Julie Andrews once said that Shonda Rhimes “changed the face of television.” And, as cliché as it may sound, the legendary actress from The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins was won over by the catalog of stories starring characters of all ethnicities, skin colors, creeds, sexual orientations and gender identities that emerged from the imagination of a woman from Chicago. Their paths crossed just 20 years ago, when Andrews starred in the sequel to the successful The Princess Diaries , with a script written by an unknown thirty-something named Shonda Rhimes.
It didn’t take long for that young woman to make a name for herself as the most powerful force in the television industry: Grey’s Anatomy , Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder placed her on the throne of the global media kingdom. With more than 70 episodes a year broadcast under her supervision, she became — by her own admission — the “highest-paid” showrunner on TV. But, in 2017, she decided to change things up.
“I honestly have to admit that, for a long time, I suffered from big time exhaustion,” Rhimes explains to EL PAÍS via video call. At the peak of her success — and while rejecting equally or more lucrative offers — she signed a multimillion-dollar contract with Netflix. She sought — in her own words — to counteract the exhausting nature of her schedule and revive her passion for the profession.
“I couldn’t find the time to be able to dedicate myself to stories. Thanks to the st.