Visiting Shondaland with Shonda Rhimes

I feel really lucky because I love what I do and I get to do what I love, and that's insane to me. That's the dream right there.

Welcome to my podcast Today, I met Samsung eight three seven. Joining me is a very exciting guest, Shonda Rhymes. Shonda is one of the most accomplished and celebrated television writers and producers of our time. I'm sure you've seen many of her shows, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, Private Practice, Bridgerton, the spinoff Queen Charlotte, and of course Ray's Anatomy, one of the longest running primetime TV shows ever. Shanda has become a force in the entertainment business. Do

It was great to be here. You look amazing.

Thank you. It's so fun to have you here because so much has happened. Shonda spent one night at my house. Was it one night or two nights? I think it was two nights nights at my little tenant house guest house, which was a little bit disheveled because my daughter had just torn it apart to refurnish it. But Shonda was writing, you were working on Bridgerton.

I was, And.

You were so busy. Your sister stayed with you, and you were editing, and I guess doing retakes and stuff. And I hardly saw you. And I really wanted to entertain you and everything, but you were so busy and the lights were on all night long. I did work all night. You did. She was looking for a house at the time. Also, in addition to finishing the first season of Bridgerton, Shonda was looking for a house nearby.

I love it. It's wonderful for my family. It's also a really friendly town. It has good food, so I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, and you're right on the sea there, You're near the sea. It's not really the sea, it's the sound, Long Island Sound, but it is beautiful. Why did you want to live on the East Coast.

I had never been in love with living on the West Coast. I'm a Midwesterner at heart, and I'd gone to college in New England, and I always thought I would end up in New England. And what was very interesting is is my career took me to Los Angeles, which I never would have guessed in a million years, I really wouldn't have. And so twenty years in, twenty five years in when the pandemic happened, I realized I can do all the same work I'm doing from anywhere. I don't actually have to be in LA to do

And we moved and got a beautiful house. I haven't seen pictures of that one yet, but Jonda also did a fantastic apartment in New York City, a very very I think while while you were working on Bridgerton, you got very fancy, chaste.

Well, you know what's funny is is I almost think that the taste of that got how it was decorated, influenced a lot of Bridgerton because we did first.

Oh you did. Oh that's so great, and working with a close friend of ours, and I think one of the most celebrated interior designers, Michael Smith.

Michael Smith so oh so did.

He work on Bridgerton interiors too?

He didn't. I just think that what he did in the apartment really sort of inspired the.

George and Georgian furniture and gilded mirrors and and those interiors. Let's get to Bridgerton first of all, because that was the last thing I really watched. I didn't see Queen Charlotte yet. Oh I think I only saw I think I saw two episodes. So in Bridgerton, it's very beautifully shot. Where is that in a studio or is it in real houses?

Oh? No, it's in real houses all over England. There's a lot of it that'shot in math. It's stunning, like the exteriors and the interiors that we get to film in our stunning. We have not really done a lot of stage work on that show. It's mostly just real amazing spaces and oh that's good.

Yeah, and a lot of those houses for rent for six.

Some of them are, and some of them we have to do some convincing, but some of them are.

Yeah. And it's so it's so beautifully shot and so beautifully edited and so amazingly acted by a cast that does that shake up the English a little bit. Having an all black cast pretty much, it does shake it up.

I mean, it's not an all black cattle, but you know, Letty Dan, Barry, the Duke, the Queen, they're all people of color and not got a very interes reception.

And well, because and I've been reading a lot about you in preparation, and so what you did with some of your shows, incorporating a lot of very fine talent, we wanted to see inclusion. We wanted to see a much more diverse America, and you brought it to TV in such a clever, beautiful way. I think you really influenced the rest of television because every single and because I think you've got advertiser dollars at the same time.

I think we proved in a very interesting way, in a way that I have never even really planned. But we ended up proving this as an economic model. Shows with more diverse audiences, so it shows with more diverse cast have more diverse audiences, larger audiences, and also more of spending power in terms of the advertisement.

Right to see Bridgerton with the Black Queen Gold What made you do that?

There is a whole part of history where they there's been real speculation about whether or not Queen Charlotte was a woman of color or not. And I thought, you know, I don't make shows that don't include somebody who looks like me. That's just not interesting to me. And I thought, well, let's go with the premise that Queen Charlotte definitely was a woman of color, and let's build our world from there. And that really helped us in terms.

