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Transcript

Shonda Rhimes · The David Rubenstein Show

0:04
Speaker 1: For nearly two decades, Shonda Rhymes has been one of
0:07
Speaker 1: the most important people in television. She ran Thursday nights
0:10
Speaker 1: at ABC, and her show Gray's Anatomy is still a
0:13
Speaker 1: top performer sixteen years after its debut. Recently, Shanda brought
0:17
Speaker 1: her considerable skills to Netflix, where her reign as a
0:20
Speaker 1: hit maker continues. I first met Shanda when she joined
0:23
Speaker 1: the board of trustees at the Kenny Center, where I
0:25
Speaker 1: learned she's not just a creator, but a leader. When
0:28
Speaker 1: this episode appeared, Appear, Shanda discusses her ambitions at Netflix
0:32
Speaker 1: and the goal she set for her production company, Shonda Land. Shanda,
0:36
Speaker 1: you shocked the entertainment world a few years ago when
0:39
Speaker 1: you said that you were leaving ABC, even though you
0:42
Speaker 1: were mostly their biggest profit source on the entertainment programs
0:46
Speaker 1: in the evening. And we're moving to Netflix, which is
0:49
Speaker 1: not a television production company but a streaming television company.
0:53
Speaker 1: So why did you do that? You know, I really
0:56
Speaker 1: had been looking at what was going on in the industry.
1:00
Speaker 1: You know, television ratings had been sort of slowly lowering.
1:02
Speaker 1: A lot of people were watching things like Netflix. I
1:05
Speaker 1: knew what I was watching UM and I knew what
1:08
Speaker 1: was exciting me and where it felt like the really
1:09
Speaker 1: exciting programming was coming from. And I also was looking
1:13
Speaker 1: for a certain kind of freedom. You know, I've been
1:16
Speaker 1: making a very particular brand of television for ABC. You know,
1:20
Speaker 1: Shonda Land on ABC was a certain brand of television
1:22
Speaker 1: which I was very proud of. But I really wanted
1:24
Speaker 1: to spread my wings and do more than that, and
1:28
Speaker 1: this was a real opportunity to do so. So you
1:30
Speaker 1: go over to Netflix. Now when everybody is when somebody
1:33
Speaker 1: is famous and they move, let's saying a baseball player
1:36
Speaker 1: or a football player they go to a different team,
1:38
Speaker 1: or somebody tries something different, people are always saying this
1:42
Speaker 1: person isn't really as good as they their reputation and
1:45
Speaker 1: they're gonna flop. And there's a lot of um. I
1:48
Speaker 1: would say, in Hollywood, maybe there's some people that don't
1:50
Speaker 1: like people that are too successful, and so they're kind
1:52
Speaker 1: of wishing secretly maybe they're gonna flop. But you didn't flop.
1:56
Speaker 1: You had an incredible hit. Uh, Your first show Britain
1:59
Speaker 1: was the big most successful opening show of any thing
2:03
Speaker 1: on Netflix ever. All is Fair in Love and War.
2:08
Speaker 1: So when they went on for the first time. Were
2:10
Speaker 1: you worried that night whether it would actually be a
2:12
Speaker 1: success or did you not panic? You know what's interesting,
2:17
Speaker 1: I wasn't scared about the success of the show. That
2:21
Speaker 1: that's not my job. I always say that I was
2:24
Speaker 1: happy by then because Netflix was already happy. Everybody had
2:27
Speaker 1: already really liked the show. Everybody was really pleased with it.
