Section:GDN 12 PaGe:10 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 17:28 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian
  10 Wednesday 31 July 2019
  Arts

who is British introduced it to my

life last year, and I got unhealthily

involved.” And so she wrote it into

her series, giv ing her obsession

to one of the characters , where

it appears in the background like

a branded water bottle.

Kohan does very few interviews

– “I chose to be a writer for a reason.

I don’t particularly want to be in

front of the camera, so to speak” –

but she is funny, dry-witted and very

frank. So much so that she ends our

conversation with a wistful : “I hope

I didn’t say stupid things that will

bite me in the ass later.”

After seven seasons, Orange Is the

New Black is bowing out. It is easy,

in the age of “peak content”, when

television appears close to off ering

something for everyone, to forget

how revolutionary it was when it

fi rst appeared in 2013. Kohan took

a prison memoir by Piper Kerman

and turned it into a n ambitious

comedy-drama about incarcerated

women. It told us rich stories of poor

women, wealthy women, straight

women, gay women, trans women,

black, white and Latino women. Its

cast, unable to locate the mythical

make up store to which most TV

prisoners seem to have secret access,

were careful to look the part. The

show seethed about injustice, but its

com ic touch meant it rarely, if ever,

tipped into agitprop.

When it started, it was only the

third series Netfl ix had ever made,

after House of Cards and Hemlock

Grove. Kohan had just fi nished

working on Weeds , the suburbs-

skewering show about a drug-dealing

housewife that was transformative ,

but HBO and Showtime declined

OITNB. “I was pissed Showtime

didn’t pick it up,” says Kohan. “I  had

Deep into the

new and fi nal season of Orange Is

the New Black , the groundbreaking

Netfl ix show about life in a

women’s prison, a character slumps

in front of her TV, engrossed in

Love Island. “I got obsessed with it,”

explains Jenji Kohan , the woman

who has been at the helm of OITNB

for the last six years. “ A friend

She worked on

TV’s biggest

hits – then

revolutionised

the way we view

with Orange Is

the New Black.

Jenji Kohan talks

to Rebecca

Nicholson about

binge-watching,

Love Island and

giving Joey VD

Everyone’s out

to get you if you

say something

untoward.

People need to

toughen up a bit

‘I’d be far richer

if I had stayed

on Friends’

‘I’m not responsible

for other people

being off ended’ ...

Jenji Kohan

Doesn’t pull

punches ...

Orange Is the

New Black

just given them eight years of a show.

What do you mean, you won’t do my

next project?” But Netfl ix greenlit

a whole season, without the testing

ground of a pilot. “God bless Netfl ix.”

Streaming was in its infancy then ,

and the idea of Emmy nominations

for anything you couldn’t watch

on an actual television was

unimaginable. But Kohan swiftly

realised that the real shift was the

advent of binge-watching. “I was,

and remain, somewhat confl icted

about that,” she says. “Although it’s

completely hypocritical, because

I indulge in it!” She binge-watched

Fleabag recently (“She did a

wonderful job – it’s great”), but she

has always been motivated by the

idea of bringing people together:

“When shows came out at the same

time for everyone, they could make

these connections. I mean, look what

happened with Game of Thrones.”

Even so, binge-watching is here to

stay. “I can lament the water-cooler

conversation not happening, but you

know, we cannot put the genie back

in the bottle.” Hang on: isn’t OITNB,

and therefore she, at least a little

to blame? “I’m not taking personal

responsibility!” she protests.

“It’s the streaming services’ fault.”

Kohan, 50, grew up in Los

Angeles. Her father, Buz, is a TV

writer and producer of variety

shows ; her mother, Rhea, is a writer

and actor, and her older brother

David created Will & Grace. It

seemed pre-ordained that Kohan

would be a writer, too, but she has

previously called her fi rst job – in the

writers’ room of The Fresh Prince

of Bel -Air in the early 90s – “a rough

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