Of why I don't want to know if she was or not. Really, if there's speculation, why don't we know?

I think there's been some erasure in history, a bit of erasure in history, because obviously that was not the popular idea at the time. But if you look at the portraits, if you listen to the stories you hear, it seems like that was who she was.

Really interesting, and just see the reaction and just see the success. I love it. I think it's just incredibly fabulous what you do.

I think audiences embraced that kind of storytelling, storytelling that just sort of leans into whatever the idea is.

Shonda started out as a novelist. Is that what you started out as?

I started out wanting to be a bat Yeah?

Okay, So where'd you go to college?

I went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

And how was that?

Actually? I loved it. It was probably the most exciting thing I did at the time in terms of learning to spread my wings creatively. I did a lot of theater. I directed a lot of theater there. I did a lot of writing. Television still hadn't occurred to me back then, but it was really a very fertile creative ground for me.

And it's such a beautiful place.

It's one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I has to go up there. When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend who was on the basketball t h a darkness that I would take that long trade ride. Yes, So you then decided that you were going to and you started to write books. And how many books have you written?

No? I did my books, So I got out of college. I foundered for a little while, worked in advertising, and then I read an article that said it was harder to get into USC Film School that it was to get into Harvard Law School. And my parents were academics, and that sounded like something they would accept. So I went to film school at USC, and I didn't start writing books until much much later.

On my caread or okay, oh so okay, after film school, yes, and what did film do film school do? Yeah?

It was great. It was a real jumping off point for me. I learned so much and I ended up writing some movies like I call them teen girl movies. I wrote Crossroads, starring Britney Spears, which I hear is being rereleased now.

Yeah, well she's becoming another news personality right.

Now, yes, exactly. And then I did a Princess Diaries too, and I did Introducing Dorothy Dandridge hbos So I did a bunch of that, and then really just realized that all of the real creative work, all the real character development, seemed to be happening on television, and I really wanted to do that.

And during COVID, more and more and more, so, don't you think, Yes, I agree. As movies sort of dwindled because of the difficulty of producing during during COVID TVs, I just took off.

Audiences stopped going to the movies, and everybody started wanting to watch things on their screens at home. And I think it just really exploded.

And as of I guess yesterday or this morning, the writers have decided to go back to work on this strike.

Well, yes, a deal was reached. That fact, yeah, I just loved about. But a deal was struck that was satisfactory to the negotiating committee. And so now, yeah, the writers are back to work. As at midnight last night.

Well, they're going to be there. They're going to be so prepared because I hope during this time it's a lot of them. It's five months. I know they must have been writing like crazy.

You would think, well, you would think that. I think for a lot of us, it was very stressful to be on strike. It was really difficult economically for the entire town. And then I think for some of us having that break actually was a great way to renew our creative brain and our creative energy. That was really helpful. So I don't know how much writing got done with all the worrying and the wrong.

I hope they did use some of the time to do that, because they got a nice, fair settlement for what I read, and I'm so happy for them, and I hope they did write because I miss Late Night so much. Right, you know, we have a poor Jimmy fallon and for for all the all the all the guys who are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs trying to try to be creative in other ways. But I'm excited about that. No, No, what about the actors.

That's the thing. The actors are still out. The actors are still on strike, and I think that's going to be also a pretty big battle. I don't know that that's gonna be.

Do you have to hold all production?

Yeah, we halted all production. Yeah. I don't think it's a simple solution. So we'll see what happens.

Yeah. Well, this is the whole AI and the whole all of that for the for the actors is something.

Yeah, it was big for the writers too.

Yes, So Shondaland tell us about the formation of Shondaland, because I love the name Shonda Land and this is the parent company of all things Shonda Rhimes and her and her group.

Well, it's funny because when you first create a show and you have to put a logo on the show for your producing credit, you have to come up with something. And so first episode of Gray's Anatomy, I was like, let's call it shondaland that sounds cute and fun. And it wasn't until the show becomes a huge hit that I realized that that's now the name, Like, that's the

Now, I just spent a weekend with doctor Nick dreamy ah Patrick again, Yes wow, And I posted a picture of me with Patrick. I saw that and and I cannot tell you, I think I have gotten more comments about about Patrick than any other person that's ever been on my Instagram. People were crazy about him. Is he retired from the show.

He's retired from the show. He's been gone for oh my god, almost ten seasons.