2:30
Speaker 1: I wasn't worried about numbers or how it was going
2:32
Speaker 1: to do. One of the things I liked about Netflix
2:35
Speaker 1: was everybody told me I didn't have to worry about
2:37
Speaker 1: the numbers. You know, ratings don't quote unquote matter on Netflix. Um,
2:41
Speaker 1: of course they do, but you know, that was the
2:43
Speaker 1: sort of thought that was had, so I wasn't worried
2:46
Speaker 1: about that. I was much more nervous when we were
2:48
Speaker 1: editing the show and we were seeing what the product
2:51
Speaker 1: was like. I wanted to see what the shows turned
2:53
Speaker 1: out as and how they felt. So once I knew
2:55
Speaker 1: the shows were good and I wanted to watch them,
2:57
Speaker 1: and I felt really good about them, and I felt
2:59
Speaker 1: like they could be exciting and addictive. And then it
3:02
Speaker 1: turned out that this they felt the same way, I
3:04
Speaker 1: felt fine. I don't even think I paid attention that
3:07
Speaker 1: very first day that they came out. You also started
3:09
Speaker 1: another show that will be coming on Netflix called Inventing Anna,
3:14
Speaker 1: which is about a woman who pretended she was a
3:17
Speaker 1: wealthy German heiress. It turned out she was not. Why
3:20
Speaker 1: didn't you think that was going to be attractive for
3:22
Speaker 1: a series? I was fascinated by this story. One because
3:26
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by journalism, and I really loved the journalism
3:31
Speaker 1: that went with uncovering this story. But two, Anna is
3:35
Speaker 1: a really interesting character to me. She's a truly a genius.
3:39
Speaker 1: And I also think that if she were a guy
3:41
Speaker 1: and she had pulled it off, people would have just
3:43
Speaker 1: applauded her um. But I think because she was a
3:46
Speaker 1: woman and she sort of had the audacity to believe
3:48
Speaker 1: that she could do this, it felt a little bit
3:50
Speaker 1: like in a front to a lot of people. She
3:52
Speaker 1: was sort of labeled in a lot of ways that
3:54
Speaker 1: I don't think we label men. And I liked this
3:56
Speaker 1: idea of this woman with all of this ambition and
3:59
Speaker 1: no place to put it. There is something about that
4:01
Speaker 1: that felt really profound to me and felt very now
4:04
Speaker 1: for where we are now. So when you're writing something,
4:07
Speaker 1: it's a solitary kind of thing. How do you do
4:09
Speaker 1: writing but also you're doing production and you're doing other things.
4:12
Speaker 1: How do you concentrate and have the time alone to write? Well?
4:17
Speaker 1: You know, there is an aspect of writing that is
4:20
Speaker 1: um communal. You know, there is the writer's room where
4:23
Speaker 1: it's you and sort of seven or right other writers,
4:25
Speaker 1: and your job is to sort of help them through
4:27
Speaker 1: writing their drafts of the show that you've created, which
4:31
Speaker 1: is both amazing and fun and very difficult. What the
4:36
Speaker 1: pandemic did, I think is sort of make that writer's
4:38
Speaker 1: room process a lot harder. Um. But for me, you know,
4:41
Speaker 1: writing is it's a very solitary experience, and I'm a
4:45
Speaker 1: very fast writer when I have the space and the
4:47
Speaker 1: time to do so, I feel like I'm much more
4:50
Speaker 1: naturally an introvert, and so being you know, being the
4:53
Speaker 1: person who writes and does that stuff is much easier
4:55
Speaker 1: for me than the other parts of it, which are
4:58
Speaker 1: the public parts or the the producing city in groups
5:01
Speaker 1: and explaining to everybody what has to happen part. But
5:04
Speaker 1: finding the balance has been um much easier than I thought.
5:07
Speaker 1: During COVID, I assume you were working out of your
5:10
Speaker 1: home more than your office. So is it easier to
5:13
Speaker 1: write a show or create a show from home with
5:17
Speaker 1: three young daughters running around? Um? I found, you know,
5:22
Speaker 1: being at home to be both revelatory in the sense
5:26
Speaker 1: that I had always felt like there was so much
5:29
Speaker 1: there was so much work to be done that I
5:31
Speaker 1: had to be standing right in front of everybody to
5:33
Speaker 1: be doing and then I discovered that no, actually, a
5:37
Speaker 1: a lot of people got a lot more freedom to
5:39
Speaker 1: do things that I didn't need to be controlling and
5:42
Speaker 1: be I got a lot more writing done just being
5:44
Speaker 1: at home. Are you going to change the way you operate?
5:47
Speaker 1: Will you spend more time at home now? Or you say, actually,
5:50
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get back to my office. I
5:53
Speaker 1: definitely I'm going to spend more time at home, mainly
5:56
Speaker 1: because I get a lot more writing done here. Um,
5:59
Speaker 1: there's not as many interruptions. I've discovered how little I
6:03
Speaker 1: am needed on set. You know. I used to joke
6:05
Speaker 1: that if I'm standing on a sound stage, I'm the
6:07
Speaker 1: only person who's not working because I'm either writing or editing.
