Other than one unproduced pilot script, Shonda Rhimes had never written a TV episode until 2005, when she created “Grey’s Anatomy.” An instant critical and commercial hit, the show remains a much-buzzed-about bulwark of ABC’s schedule to this day. Rhimes also created its spinoff “Private Practice,” now in its third season, making her probably the most successful African-American female producer in primetime television history. She spoke with Eric Estrin about her competitive nature, how motherhood shaped her career and why she’s really not that special after all.
I had just graduated from Dartmouth in New Hampshire, and I had no idea what to do with my life, so I was living at my sister’s house in San Francisco, trying to figure it out.
I read an article in the New York Times that said it was harder to get into USC Film School than it was to get into Harvard. I’m from a family of academics. My parents were pressuring me to go to graduate school, and I’m a very competitive person, so I thought, well, if this is the hardest thing I could try, I will apply and see what happens. So 
I applied to USC Film School, and I got in.
I got an internship while I was in film school with Debra Chase when she was running Mundy Lane, which was Denzel Washington’s company. And then when I got out, she helped me get a job as an assistant at Paula Weinstein’s company, Spring Creek.
Working at Spring Creek was really an education because, as an assistant you sit behind a desk, and I would watch the spec scripts come in. And I was reading all these spec scripts, and that really helped me understand what people were looking for.
I had written a very dark, very personal thesis script that nobody was ever gonna buy because it was about a dead body rotting in a cornfield. But I knew that I wanted to write something that sort of had a commercial appeal. I loved romantic comedies, and I wanted to write a romantic comedy.
I left Spring Creek to really write spec scripts and took a job working outside the industry, so I had a job I didn’t take home with me at night. During that period of time, you know, I sold my CDs for my gas, and I bugged my parents for money, and they were as supportive as they could be in a world in which they thought their daughter should be going to graduate school.
I had gotten an agent coming out of film school who was very patient with me, and when I finished my spec script we put it out, and I remember sitting there thinking, I don’t really have a Plan B. If this doesn’t work, I’ve gotta leave town because I can’t do this very much longer.
I wanted to be able to do something.
