Butler native Chris Horsman has worked with some of the top names in Hollywood, including Oscar-winning actors Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christoph Waltz.

Now living in Los Angeles, Horsman still brings a part of Butler with him wherever he goes.

“I think throughout my career, that’s something that’s propelled me, being a nice guy from Butler who has held onto those values,” Horsman said.

It has propelled him — all the way to a recent promotion to talent agent at International Creative Management (ICM) Partners.

And to think, it all started when Horsman joined a Butler High School musical on a whim.

The musical was “Anything Goes,” and Horsman was hooked for life.

“I think it was just sort of the friends you make and that sense of all being in it together, and it kind of becomes a family when you’re doing a show,” he said. “I love that feeling.”

Horsman, born in Butler and raised in Butler Township, graduated from Butler High School in 2004. He took some time off school, and then enrolled in Point Park University to study musical theater.

Like many young people enthralled with the arts, Horsman dreamed of becoming an actor.

However, an internship he acquired in the summer of 2006 with Mosaic Media Group in Los Angeles changed his course.

The internship was acquired through Point Park alum Jimmy Miller. Horsman wasn’t doing anything glamorous; his duties were relegated to answering phones and working in the mail room.

Yet, this grunt work provided him a front-row seat to the business side of Hollywood.

“I saw managers at the top of their game who were representing some of the biggest talent in comedy,” Horsman said. “Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen. I grew up watching Saturday Night Live, and really had an interest in what it took to end up on that show, and so (for them) to work with people like Will Ferrell and see those guys at the top of their career was incredible to watch as an intern.”

Horsman returned to Point Park in the fall with a new focus.

“I went thinking I was going to be an actor and that internship opened my eyes to the behind-the-scenes world of representation,” he said.

Horsman completed another internship while in college, at Bauman, Redanty and Shaul (BRS) in New York City.

Upon graduating from Point Park in 2009, he acquired a job at BRS as an assistant to an agent.

He moved on to a management company called Principal Entertainment, also in New York, in 2011, where he also worked as an agent’s assistant.

During those years he worked long hours, performing mundane tasks including scheduling appointments and reading material for talent.

“It takes a certain kind of person to stick all that out in the tough parts, to stick that out to become an agent, so it’s not for everybody,” he said. “But the people that are here, they do the job because they love it.”

Horsman’s hard work began to pay off. He joined ICM’s talent department in 2013, and spent two years working for co-head of talent Adam Schweitzer in New York.

As Schweitzer’s assistant, Horsman worked with stars such as Cuba Gooding Jr., Katie Holmes and Christoph Waltz.

Waltz in particular taught Horsman the value of longevity in show business. Horsman noted that Waltz spent years doing television in Germany before he began working with Schweitzer and achieved his big break as the diabolical Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”

That performance won Waltz an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2010.

He was back on the podium three years later for the same award in another Tarantino film, “Django Unchained,” as the bounty hunter King Schultz.

Horsman was happy to see Waltz’s success after all his long years of anonymity.

“I think that’s what every young agent dreams of, building a career for yourself, and also for an incredible client like that,” he said.

Horsman will have the opportunity to do that as an agent, as he quickly rose through the ranks at ICM. He transferred to ICM’s Los Angeles office in January after being promoted to coordinator in the talent department. Rather than assist one agent, he was responsible for helping all agents with various clients.

“That’s sort of where you cut your teeth and you start to prove who you are as more than an assistant,” Horsman said. “They see you in a different light and they start to gauge whether you have what it takes to become an agent.”

Horsman proved himself capable, and this month he was promoted to talent agent. He remains on the team of a few clients, including Gooding Jr. and actors Anthony McCarthy, Jerry O’Connell and Oliver Hudson.

“The goal now for me is to sign some clients,” he said.

Of course, that’s only the beginning.

“You’re only as good as your taste and your reputation in this business,” Horsman said. “(You have) to have a strong sense of talent and a good eye for choosing talent, and a strong sense in material and being able to have a good script.

“When there’s a good piece of material, every actor in town is jumping for that opportunity, so it’s being able to fight for your client and being able to advocate for them. You’re really representing them in that business.”

But it’s never just about business for Horsman, whose small-town sensibilities earn him trust among his clients.

“You become an integral part of their career as an agent, and you become so close,” he said. “You really do sort of feel like family.