Oh.

But I think that that he left in an imprint that remained so strong for people. And honestly, like I saw him on your on your Instagram and thought like, Wow, he looks amazing.

Oh, he looks so good, and he's a beautiful wife. She was with him. We went to Brunello Cucinelli's birthday party in Italy and he told me about a house he just bought up in Maine and he wants me to come see it because I have a house in Maine also, and so I'm going to go go consult with him on his house. He seems very busy with it. But he's making movies now, so very exciting for his career. But he became, you know, world famous with Grey's Anatomy, as did the other actors on the show. Is just

It's on you can see it all on Netflix, and it's still on ABC, and recent episodes are still on Hulu, so there's a lot of ways you can get it, which is great.

So when you were preparing for such a show, did you did you learn a lot about medicine?

I did. I spent a lot of time with a couple of surgical residents, asking them what their lives were like and what, you know, how it all worked. I had a wonderful doctor who was over at UCLA Health who let us come and look around and learn about medicine from the viewing perspective, which was interesting and exciting. And then I read a ton and talked to a lot of doctors, and we had tons of medical consultants,

It in and they would put in the Oh, that's the way, because it's so professional.

We work really hard on that, and we have some actual doctors on staff on our writing staff right well.

And order does that with the legal, You did it amazingly with the medical, just amazingly.

I love to make science exciting.

That Ellen Pompeio has become a friend of mine.

Ellen's wonderful.

Oh she's a fantastic, fantastic actress and a fantastic person. And she was that part. She is that part.

She is that part, and she I think she always will be no matter how much she participates and how much she takes off, she always will be that part.

And I think that's what you do to your actors and actresses. Get to Scandal, another very long running, beautiful show. You had seven seasons, seven seasons, and will there be an eighth or not?

No? No, no, We're never going to do anymore. I think that we ended it exactly the right time for us in terms of our storytelling.

We asked our listeners for some questions for you. So many of them were about Olivia Pope, so many about each character. I did this one have to die? Why did that one have to die? So many people died in that show. They But what really got me in that show was the speech, that rapid fire speech of Olivia Pope. I started to talk like that and I had to stop myself. Where did that come from? Is that her? Or you?

No? You know what's interesting is I wrote the first script and it was I think seventy five pages long, and the script is usually between fifty and sixty. And I wrote on at the beginning of the script like this is the direction. This should be spoken at rapid fire pace. You should never be slowing down to get out the words as fast as possible. Part of that was I wanted it all on the show. Part of it it felt like the pace of Washington at that point, it felt like the pace of her work. They should

Era were you thinking about when you wrote that show? Which era of Washington? Which presidency? Oh?

In terms of who was the inspiration for that? Yeah, Well what's interesting is I was lucky because I got to write it was during the Omalla presidency, So I wanted to write a president that was opposite as President of Mom as could, because I didn't want there to be any comparisons there. But I also was working with Judy Smith, who worked during the Bush to presidency, and I felt like, this is very interesting, It's an interesting

I saw a little Clinton there.

There was a little Clinton, little Reagan. Like I tried. I tried to really mix it up.

But the where did the evil come from? That kid is infused. Evil is infused in that show. Do you think it's really like that anywhere?

Well, at the time when I wrote it, I always say it was really nice to write a ghost story when you're standing in the light in the broad daylight. But that show was really in a time when everything seemed so above born and so wonderful in Washington, and I was thinking, like, what if all these amazing people that we admire so much, what if they're all just deep down inside like monsters? What would that feel like?

Well? There was one too, Yes, right, there were things. There were there were people in Washington promoting that, and those people kind of come out in your show very very strongly, yes, and very worrisomely.

Yes.

You know that was and your Olivia Pope. Has she done any other big shows since Carrie Candall Kerry Washington's doing so much. She's got her own production company and they are pretty She's so smart.

She's one of the smartest people I know, not just one of the smartest actors, one of the smartest people I know.

And beautiful.

Well, yes that goes out saying, but she's really really brilliant and has been really working to make her own shows. And she's done a couple of things. She and Reese Witherspoon did a show, and she's she's done a ton.

That part, though, did it hurt her? It was allowed inside and that was interesting. That was a hard part.

She's the person who really digs in though she I think she'd tell her you could tell her when she was doing it. I think she relished all the parts of the character that were so different from her that allowed her to like dig into new things. And she was always like the most committed actor.

