Hi everyone. Welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Lorian McKenna. And today we're heading

into the stunning, sexy world of Bridgerton. And I'm very excited to be talking to our guest today,

Bridgeton showrunner and head writer Jess Brownell. Jess has been working for the Shonda Rhymes led

company, Shonda Land, since 2008. After graduating from USC, Jess started as the second assistant for Shonda's creative partner and executive producer Betsy Beers doing weekend script reads and aiding the music supervisor for Grey's Anatomy.

After years of learning from some of the best writers and producers for television, she became a staff writer in season four of scandal.

With the company's overall deal shifting to Netflix, she was staffed on

inventing Anna. Jess was on staff for Bridgeton for the first two seasons. Her iconic

season two episode victory served as a calling card for her with the show, and she was bumped

to head writer and showrunner for the unbelievably dazzling season three of the show. She continues the same

role for season four. Both parts are now available on Netflix. Please watch them before listening

to this episode because there will be some spoilers. Jess, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

I'm really excited to be here. Well, I'm really excited for you to be here.

And last night, I was taking some notes, finishing season two and, you know, because it came out

yesterday. I know we're going to air next week or hi today whenever everyone's listening. But I got to

watch a whole thing yesterday. And my daughter came out. She's 14. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm going to interview this woman who's a showrunner of Bridgeton. And she's like, what? Like, I was like, you don't even watch that show. And she's like, but what? Oh, just casually, mama. You're just going to do that. I'm like, yeah. So I got, I felt like, ooh, she thinks I'm cool for a minute. So thank you for that. Yeah, I'm pressing one's 14 year old. That's like, you've done well. You've done well. Nothing else impresses her, like, at all. You're doing this all the time. Come on, 14 year old. Which is what I loved about hyacinth. and the sort of like the mood swings and the time. Come on, 14-year-old. Which is what I loved about hyacinth and the sort of like the mood swings

and the extremes and just the teen of her. I was like, yep, I live with that. Like, of course,

she's not obsessed with boys or marriage or anything. Thank God. But, you know, just of the time,

it's like, yeah, I live with that every day.

Yeah, I remember being 14 and being obsessed with, you know, crushes and marriage, not marriage, crushes, I should say.

Yes, I mean, drawing your married name on a peachy folder. I mean, the hormones. The hormones are just raging.

Which is what I love about your show.

The hormones are raging. The hormones are raging, all the hormones. And I'm a big fan. So like I said earlier before we started recording, I'm going to try to keep my whatever shreds of cool I have. But we'll see how that goes.

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