‘The Girls On The Bus’ Team Amy Chozick and Julie Plec On Creating Female Agency And The Complexity Of Mapping Out A Fun, Balanced Political Landscape
15.03.2024 - 21:39
/ deadline.com
Max’s political dramedy The Girls on the Bus is less about the commonly depicted cutthroat world of politics and more about the unique friendships that can be cultivated in such a high-pressure environment along the way.
The series, based on journalist Amy Chozick’s 2018 memoir Chasing Hillary, follows four female journalists — played by Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore and Natasha Behnam— as they cover the successes and scandals of the presidential primary while on the campaign trail. Though each of the women come from different backgrounds and harbors different opinions from each other on controversial topics and are sometimes in direct competition with each other, they nevertheless find themselves foraging a bond during their travels.
The title of the series, which comes from a singular chapter in Chozick’s book, is a nod to Timothy Crouse’s 1973 book, The Boys on the Bus, which detailed life on the road for journalists covering the contentious 1972 U.S. Presidential Election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern.
Here, Chozick and Julie Plec, who serve as the co-creators and executive producers, speak to Deadline about reliving a fictional version of the 2016 election, finding their leading ladies, the importance of journalistic integrity and the fun challenges of creating the series.
DEADLINE: What do you both remember about Hillary Clinton’s presidential run? And when sitting down to make the show, what was the most important thing to capture first and foremost?
AMY CHOZICK: When writing the show, we knew we wanted to live in a fictional world, which was very fun. So, no Hillary, no Trump. There are certainly a lot of themes from my book that I experienced while covering Hillary, as well as a