And you really give it to them.

I enjoy writing things for actors that well, just I enjoy writing stories that feel a little bit unexpected but also sort of expand what you're so prolific.

I mean, you go from Washington to Queen Charlotte to the operating room. How do you do that?

Well, where do you do that? It used to be that I was writing three shows at once, and I am not doing that anymore, which is lovely, but it's also fun for me. Like there was a period of time when I could write Scandal and write Gray's Anatomy and turn my brain off from one to the other, and it would feel like arrest, like a respect from one to the other. Now not so much, I don't think, But I love getting to dive into new world.

And by the way, our guest is how old fifty three fifty three years old, Look what she has accomplished and fifty three short years. You are amazing. Oh, thank you, No, really amazing. It's just phenomenal to think of all this success, but not even the success, just the amount of work and beautiful work that you have created for us.

I feel really lucky because I love what I do and I get to do what I love, and that's that's insane to me. That's the dream right there.

Well, now that the writer's strike is over, Yes, what are you working on? Oh? About it a little?

Well, we are making a show that's still not being We were shooting it and we had to stop, so we'll see when we get back when the actors are back. We're making a show called The Residents, which is just a very all out mystery in the White House, which I'm excited about, which I think is really fun and.

A little bit different for us.

We still have more seasons of Bridgerton to come, a lot more seasons of Bridgerton to come, and I'm searching for exactly what I'm going to focus on next for me and Bridgerton.

Where does it go? Where do you go?

Well, you know, there are eight British and siblings, and there are eight Bridgton books about eight Bridgis and siblings, so our goal is to tell a story about each one of them. Queen Charlotte was set in the Georgian era, but this is the Regency era, and we get to really explore what that means for women at that time and what it means for relationships.

And I don't know, I I think it's an unresult. Do you spend much time overseas in England?

I've spent a little bit more, definitely a little bit more time. And now that I'm sort of halfway between la and London, it makes it easier, so it's exciting to get to be there. But mostly I always say that if I'm standing on a set, I'm the only person not working. Everybody else is busy doing a job, and any word I say becomes a criticism or a concern, So I try really hard to just be supporting. Yeah, you want everybody to feel free to do their creative work.

So you say that you suffered from poster syndrome, what does that mean? Imposter's syndrome when you were working.

I actually don't suffer from imposter syndrome. I don't believe in imposter syndrome. And the reason I say that is because it's so hard to believe in yourself anyway that if you start giving it a name, like I refuse to name it, same way I refuse to name writer's block. If you start giving it a name, it sort of takes over. So I try really hard to just keep moving forward.

You wrote the book The Year of Yes Yes. Tell us about that book.

So it's a memoir sort of about I think it's sort of about my creative process. But really what it's about is I would come home and tell my my I have several sisters. I would tell my sister all of the things that I had been invited to do. I'd invite to go to this event, and I'd invited to say this thing at the castle and this and that, and she finally said, are you going to do any of these things? And I said, well no, And she said,

Is it is it on YouTube?

It's on YouTube. We're gonna watch it. I did a Jimmy you know what. It was amazing when I discovered in this, in the writing of this book and in this process of this is to do the thing that terrifies you sort of undoes the fear. So I was so I mean, I was shaking when I got up to that podium, but somehow there was just this moment when you can see me exhale and all of my fear just washes away, and it's It was profound for me, It really was. There were a lot of those moments that year.

And what else did you say yes to? Oh?

I went on Jimmy Kimmel Live. And I had always been afraid of being on like any kind of live show. I thought that was going to be a terrible thing. Jimmy was amazing and sort of made it easy. It was fun. He's so fun, and he was so kind to me because I so clearly was terrified. I starred in an episode of The Not Start guest starting in an episode of The De Kayaling Show where I was acting, which has always been a thing that was also terrifying for me as well. I did a lot of things.

You said that you said yes to know to a proposal.

Yes I did. I was sort of on that track that you're supposed to be on. And really great guy and never been married, No, never been married.

Never been married. Really great children do you have?

I have three, three kids? Oh nice, various ways.

And you said your daughter's out just graduated from college.

I have a daughter who's in college in New York City, and I have a ten year old and an eleven year old. So I just it just wasn't me. Like I kept trying to figure out how I was going to fit myself into this box and it wasn't me.

And I remember, I can't imagine that you have time to be married. That's so that's it, that you don't have time, right.

