US showrunner Kerry Ehrin: 'Women have more authority to guide their creative life'

Kerry Ehrin has driven shows such as The Morning Show  and Friday Night Lights, and is on her way to Ireland to take part in the FÍS TV Summit, writes Esther McCarthy

Kerry Ehrin is keynote speaker at the FÍS TV Summit. As writer and showrunner for TV hits such as Friday Night Lights and The Morning Show, she  has worked with stars including Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon

She’s the Hollywood powerhouse behind such TV hits as The Morning Show, Bates Motel and Friday Night Lights. Writer and showrunner Kerry Ehrin has worked with stars including Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon, and brought some of the biggest shows of recent years to our screens. She was the first writer with whom Apple signed an overall deal when she developed and ran the award-winning series The Morning Show.

Ehrin was also the co-creator and co-showrunner of the Emmy-nominated and critically acclaimed series Bates Motel, which featured Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore in the iconic roles of Norma and Norman Bates.

Ehrin says the storytelling we watch has changed remarkably in recent years, with more female characters in leading roles and more diversity on screen. Many of the biggest female stars such as Emma Stone, Jennifer Aniston, and Reese Witherspoon are creatively driving their own screen stories by working as producers.

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in The Morning Show.

Does she think the lines are blurring in a positive way?

“Yes, I do. There's been growth in that for a number of years, certainly from when I started in this business. It's a gigantic change. But in the last five years, it's really increased a lot, that women have more authority and choices to guide their own creative life.” 

She feels that having more women working in TV has fed into the kinds of shows audiences get to see. It marks an enormous change, she says, from when she started out as a writer. “When I was writing pilots in the 90s, or even the 2000s, it would be harder to sell something with a female lead. I think that's almost completely reversed. I think that there's more opportunity, almost, for female leads now because people really want that audience.

“So many of the people I work with now are women: executives, writers, show runners. I work with tonnes of women in positions of authority. In terms of where it will go, I feel like the sky's the limit. I still think at the very top of companies, that's a lot of men. But I feel like the growth is happening and it will get there.” 

On February 1, Ehrin will share her insights and knowledge at Galway’s Fís TV Summit. The summit is now in its 7th year.

Ehrin honed her skills for many years as a writer in Hollywood’s famous writing rooms, where writers would pitch different ideas and scenarios while writing a script. But she feels that no matter how connected you feel to a new show, it’s almost impossible to know whether it will capture the public imagination.

 “You can definitely feel like you're part of something special, because you love the project. You never really know exactly how it will be absorbed by the public. This is very hard to predict.” 

In her own TV life, Ehrin says working with top producer and writer Jason Katims on Friday Night Lights marked a big turning point in her career. The emotional show chronicled the ups and downs of a high-school football team in Texas.

“I didn't know it would be a life changing thing,” she recalls. “[Katims] happened to be running a show that I took a staff job on. We just clicked and I really understood his way of storytelling, and vice versa. When he got Friday Night Lights and he was running that, he hired me.

“I think Friday Night Lights was, in many ways, the first show that really matched so much of my natural sensibility. I felt like I really blossomed on that show. A lot of times in the previous years, I would try to take my sensibility and fit it into a show that was about detectives or whatever. Friday Night Lights was the first time I really felt like: Oh, this is how I write’.” 

Ehrin would go on to have another hit with Bates Motel, the prequel to Psycho that would become a hit with viewers all over the world.

“It was the first time I had created or co created anything and became a showrunner — that was a big change. The Morning Show was another huge opportunity that they needed someone at the same time that I happened to be taking meetings. It's one of the things that's fun about Hollywood - you can't plan these things, but you have to be prepared all the time for when things happen, or you have to take action at an opportunity.” 

• Now in its 7th year, FÍS TV Summit takes place in Galway on February 1st with Ehrin as keynote speaker.