Arriving in Hollywood with a dream to be a producer, I underestimated the toxic culture waiting for me | Kate Wilson

Interning for an A-lister's production company, I thought I had made it - but three years later I was back in cold, wet London

When I was young, I dreamed of making it in Hollywood and working in the movies. Enthralled by the showbiz industry, I wanted to become a big-time producer and see my name in the credits on the silver screen. And I got there, kind of. I made the 5,500-mile journey from London to Los Angeles, attending UCLA, interning at the production company of a bona fide A-list celebrity and ultimately securing sponsorship for a work visa. I had been plucked out of obscurity and given my shot, and the timing couldn't have been better, I thought, landing shortly after Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction had a seismic impact on the popularity of auteur-led, independent films.

But my dream was short-lived and, just three years later, I was back in cold, wet London. While I had anticipated the obligatory tea-making, endless script-reading and punishing hours that test an assistant's mettle for the job, even the promise of one day hobnobbing on the red carpet with movie stars was insufficiently compelling to justify the toxic culture that was so much a part of the industry at the time.