Someone once said to me that you can be married you can have a career, and you can have or you can have children, but you can't have all three.

Well, when we talked about balance in the olden days, you know, everybody thought you could balance work with husband, with children, with home with entertaining. And you know, I talk about I talk about that a lot because balance just it didn't work for me. And getting divorced freed me, not happily. I like being married, yeah, but freed me from that kind of situation and angst because it's hard to be married and do everything that the husband wants

I agree. I agree. I'm looking if anybody wants to be out here on Martha, she's looking, But I'm not looking to get married.

Okay, same with me, Yeah, always always the same. That's out of the way. So was one, Yes, really fantastic exciting that you did that you never thought you would do, like jump out of an airplane with the parachuters.

Oh gosh, I think my yeses were smaller. They were definitely smaller than that. The best thing I did, and I did a Ted talk on this, and it sounds crazy, but the best thing that I did was I said yes to my children every time they asked me to play, which, as you know, as busy as life gets and as busy as you are with work and with everything else,

Run off and do something else, but you were there for that right.

I was there for them, and that made a huge difference.

I remember working at your age and a little younger, and traveling to New York to my job and making sure that I got home every night just to have dinner, because even though it was very very difficult, I got home for making dinner and sitting down at a table with my husband and daughter, and that was very important.

It's very powerful for them too, for your child especially, it's a really powerful thing to know that you're there there.

Your producing partner is Betsy Bears. Yes, how important is that relationship to your work.

Betty and I have been together since the beginning of Grey's Anatomy as producing partners. I've known her as long I mean as long as the show's been on the air and before I've known her. I've known her as long as I've known my daughter twenty one years. And she's been amazing, Like she's been sort of the other half of my brain in terms of thinking about producing in the practical ways where I'm thinking sort of in the creative ways. But she's also been a great person

She was she was the fixer. Yeah, it was your CEO that lives in Dallas.

Oh, that's mega. I have a wonderful CEO who lives in Dallas. And that was sort of a thing that we did starting at the beginning of our sort of pandemic experience. I know I needed to knew I needed to hire somebody, and I knew I needed somebody and we were sort of being remote and we still are really doing a lot of remote things, and it felt like if I was going to move to Connecticut, I needed somebody who was going to be boots on the ground.

Well, she loves her job. I met her husband in Italy, Yes, and we talked about it. So she goes back and forth to La. Yeah, manages everything spectacular somebody like that. So can you describe how your roles are different on your roster of hit shows? So, Gray's Anatomy, right, you're the writer, Well, Scandal, you're the writer.

Right, Gray's Anatomy, Scandal, Private Practice. As the writer and executive producer on How to Go with Murder, I was the executive producer for a wonderful writer named Pete Nook.

That's such a good show.

Oh he and he did just He's amazing, He's brilliant and it was wonderful to work with him. I hope we get to do it again sometimes because he was so great. And then on the streaming shows when we moved over to Netflix, Bridgerton was a project that I found and was in love with and felt like really strongly about. But I brought in another writer to write, which was great because it allowed me to shepherd but

I have some numbers here that were like astonishing.

We had three shows in the top ten Netflix Feeling of all time, and then a fourth show. Okay, Queen Charlotte came in and knocked one of the third show that we had on there off the list, and so we still have three shows.

Oh Ohlie knocked off Bridgerton cho.

No, King Charlotte knocked off Inventing Anna. So yeah, that was a good show. I enjoyed that writing that show. That was very different for me and so much fun. When your actress was so good, she's incredibly talented. They all were. It was really wonderful.

Show was amazing. Here's some interesting facts. Netflix most watched TV shows one to ten. There's Squid Games, Stranger Things, Damer Wednesday, Money Heist, and then Bridgerton season two, Ridgerton's season one. But you want to know how many viewers? How many hours Bridgerton two six hundred and fifty six million hours watched? Yeah that is and that's but that's not that's on a single TV not knowing how many

It depends on who they are. I mean, I think there are couples who watch everything together. I think there are definitely. I hear a lot of anecdotal stories about families watching Bridgerton together, although I don't recommend watching it with your mom. It's a lot.

Did you love Squid Games?

I thought it was fascinating. I did too, Yeah, I was fascinating.

My daughter banded from her children. They were a living I get that. Yes, banned it and and then I started to talk about it with with film one day, and they knew everything.

They watched it.

