Weeds creator Jenji Kohan talks about her career's turning point

Jenji Kohan, creator of Weeds (which returns for its seventh season), talks about her career as a TV writer and her path to being a showrunner.

Did you always want to work in TV?

My impetus was vengeance initially. I had an ex-boyfriend who said I had a better chance of getting elected to Congress than getting on the staff of a television show. I don't like to be told I can't do something.

So I quit my day jobs — I had three — and I moved in with a friend studying for her medical boards. I'd watch tapes of shows and write my spec scripts and she would study anatomy. Now she heals people ... and I'm still doing the exact same thing.

What was your first writing job?

My first job was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. My ex-sister-in-law's father gave my specs in an elevator to an agent who lived in his building. I got very lucky. I came from a family that worked in this business [her father, Buz Kohan, was an Emmy-winning TV writer and her brother David co-created Will & Grace] but when I expressed my interest they were like, "Go to law school."

You wrote for some big shows, but why did it take so long to settle into a series?

I'm a big personality, shall we say? I realised early on my path it would be easier if I were in charge. Right after The Fresh Prince, I wrote my first pilot. Weeds was my 17th. I thought, if I have to climb the ranks, it's just a lifetime of being fired. I need to find a side door!

Every season I would write between one and three pilots hoping to win that lottery.... So after Fresh Prince I wrote a pilot that was similar to Friends, and that got me onto Friends. Then I got fired from Friends. So I went to Nepal and quit showbiz, but then I wrote a Frasier spec in the Himalayas. That made me realise, maybe I'm not quite done.

Before creating the anti-heroine played by Mary-Louise Parker on Weeds, you worked on several shows with women at their centre, including Tracey Takes On and Gilmore Girls.

Tracey [starring Tracey Ullman] was a huge turning point for me. What I learned on Tracey was how to run a healthy show, where everyone was good at what they do and kind to one another and when they're done, they go home.

Not to mention that I had someone running the room who I could hand a piece off to who would immediately perform it and let me know how it was. I also learned I am not a performer.

We'd turn in our drafts and the whole room would take parts and read them out and perform them for Tracey, but I was quickly relegated to reading stage directions. I was the joke slayer. I hear it all in my head but it just doesn't come out of my mouth right.