6:10
Speaker 1: So from where they're shooting, I'm the only person not
6:13
Speaker 1: doing a job. So to me, UM, I think there's
6:16
Speaker 1: a lot more that can be done if I'm at
6:18
Speaker 1: home now, which I never would have believed before. Um,
6:22
Speaker 1: it's that feeling of you're so you're so necessary everywhere
6:25
Speaker 1: and discovering that you're not that necessary everywhere, but that
6:28
Speaker 1: the places where you can be necessary, you can really
6:31
Speaker 1: make a difference if you focus on those. So let's
6:33
Speaker 1: talk about your background. Um, you grew up in a
6:37
Speaker 1: suburb of Chicago. You're the youngest of six children, is
6:41
Speaker 1: that right correct? So when you're the youngest of six,
6:44
Speaker 1: I guess you get a lot of hand me down
6:45
Speaker 1: clothes and your parents really pay attention to the youngest
6:48
Speaker 1: of six. By that time, they're kind of done, aren't
6:50
Speaker 1: they gone. You know what's interesting is I didn't get
6:52
Speaker 1: a lot of hand me down clothes, and my parents
6:55
Speaker 1: were very focused on us, which was delightful for me. Um,
7:00
Speaker 1: my parents are educators, so I think for them, they're
7:02
Speaker 1: very They were very intensely focused on um, making sure
7:07
Speaker 1: that we had what we needed. My mother I always said, like,
7:09
Speaker 1: if we were poor, I did not know it because
7:12
Speaker 1: my mother made all of our clothes and they were
7:14
Speaker 1: all fantastic looking, and we there was a lot of
7:18
Speaker 1: focus placed on us. My mother stayed home for a
7:19
Speaker 1: long time for us, which I think it was a
7:21
Speaker 1: big sacrifice for somebody as intelligent as she was and
7:24
Speaker 1: as interested in being at work as she was. But
7:27
Speaker 1: she really made sure that we were well placed in
7:30
Speaker 1: the world and sort of ready to go out into
7:31
Speaker 1: the world and be who we were supposed to be. Okay,
7:34
Speaker 1: so you grew up and you went to college. How
7:36
Speaker 1: did you happen to pick Dartmouth Because it's fairly isolated
7:38
Speaker 1: and much different than Chicago. You know, it was interesting.
7:41
Speaker 1: I went um on a college tour and Dartmouth was
7:45
Speaker 1: one of the places that we visited, and honestly, I
7:48
Speaker 1: fell in love with the place when I got there.
7:51
Speaker 1: It was beautiful, It was in the middle of nowhere.
7:53
Speaker 1: It felt very much to me like what college was
7:56
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Every single person I met there had
7:58
Speaker 1: been was really friendly and had something great to say
8:00
Speaker 1: about it, and very different from a lot of the
8:02
Speaker 1: other colleges I went to. It was surprisingly diverse at
8:06
Speaker 1: the time. I think they had you know, what might
8:09
Speaker 1: not seem like a big number now, but I think
8:11
Speaker 1: like eighteen percent of the students were students of color
8:13
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it felt very welcoming, and
8:17
Speaker 1: I thought, well, this is a place for me, and
8:19
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved my time there. So when you graduated,
8:22
Speaker 1: you said, Okay, now I'm going to go into something
8:24
Speaker 1: important like private equity or investment banking or not. You know,
8:29
Speaker 1: I was really lost for a little while when I
8:31
Speaker 1: got out of college because I really wanted to be
8:34
Speaker 1: a writer. I wanted to be Tony Morrison when I
8:36
Speaker 1: grew up, but I didn't know how to do that.
