Hollywood is like an ATM for Democratic politicians, who air-drop in to schmooze at celebrity-packed fundraisers and court wealthy entertainment moguls. Kamala Harris has a very different relationship with the city. It’s been her home—when she’s not in Washington, DC—since she wed LA entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff in 2014.

At the time of her marriage, Harris was the attorney general of California, and based in the Bay Area. But she’d already forged tight friendships with a number of Angelenos, including Disney Entertainment cochairman Dana Walden—who has known her since 1994, long before either of them ascended to the lofty perches they occupy today. Harris met Emhoff on a blind date arranged by another close LA friend, Chrisette Hudlin, wife of director-producer Reginald Hudlin. As Harris recalled in her book The Truths We Hold, Hudlin told her, “I just met this guy. He’s cute and he’s the managing partner of his law firm and I think you’re really going to like him.” (In a kind of circular kismet, Hudlin says she met her husband on a blind date arranged by Dana and her husband, Matt Walden.)

Bad Robot co-CEO Katie McGrath, a former political strategist and a friend of Harris’s, remembers meeting her at one of her first fundraising events in Los Angeles. “She was just immediately impressive and warm and promising and tough, but also full of joy—all of the qualities that she still has,” McGrath says. “It was refreshing to meet somebody who was on the rise in that way, who we could very confidently get behind.” Or as McGrath’s husband, J.J. Abrams, once wrote for Vanity Fair, “What struck me upon hearing her speak was that we had stumbled upon the most unusual of creatures: an authentically inspiring human being who happened to be in politics. Of course, politicians are supposed to inspire. But how often do you feel inspired? For me, the answer is essentially never. But Kamala struck a chord.”

Harris solidified her standing in LA while stumping for Barack Obama on the campaign trail. “[She] was almost immediately recognized in the entertainment circles as a rising star,” according to a 2009 Los Angeles Times story. By the time she was making the rounds of Brentwood and Beverly Hills to raise money for her attorney general campaign, “the crowds were wowed,” the article continued. “She’s articulate and beautiful, sort of like a political version of Halle Berry.” She had A-list supporters even then: Chris Rock, Chuck Lorre, Norman Lear, Sean Penn, Sherry Lansing, Universal chairman Donna Langley, as well as the Hudlins, the Waldens, McGrath, and Abrams.

From the Archive: Kamala Harris

Another early fan was top talent agent Chris Silbermann, now a managing director at Creative Artists Agency. He’s known Emhoff since they were neighbors in their early 20s. “He and I would play pickup basketball on the weekend,” Silbermann says. “I’d go to his place for dinner after work all the time.” As glittering as Harris’s network of supporters is, he says, “their LA life’s pretty quiet. It’s not like they are showing up all over town or constantly going to premieres together.”

“They’ve been drinking from a fire hose ever since she’s been the vice president, and for those few moments when she gets to be in LA, they’re kind of hunkered down at home,” says Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, a community leader and former TV executive who is part of Harris and Emhoff’s social circle in Brentwood. “But when she was a senator, they were part of the community. We had this small group who’d been friends with either Doug or Kamala for a long time, and sometimes we all gathered for dinner.”

Gilbert-Lurie recalls being startled one evening when another member of their dinner party arrived with security after receiving a threat, while “Kamala and Doug just walked over and walked into the house without security—they were just friends coming to dinner.” The Harris-Emhoff family never had an entirely normal LA existence, she continues: “She wasn’t out playing tennis, she was working really hard, but she was very well-liked by her friends in our community.”

One dinner particularly stuck with Gilbert-Lurie. “I remember seeing her early on in her vice presidency, during a period when there was a lot of criticism of her. She had flown in from Asia that morning and at six o’clock she was hosting a dinner party at her home. I wanted to give her a pep talk, but she didn’t seem to need one.” Instead of complaining, Gilbert-Lurie says, “she and Doug were talking about their enthusiasm for doing the best job they possibly could do. So if I ever need someone to prop me up and help me keep an eye on the finish line, that would be Kamala.”

In the days since Biden stepped down, social media has been flooded with memes and videos capturing different facets of Harris: offering recipe advice, discussing her taste in music, laughing, or interrogating a Supreme Court nominee. “I used to say, ‘I wish voters saw the Kamala we know, who cooks meals and hangs out with her friends and laughs at funny things,’” Gilbert-Lurie says. “And I feel like in the last 24 hours, more people are seeing her that way.”

Hollywood went into panic mode over Joe Biden’s candidacy after the presidential debate. Most of that anxiety has now morphed into “unabashed excitement and energy unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” according to Jordan C. Brown, a Hollywood political strategist who served on the Biden campaign’s Entertainment Advisory Council and worked on events for Harris during her Senate and presidential runs. “I think people didn’t realize how worried and hopeless they were until she had this opportunity, and the party united behind her. I’ve just never seen anything like it.”

Although Brown thinks most of the town’s top leaders and talent will be all-in for Harris, he dismisses stories suggesting that entertainment industry pros are excited by the prospect of having the first Hollywood president since Reagan. “I haven’t heard a single person who cares about that,” he says. “This is about saving our country—none of that glitz and stuff matters. I think people just feel like she can articulate a path forward and much more competently prosecute the case against Trump.”

McGrath, the Bad Robot co-CEO, says she’s had a flood of talented people reaching out to her asking how they can be of service to Harris. It’s more “just put me to work” vibes, she says, than “I want my name on that” vibes: “It’s really moving, like everyone’s rolling up sleeves and getting down to it.”

Because Harris has become a presidential candidate so late in the cycle, there will be fewer opportunities for fundraisers. “Maybe she’ll be here twice between now and the election, given how little time there is, so everyone will just get on board,” says Brown, the strategist. “You’ll have the old guard, but you’ll also have some of the new generation helping, like Shonda Rhimes, Greg Berlanti, Ryan Murphy, and Scooter Braun.” Rhimes has already publicly announced her support for Harris, as have George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee, and Kerry Washington, among many others. There are some industry powerhouses “who privately are going to vote for Trump because of taxes or Israel,” Brown says. “But by and large, I think all the usual suspects that supported Obama, Clinton, and Biden will be on board soon.”

Even DreamWorks cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg, a major force in Hollywood political fundraising who stood by Biden in recent weeks, has jumped onboard the USS Kamala. He is now a cochair of Harris’s campaign. “Again and again, she has been underestimated. Again and again, she has triumphed,” Katzenberg wrote of the vice president in a New York Times op-ed. “I couldn’t be more confident that this November will be no different.”

A-list backing can be a double-edged sword. Harris may have a house in Brentwood and deep ties to the entertainment industry, but she will have to walk a fine line, some Hollywood sources say, using celebrities to get out the vote without turning off voters who live outside the velvet rope. “It’s something that they will need to be really strategic about,” says one insider. Some of her oldest friends may face tricky situations, too, like Walden, who has reportedly stopped fundraising for Harris because she oversees ABC News as part of her Disney job.

“She will get money from Hollywood, she’ll get support, there’ll be fundraisers,” says Silbermann, who has a number of clients ready to support Harris. “But I think money only gets you so far in this election. Ultimately it’s about her defining what she stands for, and her vision for the country.”