It’s great to see Shonda Rhimes and Veena Sud here. Honestly, I don’t know how they could have done a panel with drama showrunners without including Rhimes since she has three shows on the air. Is there anyone else with three shows on the air?
Even her fellow showrunners don’t know how she does it (and she has a three month old baby.)
Here are some of the most interesting points on how she manages all the different shows. Read the full roundtable here.
THR: Shonda, with three shows, how do you make sure each episode still has your imprint and tone?
Rhimes: If you spend time in the writers room, it usually comes through. You know, I feel like I spend some time downloading my brain, and then I have to go someplace else and download my brain there. But what’s worked is, on Grey’s, I’ve kept the same writers since basically season two. Those people know me inside and out: “Shonda’s not going to like that.” They answer their own questions a lot of the time. On Private, I’m still continuing to hone that skill. But on Scandal, it was great because I said, “I’m just going to plop myself down in this writers room like the old days.” And then everybody can come ask me questions about the other two shows.
And when asked how she actually navigates the different sets
Rhimes: No. I’m on three different lots. I don’t know how it happened, but I do know that it requires the studio to pay for a driver for me. (Laughs.) So I’m not going to complain about it. That is the single greatest thing that’s ever happened. I was trying to do like two days here and two days there and one day here. That didn’t work; I probably hit two shows every day. They’re all on this side of town — Raleigh, Sunset Gower and Prospect — so it’s not so bad. I have a 3-month-old baby now, so I just said I was going to work from home and everyone had to come to me there! And they have this awesome editing system where you can edit from home. So that’s been good. Time management, I guess.
The woman is a serious mogul. I am in awe of her time management.