Of course they had watched it, and they and I thought it was funny, and they didn't think it was quite as funny as I thought. It was interesting. But but but that they knew.

Everything they do, and you think you think you're sort of hiding something from them or keeping something from them.

It's very hard to do. How accurate it is Queen Charlotte.

We tried to be accurate in as many ways as we possibly could, Like there's a lot of actual history embedded in there. But I was really trying to tell the story not of the actual Queen Charlotte, but of the Queen Charlotte you've come to know in Bridgerton. Like I wanted to tell her origin story because as played by Golda, I mean, that character is amazing, and I kept thinking, how does she come to be who she is?

The American audience of course loves it. What about the English audience.

He really embraced it as well. It did really well over there, which was really exciting to see. I also think that a lot of them enjoyed. You know, we really depicted mental health in a very specific way, and I was really proud of that, like that we got to sort of humanize this character who for a long time had been sort of referred to as just mad King George and made fun of. So I think that helped.

So how do you foster a creative environment in your writer's room.

I love having people in the room who will argue with me, and I try to make that very clear, like your dissent is welcome, because I think it's terrifying uncreative to me in a room where everyone's supposed to agree with me.

Well, you say you have an hour script for Bridgerton? Is it an hour? A total hour?

Brigishon's an hour?

Yeah, and you have to write how many pages does that take?

Well, luckily I don't write Bridgerton, but Bridgington's an hour and it's probably about sixty five seventy pages. But like inventing Anna, it was the same thing, and Queen Charlotte was the same thing. But a writer's room should be a place where people feel like they can tell you you're wrong, They could argue your opinion. And I love people who think very differently than I do, so I like to fill the room with people who are like real individuals.

How long does one hour of Queen Charlotte take? You're right, you do an outline.

I don't do outlines. I mean I have to be I'm a person who doesn't do outlines, but when it's in your head right. But when I have writers writing with me, it's really important, and I think we try really hard to give them time to you know, you break a story, you talk about it a lot, and when you're working with a room, it's really important that I'm very talkative and share like what's in my mind, and then they can build on that and share their

What a great thing to show the viewing public a character like that which we would never get to know just from a book.

It was important. I thought it would be really fun too to sort of see where she came from and to view it. I mean, not with a ton of sympathy, but with a ton of empathy for who she is and how she got there.

That's a good word. That's yeah. And what's for you, besides of course obvious success, what's the most rewarding aspect of being the head of shondalam a media company? You know you are a megabrand.

I love getting to invest in talent and help them tell their stories. We have a series of podcasts with amazing people. We enjoy like bringing other young writers along and helping them have their own shows. And if I can help them in any way, I think that that's exciting. So to me, like, that's what I enjoy the most.

Who is your competition, and you know your competition.

I don't know that we have exact competition. They're really big companies who do some other really great things. But luckily, I think we all have our own specific creative lanes right now.

Like Squid Names has their own lanes, Squid.

Games has their own life in Korea too, right, exactly, but they're indefinite like a lot of companies. Ryan Murphy's company makes a ton of shows. We are in totally different lanes, which I love you. So it's it's fun to be able to have it that way.

I talked to him and he says, he goes up and then he goes down. He has happy, then he goes to evil, then he goes happy. That's true evil.

That's interesting.

Yeah, you're a little bit more even tempered. I am a little bit more, but you're a mother, yes, and I think that makes a huge difference.

I think it does too.

So you've written characters who have become really a part of the pop culture lexicon. We talked about doctor McDreamy Mix, Steamy, Olivia Pope. How do you know when you've developed a character that will really resonate with the audience. How did you know that Olivia Pope would resonate as she did so strongly?

You know, my only goal when I start writing shows is to write something that I really really want to watch, and that's my only barometer. I think one day, shows I really really want to watch might be something that nobody else wants to watch. But I have the good fortune right now that when I create a character that I really care for, it feels like the audience also feels that cares for them too.

So why do you think Gray's Anatomy has withstood the test of time for twenty one years? Wow?

I think part of it is the longevity of the characters. I mean, most people stayed on that show for between seven and ten fifteen years. I mean there was always somebody sort of doing the follow through. We didn't have a lot of attrition. I'd say yeah, and then.

