from high school and my youth would probably have thought I’d be in the music industry based on what they knew about me.
My dad ultimately remarried and had other kids, so I have brothers and sisters. But I was my mother’s only child, and she was always that person who told me to jump off the ledge and go after my dreams. My dad had the same personality, going after his dreams from a scenario where he grew up pretty poor and figured out how to make a dream for himself. I think seeing them thrive in what they did kind of rolled off on me and pushed me to go after things as well.
It’s amazing. So can you tell us a story of how you started your career in Hollywood, the story of that evolution?
I guess that tie-in would be my childhood coming into college. I went to the University of North Texas, and there I did an internship which turned into a job at the local cable company in Denton, Texas. There I got a chance to get behind the scenes working with editing. My job was as a computer programmer, but I would have all this equipment in front of me. So I would shoot stuff, edit stuff. That’s what made me know I wanted to do this — combining music and visuals, telling stories and the impact of an image on people.
Fast forward years later, I realized after going to several film festivals that I had to move to Los Angeles. That’s the next move. One day I went there, checked it out, got my bearings. About four months later, I actually did the physical move, not knowing anybody, but jumped as my mother said — just go and trust in yourself, believing you can do this. Put out what it is you’re wanting to receive, that good energy, and luckily it kind of came back.
I ended up meeting my current business partner after a couple of months at a film festival in Los Angeles. Later, I got a job on a music video set with director Darren Grant. At that time, he was a very prolific music video director, doing most of Destiny’s Child’s videos and all the big videos back then when you had these big budgets.
So from there, I just started working in the business. I started off as a PA, and I always tell people never look at small beginnings because that’s a good learning space for you. You never know the connections you’ll get just being on set.
That’s amazing. So you probably have so many fascinating experiences and memories from being on set and all these productions. Can you share with our readers one or two of your favorite memories or most humorous stories from your experience?
One of the ideas I’ve always had is if everybody’s going one direction, find your own niche, find your own path to get into different opportunities. One of the things I did was work as a courier. I learned about being a courier and thought, “Wait a minute, you’re telling me there are people who drive and deliver scripts and headshots to sets, locations, and offices?” This was before things were totally digital.
So I decided to take a job as a courier — this would be my way in, how I’d meet more people, the bosses, executives at studios. I ended up working at this courier company in the Century City/Fox area. They gave me a shirt, an outfit I was supposed to wear. But I would leave work, get my stuff, and change into a button-down shirt, changing up the look. They’d be like, “You forgot your courier service outfit,” but I was doing my job — dropping off scripts, getting in, meeting people consistently.
From the smallest production companies to the biggest ones, I was on the Fox lot every single day dropping off scripts. After a while, there was a consistency of people knowing me. “Oh, hey Trey, you got some headshots, scripts?” One day, someone said, “I got a good feeling this isn’t really what you want to do out here. What is it?” I told them I wanted to direct and produce.
At the time, my production company Trideson was building, shooting small indie films, but I was trying to level up. This lady at TNT told me about an internal studio internship list. She gave me the list, I filled it out, and submitted to all these internships. Ultimately, I got an internship working at Morgan Freeman’s company, Revelations Entertainment, for two days a week for six months. It was one of the most amazing internships.
But look, how many people would have just been a courier driving around LA dropping scripts? Once again, it was intention — putting out there what you want, not going in without a plan, being purposeful. That’s one of my stories.
It’s such an amazing story. I love it. So I guess let’s follow up on that. The story conveys how you being a bit of a rule breaker ended up being successful for you. So do you think, would you recommend that for others?
I wouldn’t recommend that for everybody. I would say for anybody, if you’re going to break a rule, know the rules, but know how to be professional with it. I was never disrespectful. If somebody said I had to put my shirt on, I would have put my shirt on. But once people get a sense of your spirit, your flow, that you’re doing a great job, ultimately you can be a rule breaker. Every rule we live by had to be broken in order for this rule to be made anyway. So new rules come from breaking rules. That’s how I look at it.
