How A Creative Boss Gets It Done
Happy To Be Here
Greta Johnsen
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2018
⏱️ 25 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.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This fall, W bez invites you to our upcoming live events. |
| 0:05.0 | Join us in person for smart discussions, heartfelt storytelling, and more. |
| 0:09.0 | Check out the full calendar now at W be easy.org |
| 0:12.6 | slash events. |
| 0:13.6 | From W be easy Chicago this is |
| 0:19.2 | Nurdette I'm Greta Johnson and I'm Tricia Bobita |
| 0:21.8 | Nurdette is a show where we talk to people about their obsessions, |
| 0:25.0 | people who are scientists and poets, astronauts and adventurers, |
| 0:28.0 | people who dare to ask big questions and explore the unknown. |
| 0:31.0 | Our guest this week is a boss. The |
| 0:33.4 | us this week is a boss. Her name is Eileen shaken and she has built much of her life's work on two big questions. |
| 0:40.2 | Where are all the stories about people like me and my friends? |
| 0:43.0 | And how can we be more inclusive storytellers? |
| 0:48.0 | You might not know Eileen Chaggin's name, but you probably are familiar with her work. |
| 0:51.0 | She's probably best known as being the executive |
| 0:53.8 | producer for Handmaid's tale on Hulu. She's also the executive producer and showrunner for Empire on Fox. |
| 1:07.0 | We first |
| 1:15.0 | for the alumna by the alumnat of Lady podcaster's |
| 1:16.0 | Shh! |
| 1:18.0 | First rule of Lady podcaster alumnati, talk about it all the time. |
| 1:21.0 | Sorry, carry on, yes. We saw Eileen at work it. She did a live interview |
| 1:26.2 | with RICO Decodes Kara Swisher and it was one of the most delightful things Tricia that you and I have ever |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Greta Johnsen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Greta Johnsen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.