Liked their jobs. Yeah, I liked being who they were on the show. I think they did. I think that those characters are heroic in a lot of ways. I also think, though, that there's something really relatable for the public about the kind of medicine we were practicing, and that we were telling the stories from the point of view of people who were struggling to do their jobs well. And when you did your job badly on a day, someone died, I think there's something really relatable about that.

Yes, every year I'm surprised, and every year I'm thrilled that people are still embracing the show.

Is there a big difference between writing for a network or a Netflix?

So I think the big deal about writing for network is there are all of these fences involved. You have to tell a story in this many acts, you have this much time, you can say, oh, we're do all these things right. There's a lot of those fences. And when you go to a place like Netflix, there are no fences, and they've been very supportive and wonderful about the creative stuff we want to do.

The problem you're one of their super super superstars.

But the problem with being able to do what you want to do is that you really have to then feel the responsibility of the quality control because if you can do anything, that's always a terrible thing. I think, like, it's nice to remember that we can do anything, but we shouldn't do everything.

Well, there are executives there. Don't they say anything to you or.

Do they just oh, They're very supportive and lovely. But we really have been given a lot of freedom that I don't think necessarily other people have, and I take that as a great responsibility.

Did you propose Bridger to them? Yes, okay, and they liked it.

Yeah. These were books that I had become obsessed with and really really wanted us to have, And so I walked in the door with those like really in my mind of something we should do.

So spin offs and sequels have become their own world. What's the difference between building a show and then building a franchise from that show.

That's a good thing. That's a good question. We have built a franchise off of Grey's Anatomy, obviously with Station nineteen and with Private Practice, and it's all working. It's about doing it authentically, Like you can't just jam some other show onto something. You really have to make it spring from the heart of what the show is to really build it so it works. I think that's the

One question that came up was what are three episodes that you have created that you're so proud of. Oh, interesting in any of your shows, This is a good question. This gives you the shivers still, the super.

Bowl episode of Grey's Anatome where Meredith has our hand and on a mom and about body cavity. That was one because it was the first big episode of anything I'd written, and it was exciting. Scandal, There are so many episodes Scandal that I really just love, but the one where Olivia Pope has an abortion on Christmas Eve might be the one that I like the most because of its power and how we told that story. And then Private Practice, we did this an amazing episode called

Really. Yeah, So your family is such an important part of your life. You do so much for your family, and what roles have they played in your career?

I feel like my family has done so much for me. How many sisters you said, you have several sisters. I am the youngest of six. Oh wow, yeah, so girls? No, no, no, no, no, four girls, two boys.

We were three boys, three girls in my fas.

Oh see, yeah, same saying six. So I was the youngest of six. My sister Sandy, who is amazing and probably my best friend in the world, also sort of runs the other half of our company, the digital division, and all that goes along with that. So for her, I love it because she's a person who can say to me, that's a bad idea, Shanda, No, but also just has this well of creativity of her own which

Did they live around Yeah, some of them live.

Pretty close, which is wonderful. And my parents, who when I moved to Connecticut, they basically said to me, you took our granddaughters and they packed up and they moved to Connecticut too, So they live about four blocks from me.

Now, oh how great.

Yeah, we're a close family.

That is so nice.

Yeah, so very nice.

In your book, you talk a lot about how hard you were to create a future for your daughters. What are your hopes for your daughters?

You know, the best thing I can say the world. The best thing I can say is I feel like my parents did everything they could to set up a world so that me and my siblings that we could so that we could all succeed, succeed in the way that we wanted to succeed. And I think that they made sure that we had the education behind it and all of those things that were necessary. And for me, I feel like now I'm in a position where I can set up the world for my daughter so that

And this is a silly question they want me to ask. Okay, if you were able to date any of the characters from your shows. Who would it be? Which are those sexy men would you be dating?

I might have to reach back in time and say that I would need to date the Duke from Bridgerton for season one of the Bridgerton of that series. He's a little damaged, but all of the men I write are pretty damaged or yeah, so I think probably maybe him recently, but it's hard to know. I mean, there's so many interesting ones, and it's also just not healthy to think about dating somebody whose lines you write.

Well, you have been fantastic. Thank you so much for talking to me for such a long time, and to keep up with all that Shonda is doing, and it's a lot. Follow her on Instagram at Shonda Rhymes. Find her podcasts and more on her website Shondalandmedia dot com. Thank you so very much for taking the time, Shonda. Thank you, it's a pleasure. And keep up this fantastic work so we have things to watch forever and ever.

Thank you, thank you.