8:39
Speaker 1: And I also, you know, my parents had sacrificed a
8:42
Speaker 1: lot financially for me to go to this school, and
8:45
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a disappointment. So I got
8:49
Speaker 1: a job in advertising for a little bit. And then
8:52
Speaker 1: I read an article that said, um, it was harder
8:55
Speaker 1: to get into USC Film School than it was to
8:56
Speaker 1: get into Harvard Law School. And I thought, well, my
8:59
Speaker 1: parents can't fall that because it's graduate school and it's
9:01
Speaker 1: difficult to get into. And so I applied to USC
9:03
Speaker 1: Film School. I got in and I went and I
9:05
Speaker 1: told my parents, but I can teach, and as professors,
9:08
Speaker 1: my parents thought, well, she's right, she can teach, and
9:11
Speaker 1: so it felt like something real for them. So you
9:14
Speaker 1: got a master's at USC and then you were sort
9:17
Speaker 1: of writing on the side a bit during the daytime
9:20
Speaker 1: or an evenings or how are you doing that? Yeah,
9:23
Speaker 1: I got a job at a place that helped the
9:26
Speaker 1: mentally ill homeless learned job skills and find places to live.
9:28
Speaker 1: I was like an administrative assistant, and at night I
9:30
Speaker 1: would write my scripts and I had a I had
9:34
Speaker 1: an agent or a lawyer at the time. You know
9:37
Speaker 1: that everybody got one out of film school kind of
9:40
Speaker 1: hoping that something would happen for them. And I end
9:42
Speaker 1: up selling a script and that script basically changed my life.
9:46
Speaker 1: And I had that script not sold, you might be
9:49
Speaker 1: still in advertising or what would you think you'd be doing.
9:52
Speaker 1: I remember when, like a month before that script sold,
9:56
Speaker 1: I had applied for the post baccalaureate year that prepared
10:01
Speaker 1: you for medical school at Brent Mahr and I was
10:02
Speaker 1: going to go and do that. And then I was
10:04
Speaker 1: going to go to medical school because I thought, I
10:06
Speaker 1: can't I can't start this way anymore, like this is
10:08
Speaker 1: not this is not for me. I'm going to go
10:10
Speaker 1: be a doctor. And luckily I did not do that.
10:13
Speaker 1: So the medical professions loss is the creative writing communities
10:17
Speaker 1: gain right because you're not a doctor, but it worked
10:20
Speaker 1: out okay, And I hope that, you know, maybe the
10:23
Speaker 1: writing about doctors inspired a lot of young women to
10:25
Speaker 1: be doctors, So hopefully it was also the medical professions games,
10:28
Speaker 1: as I like to think of it. Most people who
10:30
Speaker 1: have been successful in Hollywood as producers where writers have
10:35
Speaker 1: been white men. Um Norman Lear Aaron Spelling are two
10:40
Speaker 1: classic examples. When you came along, you were not a
10:44
Speaker 1: man and you were not white. So was there a
10:46
Speaker 1: lot of discrimination against you that you felt pompably at
10:51
Speaker 1: the time or was it very subtle? I was tind
10:56
Speaker 1: of have to be a difficult question to answer. And
10:58
Speaker 1: I say that because, um, I don't know what it
11:01
Speaker 1: feels like to be a white man, So I don't
11:04
Speaker 1: know how people were treating the white men at the time.
11:06
Speaker 1: I only know how I've always been treated. And I was,
11:11
Speaker 1: you know, raised very clearly by my parents to be
11:14
Speaker 1: a person who did not look at things as obstacles.
11:17
Speaker 1: I looked at things as hilst to climb. And when
11:19
Speaker 1: anybody treated me in a way that was not respectful,
11:23
Speaker 1: I was taught that that was always their problem and
11:25
Speaker 1: that they needed to be put in their place. And
11:26
Speaker 1: then I should move forward. And so I'm sure that
11:30
Speaker 1: I experienced a lot of things that were not probably
11:33
Speaker 1: what other people experienced. I just chose not to be
11:36
Speaker 1: defeated by them or or even bothered. Some of them.