But I think anybody that really stands out, they’ve done something beyond the average. They had to step outside of the norm to get there. You got to know the norm, the path of what it takes to be in the rules in order to break the rules, but without hurting other people. I always say that.
So none of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person that stands out, that opened the door for you, that did something that helped you achieve the success you have now?
Absolutely. One standout person is Maureen Guthman, rest in peace. She was the senior vice president of programming at BET. She passed away a year or two ago but was very influential in our careers here at Tridestine.
Nikaia, my business partner, and I had been grinding. There’s another gentleman, Greg Anderson, that closely works with us, one of our partners at Tridestine. We had been hustling, trying to make things happen. And Maureen was watching the whole time. She was like, “Who is this company making these films we keep seeing in our programming?”
There were movies we were doing, collaborating with other companies. Sometimes a company might call and say, “We can’t make this movie right now, but you all can make it, go do it.” Or they’d say, “Why don’t we do something together?” But everybody has their stamp when they create things. We ended up meeting Maureen a couple of times.
One time she came to our office and said, “You all do a lot of work for everybody else. It’s time for it to be in your hands now.” She gave us a deal, an opportunity to make content directly with BET. That deal ultimately spun out to what you’re seeing today — all these films, TV shows like Family Business, The Black Hamptons. We were doing so much content, but it all spun from this lady believing in us, taking that chance and putting us in a position of power.
Another person I have to give a shout out to is Carl Weber, the creator of a lot of these projects we do. Carl is a prolific writer, 29-time New York Times bestseller, wanting to turn his books into movies and TV shows. And him believing in us as a production company, to be that voice for him, to showcase his stories — that was big because he could have done it with anybody. This guy has an amazing resume.
It’s been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Do you have a humorous story about a mistake that you made when you were first starting and the lesson you learned from it?
This is what I’ll say. Yes, mistakes can be our best teachers, but I’ll even add — mistakes sometimes just happen through the journey of anything in life, creatively or in business. If you don’t know what you don’t know, what do you do? You’re making moves, going through something and you don’t realize there’s a pothole coming up on the street. You’re driving and it just happens — how do you know when it’s coming?
We’ve had scenarios like that where we’re working with people, thinking everything is moving forward. We’ve had projects where everything was lined up, a big studio opportunity was available. And the person we did this with, who we thought was a friend, at the end jumped off the pathway of what we all agreed to and messed up the opportunity.
But what we’ve learned is they didn’t really mess it up — they gave us more insight into how we had to be tighter, even with our contracts, tighter with paperwork because sometimes when people change…That was our biggest lesson — no matter who you’re working with, a new individual or friend, especially working with friends, make sure everything is tight going in. Don’t do it after, do everything before. We learned that the hard way.
It’s really easily said when it’s somebody really close to you. You’re like, “We’ve got to do this, and everybody’s great.” And then you get in there, people are in their ears, stuff is going on. Next thing you know, you’re like “What? Hello? You’re not answering the phone.” Then a new attorney calls saying “I’m representing so-and-so.” And you thought you were all working together, and it goes left.
Yeah, those are big lessons. Simple, it seems, but always have everything in writing and have an understanding before you put yourself out there and could possibly lose an opportunity and a relationship.
Great insight. OK, so Trey, you have so much impressive work. Can you share with our readers some of the exciting projects you’re working on now and what you plan to be working on in the near future?
Yes. Right now, we’re currently in post-production on Family Business season five, which will be coming out this fall. We’re also excited about our new show, a spinoff called Family Business New Orleans. I’m actually here in New Orleans filming that. It has an amazing cast — it’s a spinoff, so some characters have to come from the original Family Business into this show. It’s a fun, edgy TV show that still has the Family Business vibe, but set down here in New Orleans with a lot of interesting characters.
The Black Hamptons is another show we’re really excited about that’s doing very well. Those are our main ones right now — boom, boom, boom, back-to-back.
