Jenji Kohan
Jenji Kohan
Jenji Leslie Kohanis an American television writer and producer. She is best known as the creator of the Showtime comedy-drama series Weeds and the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black. She has received nine Emmy Award nominations, winning one as supervising producer of the comedy series Tracey Takes On......
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth5 July 1969
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
We fell in love with different people. Looking back, we might have done it in a different order, but we got invested. We really wanted to do the flashbacks because we wanted to explore who these women were on the outside versus the inside, and get a fuller picture of the masks we wear.
I'm always looking for a nexus, where you can put all these diverse people together, see how they respond to one another, see what they learn about each other, and what they like and don't like.
We watched these auditions and could only pick one. Sometimes we would add new characters 'cause we wanted to use another actress. There were so many people who were just waiting for something like this.
I think my immediate reaction was, "I'm so tired. I need a little more time." But, it was very quickly followed up by excitement. It's very flattering, and it's a wonderful vote of confidence. We dream of getting to do what we do.
It was enormously challenging because you want that all-American girl, but you also want the cool WASP, privileged white girl. Usually, women in that package aren't funny.
First of all, I find everything funny, which is upsetting to my children sometimes, and to people in my life, in general.
I think shows that are completely dramatic are a lie. People use humor to cope. That is how we deal with things. In the darkest situations, there's humor. And if you don't show that, you're not being true to real life.
You want everyone to be a full character. No one is just evil, or very few people are, hopefully. They're characters, so you want to flush them out. You've got to show all sides of them. There is definitely an antagonistic relationship between guards and prisoners, and I do think it flares up.
There's more to us than the moment we made a bad decision.
I'm always looking for those places where you can slam really disparate people up against one another, and they have to deal with each other. There are very few crossroads anymore. We talk about this country as this big melting pot, but it's a mosaic. There's all these pieces, they're next to each other, they're not necessarily mixing. And I'm looking for those spaces where people actually do mix.
I believe in the power of media. I really do. It's my soapbox. And I do have an agenda, because I'm enraged by the limitations forced on people - by poverty, oppression, hatred, fear - and I'm saddened by the kind of loss we all experienced due to the contributions that people cannot make because of their circumstances.
I can shoot off my big mouth and write my shows and run my shows, and I can recognize how lucky I am because my position is rare and my position is privileged.
In my head I'm a rapper, but I'm not!
I'm never going to look like a Nordic model, so I play with what I've got. Instead of going gray, I dye my hair bright colors; I have bad vision, so I wear sparkly glasses. I embrace that I look like a crazy lady.