11:38
Speaker 1: I probably didn't even bother to notice. So today, given
11:42
Speaker 1: how prominent you are in the entertainment world, do you
11:45
Speaker 1: feel discrimination at any point now? Or you don't feel
11:48
Speaker 1: any discrimination? Um? No, I mean, I'm there's an there's
11:53
Speaker 1: an in celerity that comes with, you know, being in
11:56
Speaker 1: a certain position in Hollywood, But that doesn't change the
11:58
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, if somebody doesn't know who you are,
12:02
Speaker 1: they still see you as, you know, just another person
12:05
Speaker 1: of a person of color. The racism in this country
12:08
Speaker 1: is the racism in this country, unfortunately. So the events
12:12
Speaker 1: that led to the murder of George Floyd obviously affected
12:16
Speaker 1: our country dramatically, and certainly the African American community particularly. Um,
12:20
Speaker 1: how did you respond to that you're a prominent African
12:23
Speaker 1: American figure in the country. Um, did you feel you
12:26
Speaker 1: had some obligation to speak out or do more or
12:29
Speaker 1: how did it change your life? Would you say? I mean,
12:34
Speaker 1: I still I think that I think the events well,
12:39
Speaker 1: I think that the entire George Floyd situation. I did
12:42
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One, obviously, like anybody else, I
12:45
Speaker 1: felt nothing but rage and frustration. But I also felt
12:49
Speaker 1: real dismay that a lot of people use that event
12:55
Speaker 1: to finally discover that racism existence. Um. That was. That
12:59
Speaker 1: was disturbing to me. That it took that something that
13:03
Speaker 1: horrific for people to go like, oh wait, there's inequality.
13:07
Speaker 1: That was That was a little upsetting for me. I
13:09
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know that I felt like I had a
13:11
Speaker 1: particular obligation to do anything, um, more than any other person.
13:16
Speaker 1: Did you know a lot of people were marching, a
13:18
Speaker 1: lot of people were protesting. I think the beauty of
13:20
Speaker 1: what happened with George Floyd was how many average citizens
13:24
Speaker 1: stood up and did something. Um. I think that's that's
13:28
Speaker 1: the power of that moment, and hopefully will continue to
13:32
Speaker 1: be the power of that moment. But I also feel like,
13:35
Speaker 1: whatever I'm asked this question, I never quite know how
13:38
Speaker 1: to walk the line between saying like, well, here's what
13:41
Speaker 1: I did, and here's what I think is important, and
13:44
Speaker 1: because I feel like it might let people off the
13:46
Speaker 1: hook a little bit, because it also suggests that racism
13:49
Speaker 1: is the problem of people of color. And really, I
13:52
Speaker 1: feel like I always want to say, well, it's not
13:54
Speaker 1: what I did to work on the George Floyd problem.
13:57
Speaker 1: It's not what I did to work on racism. You know,
13:59
Speaker 1: race is m is a white people's problem, and what
14:01
Speaker 1: are white people doing to solve it? So, to me,
14:03
Speaker 1: like that's the big question that should be asked. Public
14:06
Speaker 1: companies often focus on shareholders now increasing they're worried about
14:10
Speaker 1: other stakeholders, employees, communities, and so forth. Your own company,
14:14
Speaker 1: do you focus it on having some social responsibility as well?
14:19
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting we've been struggling with that concept
14:22
Speaker 1: right now because we don't sell activism. We sell entertainment.
14:26
Speaker 1: And you know, if we wake somebody up to the
14:28
Speaker 1: idea that they have a severarate responsibility or that there's
14:31
Speaker 1: a social justice issue that they could be involved in,
14:33
Speaker 1: or that there's a feminist issue that they can be
14:35
Speaker 1: involved in, that's a wonderful side effect. But I also
14:39
Speaker 1: know that given just who we are as a company
14:42
Speaker 1: and the kind of stories we tell and the kind
14:44
Speaker 1: of work that we do, there's other aspects of us
14:48
Speaker 1: that feel important to how we as a company engaged
14:51
Speaker 1: with the with the area around us. So I feel
14:54
Speaker 1: like it's important, for instance, to create worlds in which
14:58
Speaker 1: we're making pathways for other people cloud have opportunity in
15:01
Speaker 1: this industry UM and figuring out other philanthropic ways that
15:06
Speaker 1: makes sense for us as a company UM that feel
15:09
Speaker 1: right for who we are. So you're thinking companies should
15:13
Speaker 1: perhaps have a role in commenting on climate change or
15:15
Speaker 1: rightel discriminations and assessing that works for us. But I
15:18
Speaker 1: do feel like I spend my energy and my money
15:21
Speaker 1: and my time on companies that are that share the
15:25
Speaker 1: values that I share. And I'm not interested in spending
15:28
Speaker 1: my money and time and company and companies that don't
15:30
Speaker 1: share those values. And I mean I actively don't share
15:33
Speaker 1: those values. I don't necessarily know how I feel about
15:35
Speaker 1: companies that remain neutral at this point. I've been really
15:37
Speaker 1: thinking about that because I do think people have the
15:39
Speaker 1: right to remain politically neutral. It's the ones that sort
15:43
Speaker 1: of are going in opposite directions, actively destroying the climate
15:48
Speaker 1: or actively working against women's right to choose things that
15:50
Speaker 1: things that I find worrisome that I that I'm concerned about.