I have another show right after this called Dev is Boss, loosely based on the life of Deb Anthony, one of the top female managers in the business with clients like Nicki Minaj and some of the biggest talent. It’s the story about how she got there, how as a woman she broke barriers. You get to see once again how where you come from can set you up to be the person you’re supposed to be. No matter how negative things come, how hard life is, you can choose to flip it positive. And she turned it into a very positive situation, becoming one of the most prolific, powerful music managers in the industry. So it’s a drama series.
As you mentioned, The Black Hamptons and Family Business are highly rated on IMDB and fan favorites, which is really amazing and not typical. What do you think it was that captured people’s hearts and minds about these two shows?
I think what people like about them is number one, cast-wise, it’s multigenerational. So everybody can watch this — we have characters in their 60s, 70s all the way down to their early 20s.
Number two, with Family Business, it’s very multicultural. We’re now excited it hit Netflix. As you said, it’s a favorite for a lot of people on there. It got as high as number six on Netflix for top TV shows and was trending for two, three weeks — really popular.
I think people just love the idea. Family Business has a lot of levels to it regarding the world this Duncan family is involved with. But ultimately what people see, which is the spirit of it, is family taking care of each other, empowering each other through the family. No matter what journeys or things come at you, you got to stick together to win.
It’s kind of the same thing in The Black Hamptons. But a lot of people have not experienced what the Hamptons looks like — you hear about it, but few have really been there. So here’s a chance for people to see that. It’s based on a real area in the Hamptons in Sag Harbor, where in the 40s, 50s, there was an area African-Americans could go, be in a very safe place on a beach where they owned the properties. From carpenters to lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs — if you had property, you could go here and didn’t have to deal with the other things going on in the world at that time.
Now this season is dealing with gentrification, where the generations are dying off and their kids are like “hey, money, property.” They take the money with the property sometimes. So our show is based on old school concepts and new school concepts clashing together within that — a very interesting dynamic and good conversation piece.
Another show about a family business that was popular is Succession. How would you compare and contrast Family Business with Succession? How are they similar, and how are they different?
The only similarity is the family elements and the power struggles in that element. But the difference with our show is we deal with the cartels. We deal with a lot of danger and dark sides all around, where that’s the turn it takes.
Additionally, Family Business is based on a New York Times bestselling book. So it has an ongoing book series. I think the journey of the characters and how people want to attach to each character for their own personal reasons, knowing the book series, is another piece.
But I think it’s the dark side of the family business that makes this one a bit different than Succession.
That’s great. It’s amazing. What you’re doing is so amazing. You’re really creating all these stories that normally 20 years ago may not have been greenlit. This was really unbelievable. And you’re really paving the way for so many people. What lessons do you want our society to hear from the stories you’re telling?
Ultimately, we want to love the idea of showing, particularly because there are not tons of content happening more and more as African-American content, showing people of color in empowering positions, taking control of their lives, being citizens that are just doing their thing.
These stories could be colorless. They’re colorless stories. Ultimately, it just so happens to be a different perspective. And I think it’s a good way to put the flavor in there.
I always believe, we say, “Oh, this stuff is just TV.” And it is fun as a game. Sometimes it just helps people to get away from the day, the stress of life. But it does leave imprints in people’s minds.
And if we can leave imprints on the importance of family for people, empowering African Americans and looking at the importance of making sure you take care of your family, no matter what you’re going through, we do it. Business-wise, making sure that you understand that when you’re seeing us in just different ways, I think it just helps everybody to be more open-minded to the perspectives of people.
We don’t realize how programmed we are about the things we see. Sometimes a perspective can make you walk down the street and look at a person a certain way, just based on something you’ve seen on television, good or bad, any color. And then you hold on to that image, and then you don’t even realize subconsciously how you’re feeding into that.
So if we can keep bringing different perspectives like this, where we show diversity and how people can work together, different color lines, all that kind of stuff, I think this is what we do this for.
