How A Creative Boss Gets It Done
Happy To Be Here
Greta Johnsen
4.6 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2018
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ilene Chaiken has been a showrunner for TV hits like Fox’s Empire, an executive producer for Hulu’s The Handmaid's Tale, and a writer, producer, and director for Showtime’s The L Word in the mid-2000s. In other words, she’s a boss.
“I don’t like the word that much,” Chaiken said on Nerdette. “I mean, I like it as in, ‘Oh, she’s a boss.’ You know, ‘She’s a badass. She’s a boss.’ But I don’t like the kind of hierarchical aspect of it.”
Chaiken talked with Nerdette co-hosts Tricia Bobeda and Greta Johnsen about the upcoming reboot of The L Word, her recently greenlit pilot project with Fox, and about how she became a boss. She also had some important homework for you: “I want to know who hasn’t seen herself — and I’ll just make it gendered — who hasn’t seen herself represented on television, and what would she like to see?”
If you’ve got an answer, tweet them to @NerdettePodcast and @IleneChaiken.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still |
| 0:06.1 | watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you, |
| 0:12.7 | soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making, |
| 0:18.0 | Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago. |
| 0:25.7 | Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure. |
| 0:28.3 | Listen wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:35.1 | From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. |
| 0:36.0 | I'm Greta Johnson. |
| 0:37.1 | And I'm Tricia Bobita. Nerdat is a show where we talk to people |
| 0:39.0 | about their obsessions, people who are scientists and poets, astronauts, and adventurers. People who |
| 0:43.7 | dare to ask big questions and explore the unknown. Our guest this week is a boss. |
| 0:50.1 | Her name is Eileen Shakin, and she has built much of her life's work on two big questions. |
| 0:56.1 | Where are all the stories about people like me and my friends? |
| 0:59.0 | And how can we be more inclusive storytellers? |
| 1:03.3 | You might not know Eileen Shakin's name, but you probably are familiar with her work. |
| 1:06.8 | She's probably best known as being the executive producer for Handmaid's Tale on Hulu. |
| 1:10.9 | You don't owe me. |
| 1:14.4 | I'm not just one of your many toys. |
| 1:18.1 | She's also the executive producer and showrunner for Empire on Fox. |
| 1:25.9 | We first saw her at Work It, which is a lady podcaster festival put on by the... |
| 1:29.8 | For the Illuminati of Lady Podcasters. |
| 1:32.3 | First rule of Lady Podcaster Illuminati. |
... |
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