15:53
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Shanda Land. You've built a quite
15:57
Speaker 1: a I would say entertainment company back. So let's go
16:00
Speaker 1: through some of the things and how you're able to
16:02
Speaker 1: do all that. So let's talk about, for example, UM,
16:05
Speaker 1: you have a podcast as well. Now you're doing with
16:07
Speaker 1: I Heart Media. Is that right? We have a podcast division, yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: called Shonda Land Audio. The great thing is is that
16:13
Speaker 1: you know, I am really lucky that I have amazing
16:16
Speaker 1: people who work with me at Shonda Land. So UM,
16:19
Speaker 1: Sandy Bailey, who runs our digital division, came to me
16:21
Speaker 1: and said, I really think that we could have a
16:23
Speaker 1: podcast division and it could be really powerful. And she's
16:26
Speaker 1: been overseeing it and has come up with some really
16:28
Speaker 1: great shows. And part of the beauty of it is
16:31
Speaker 1: we can take somebody like Katie Lows, who start on
16:34
Speaker 1: Scandal and who was in inventing Anna, and showcase her
16:38
Speaker 1: with a podcast called Katie's Crib, which is about parenting,
16:41
Speaker 1: which has become one of the most popular podcasts on
16:43
Speaker 1: Apple iTunes and on my Heart and those things to
16:46
Speaker 1: listen to. We can do a podcast with someone like
16:48
Speaker 1: Laverne Cox who's also in inventing Anna. We can take
16:52
Speaker 1: a show like Bridgetain create a podcast about it, UM
16:56
Speaker 1: that's doing really well. Also do behind the scenes video footage.
16:59
Speaker 1: Take that video footage, put it on our website, UM
17:02
Speaker 1: shondlan dot com and sort of have a nice synergy going.
17:06
Speaker 1: And that's been really important to me to really create
17:09
Speaker 1: a world in which all of the aspects of our
17:11
Speaker 1: shows and all the aspects of UM are are people
17:15
Speaker 1: I call them the people in our Shawonda Land family
17:17
Speaker 1: can find a place to be creative and exist in
17:19
Speaker 1: one spot. Now you have a partnership as well with Dove,
17:23
Speaker 1: and that is designed to, I think, among other things,
17:26
Speaker 1: let people UM know more about the way their hair
17:29
Speaker 1: might be UM worn. Can you explain your views on hair,
17:34
Speaker 1: particularly for African American women and children. Well, you know,
17:39
Speaker 1: the partnership with Dove has been long standing, and one
17:41
Speaker 1: of the things that I always have loved about Dove
17:43
Speaker 1: is that they have been really UM positive and really
17:46
Speaker 1: assertive about the idea that real beauty is defined in
17:49
Speaker 1: all forms. You know, every skin and everybody, every kind
17:53
Speaker 1: of woman is their own definition of beauty. And they
17:57
Speaker 1: have been, you know, instrumental in working on Crown Act,
18:01
Speaker 1: which is um a law that's been passed and I
18:03
Speaker 1: can't remember how many states by this point UM that
18:06
Speaker 1: says that you can't be discriminated against because of the
18:08
Speaker 1: way you wear your hair, and that has been a
18:10
Speaker 1: real issue for a lot of people of color. You know,
18:13
Speaker 1: you hear the stories of the basketball kid who gets
18:16
Speaker 1: his dreads cut off before he's allowed to play, or
18:18
Speaker 1: somebody who's fired because of the way they're wearing their hair.