Amazing. Okay, this is our signature question, and then we’re almost done. So, Trey, you’ve been blessed with so much success. Looking back to when you first started, somebody who’s an aspiring filmmaker, can you share five things you need to create a successful career as a filmmaker?
Five things. Number one, I think you need a team, people you trust, people who do things differently than you. You all have similarities, but you all can bring different things to the table.
Number two, be open to opportunities and see them. Don’t just look at something and dismiss it. How about that? How about this?
Number three, don’t look at things as the last thing you’re going to do. Look at the longevity of your career when you’re making decisions because everything is just a step. Be strategic about the moves you make.
Number four, I would say reputation is everything. Make the business decisions that you make, the relationships that you’re building. Be solid with how you’re handling people. If it’s not going to work out, just say it. If it is, then do what’s right and stick with whatever you agreed to. Keep your word.
Number five, do everything with purpose. Don’t do something if you really don’t want to do it. Whatever you do, do it because you want to do it. Don’t do it because you have to if you can avoid it, because it’s going to be a big factor in how you maneuver within that situation. If you do it because you love it, what you put into it is going to have a different energy versus if you have to do it, and you’re just doing it with no purpose. Do everything with purpose.
Okay, this is our final question. Trey, because of the amazing work that you’re doing and the platform that you have built, you’re a person of enormous influence. People take your words very seriously. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Yeah, I would like to take 15 to 20 of some of the most diverse, inspirational individuals in the world and take them on a tour across the world, across the country and certain areas in the world and do a big inspirational, motivational series type thing with people. Like how we go to concerts for musicians, but you go to a concert for this, not just for inspiration, but for words. It’s like an empowerment movement, right? And how like you’re doing this right here, where you’re getting this juice from people and finding out how they made this. Sometimes it’s great energy.
So I would take that and create a series, for free, at the biggest stadiums in the world and get some of the most influential people, like I said, and do an empowerment series for free. Not for a thousand dollars, not for five hundred dollars and for the best who can afford it, but for people who need it, you know? And say, “You come, we’ll be here and we’re going to give you all the things.” And the top like five, ten, twenty things that you’re going to need to move from here and it’s going to push you. And, you know, and it’s and what is creating is energy, right?
So a motivational energy series where you’re packing 70,000, 80,000 people yelling and screaming about being great for free. That would be what I would do. There’s a lot of ways you can do it. When you say for free, obviously, there are ways that other people can be involved, other companies can be involved, this can be like sponsors and stuff that will put this out there and say, “Let’s do this.” Because the world needs positivity right now, we need to be up. Not so much other things going on. We need the spirit of upliftment to happen in this world. Like people, us, everybody, all cultures, everyone, we just all need to come together in a positive way.
So how can readers continue to follow your work? How can they purchase any of your offerings? How can they support your work in any possible way?
The family business is currently being shown on BET, BET Plus, and on Netflix, all pretty much a lot of streaming platforms. So it’s Carl Weber’s The Family Business season one through four. You can see that season five is coming out soon.
Make sure you check out The Family Business: New Orleans, which is the new spinoff of the show. And then The Hamptons or Black Hamptons show, that’s out on a lot of platforms as well. You can check that one out. I think everybody would love that.
And, you know, I think anybody will watch that and love that. We also have, like I said, Bev’s Boss is coming out soon as well this year. So those are our top shows. We have other shows called Always a Bridesmaid. It’s a lot of movies.
So if you want to, our website is Tridestine.com, Tridestine on Instagram, Facebook, Trey Haley, TDS, Tridestine Studios, Trey Haley, TDS. That’s how you can find me on Instagram or Facebook, Twitter, all that kind of stuff as well.
Trey, it’s been a delight and a blessing to meet you. I wish you continued success and I’m excited to continue our conversation.
Let’s keep it going.
Okay, beautiful. Alright. Thank you.
Filmmaker Trey Haley on Vision, Hustle, and Changing the Game in Hollywood was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.