Shonda Rhimes, creator, writer, and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal, was interviewed at Hubspot's Inbound Marketing conference.
Rhimes is also the executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder and is currently working on several other shows that will be streamed on Netflix (hopefully) beginning in 2019.
She brought humility and wisdom to the main stage, speaking pure gold. These were some of my favorite quotes that were too good not to share.
[On her book, Year of Yes] “It wasn’t just big things I said yes to. It was big things and small things. The act of doing a thing undoes the fear. Once you’ve done it you realize that a) it’s not so bad, and b) you might actually enjoy it.”
“When we shoot sex scenes people make jokes to cut the tension. But one man cutting the tension is another mans homophobia. You want to make sure that everyone feels respected and it feels safe and it feels right. We’re in the process of making sure our house is clean."
“What’s the point of being a woman in power if you can’t make sure there are other women in power?”
Interviewer: “What do you think about white men who are afraid of being falsely accused of harassment to the point where they don’t want to mentor women?” Rhimes: “I think that’s bullshit. If you’re that afraid of women and having that happening then you should stay in your corner. People know what harassment is.”
"That was an interesting journey. Losing weight sucks. This idea that it’s going be an amazing transformative experience... No. I hate it. I will always want to eat everything that’s not nailed down. But everything we’ve ever done that’s truly been worth it had been hard work. Why did I think this would be different?”
And for those of you wondering, (which is probably all of you) when asked which of her characters she's most similar to, Rhimes said “I’m more like a healthy, healed Olivia Pope. Not a beat people with a chair Olivia Pope.”