18:20
Speaker 1: At work. We try really hard to sort of umu
18:26
Speaker 1: police the way people look, because it doesn't look like,
18:29
Speaker 1: you know, the way somebody feels that they should look,
18:32
Speaker 1: and that is a real bias in this country. And
18:35
Speaker 1: so the idea that we could create something called the
18:37
Speaker 1: Crown Act allows people to you know, sort of embrace
18:40
Speaker 1: who they are culturally and wear their hair the way
18:43
Speaker 1: they need to wear their hair, or be who they
18:45
Speaker 1: need to be, versus trying to achieve some standard that's
18:49
Speaker 1: based on sort of a white, you know, European centric
18:55
Speaker 1: idea of what people are supposed to look like. So
18:57
Speaker 1: you wrote a book as well, You're Yes, and that
19:00
Speaker 1: was reflecting the fact that you're one of your sisters
19:04
Speaker 1: had told you you always said no. So you decided
19:06
Speaker 1: that one year you would say yes to speaking engagements,
19:10
Speaker 1: graduation commencement speech, and so forth, So, what made you
19:15
Speaker 1: decide to say yes that one year? And are you
19:18
Speaker 1: happy you did? So? You know she did, she said, UM,
19:22
Speaker 1: one Thanksgiving, she just said, you never say yes to anything,
19:25
Speaker 1: you know. I've been detailing all of these these invitations
19:27
Speaker 1: I've gotten, and that year, UM we were I was
19:33
Speaker 1: on the board of the Kennedy Center, and UM I
19:36
Speaker 1: had gone to I went to the Kennedy Center Honors
19:38
Speaker 1: and I was told, not asked, told that I was
19:40
Speaker 1: going to sit in the box with President Obama and
19:42
Speaker 1: Mrs Obama UM for the honors. And I did, and
19:48
Speaker 1: I had a wonderful time. And I didn't know them
19:50
Speaker 1: at the time, and I had a wonderful time, and
19:51
Speaker 1: it was a lovely evening. But I realized on the
19:53
Speaker 1: way home that if somebody had asked me if I
19:56
Speaker 1: wanted to sit in the box with them, I would
19:57
Speaker 1: have said no. And I would have said no because
20:01
Speaker 1: I would have been too nervous. I would have been
20:02
Speaker 1: too afraid. I would have thought, why would they want
20:04
Speaker 1: to say with me? Well, you know, it was that
20:06
Speaker 1: thing of not having any of the confidence or the
20:08
Speaker 1: nerves to do so. I would have absolutely turned it
20:10
Speaker 1: down because it would have been too stressful to have
20:13
Speaker 1: come up with the notion that I could possibly say yes.
20:16
Speaker 1: And that really sort of stunned me that I would
20:19
Speaker 1: have missed such an amazing experience and amazing opportunity, um,
20:23
Speaker 1: just because I was too nervous to do something. And
20:25
Speaker 1: so I decided, Yeah, I was going to try to
20:27
Speaker 1: spend a year saying yes to everything that scared me.
20:30
Speaker 1: And the very first thing I was asked to do
20:31
Speaker 1: after that was to give a commencement speech at Dartmouth
20:33
Speaker 1: in front of ten thousand people. As a very successful woman,
20:38
Speaker 1: a single mother of three who constantly gets asked the question,
20:40
Speaker 1: how do you do it all? For once, I'm going
20:43
Speaker 1: to answer that question with honesty here for you now,
20:46
Speaker 1: because somebody has to tell you the truth, Shonda, how
20:50
Speaker 1: do you do it all? The answer is this, I
20:54
Speaker 1: don't you point out your book you've alshow adopted three
20:58
Speaker 1: young girls? Is that more challenging than writing scripts or
21:02
Speaker 1: producing shows? Or is a much easier I always used
21:06
Speaker 1: to say, like, I say, three daughters and forty seven
21:09
Speaker 1: actors or something like that when I had three shows. Um,
21:12
Speaker 1: but no, I mean I feel like having children is
21:15
Speaker 1: far more difficult and far more fulfilling than any script,
21:20
Speaker 1: any job, any show. It's also far more fun. But
21:24
Speaker 1: I also think that the older you get and the
21:25
Speaker 1: more practice you get at it, the more fulfilling and
21:28
Speaker 1: easy it becomes. You know, with your first child, you're
21:31
Speaker 1: always afraid, um, as my mother always said, your first child,
21:34
Speaker 1: joy is afraid you're going to kill the baby. With
21:35
Speaker 1: your last child, you can toss the baby downstairs and think,
21:37
Speaker 1: like she just bounces, She'll be fine, you know that
21:39
Speaker 1: in that way that my mother always used to say.
21:41
Speaker 1: But really, like children are such um doors to reality.
21:48
Speaker 1: They keep you grounded, and they really keep you focused
21:51
Speaker 1: on the present, and that's the best thing ever. So
21:54
Speaker 1: when you're raising children in Hollywood, which I haven't done,
21:57
Speaker 1: but I know when you're raising children and you were
21:59
Speaker 1: wealthy and you're famous, it can be challenged. How do
22:02
Speaker 1: you keep your children grounded because they just could go
22:05
Speaker 1: out and say, my mother is this famous person? Or
22:07
Speaker 1: how do you avoid that? Um? Well, for the longest time,
22:12
Speaker 1: my oldest daughter thought I ran a hospital. I mean
22:14
Speaker 1: she really did, Like I sort of kept her insulated
22:16
Speaker 1: from the idea that I had any job that anybody
22:19
Speaker 1: knew about it at all. Um And my youngest daughters. Now,
22:22
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a little bit harder at this point,
22:25
Speaker 1: but I tried really hard to just raise my kids
22:30
Speaker 1: the same way I was raised, with the same values
22:32
Speaker 1: that I was raised with. You know, I'm from the Midwest.
22:34
Speaker 1: I still believe that you put poopons and you don't
22:36
Speaker 1: throw things away. So you know, this is a town
22:39
Speaker 1: in which that's not really a thing that's valued. But
22:42
Speaker 1: I try to stick to the way I grew up,
22:44
Speaker 1: and I feel kind of lucky that I'm surrounded by
22:45
Speaker 1: some people who also feel that way. What do you
22:48
Speaker 1: do for rest and relaxation? I assume you must get
22:51
Speaker 1: a little bit of it even though you're so busy. Okay,
22:53
Speaker 1: So I recently bought a cello um, probably because I
22:58
Speaker 1: saw Yo Yo Mom play the cello um and got
23:01
Speaker 1: really inspired by his his whole Box series that he's
23:04
Speaker 1: traveling around and I've been obsessed with him for a
23:05
Speaker 1: long time. But and for years I've been saying I'm
23:07
Speaker 1: gonna learn how to play the cello. I'm gonna learn
23:09
Speaker 1: how to play the cello, and I mean for like
23:10
Speaker 1: fifteen years. So I finally went out and got myself
23:13
Speaker 1: a really nice cello, and I've started taking cello lessons.
23:16
Speaker 1: So that's my new way of relaxing. And it is
23:20
Speaker 1: wildly I mean, I'm terrible at it right now, but
23:22
Speaker 1: it is wildly relaxing to try something new in that
23:25
Speaker 1: way and to spend that sort of concentrated time doing
23:29
Speaker 1: something different. Um, why don't you come to the Kenny
23:32
Speaker 1: Center play a duet with yo Yo Ma? He can
23:34
Speaker 1: arrange that. UM. I think that poor Yoyo would he
23:38
Speaker 1: would be very um horrified by by what was coming
23:41
Speaker 1: out of my cello. Now, what new worlds are there
23:44
Speaker 1: for you to conquer in the entertainment world. You're you're
23:46
Speaker 1: at the top of the profession. I can't imagine how
23:49
Speaker 1: you could be more successful. Is there something else that
23:51
Speaker 1: you are inspired to do that you haven't done yet? No,
23:54
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying my life at Netflix right now. You know,
23:57
Speaker 1: we've just I feel we've just gotten started there, and
24:01
Speaker 1: you know, I can't wait to keep building on that
24:03
Speaker 1: and and enjoy that and making new shows. They're working,
24:06
Speaker 1: you know, building on our podcast world. UM, enjoying those
24:10
Speaker 1: worlds is exciting to me. Thanks for listening to hear
24:14
Speaker 1: more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my
24:17
Speaker 1: podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen