Jenni Konner: Girls Q&A

A television writer, executive producer and showrunner, Jenni Konner is drawn to working on programmes with relatable and funny characters. A fan of Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture, she became involved in her BAFTA-winning Girls “very early on, when they didn’t know how what the show was.” Find out what her role as showrunner on the comedy-drama series involves, and how she uses the skills she developed as a waitress in her television career…

What does the day-to-day of a television showrunner involve? Konner describes her working relationship with Girls creator Lena Dunham as very collaborative. She says: “My role has just been to be Lena’s other half this whole time. She came with this very clear voice… really knew what she was doing creatively but had never done television before.”

Konner describes the process as a partnership with Dunham and they both passed knowledge onto each other “It was really my job to show her how to do television, and I got to learn from her too.” As a showrunner, her role is multifaceted and involves managing relationships across different departments. No two days are the same and she’ll be involved in the writing process, on set or “on the phone to the network, and I do marketing.”

Preparation for a career in the television industry can be found in unlikely places, and Konner credits a lot of the skills she learned as a waitress as what made her a successful showrunner.

Konner says waitressing “taught me how to communicate with people but also how to balance things.” She explains that being able to prioritise tasks and communicate this effectively to your team is important as a showrunner, and this was something she learned early on in her career. Konner shares that showrunners must be able to “prioritise things and keep people in the loop.” Waitressing also made her very self-aware and “realise how much your mood can affect their mood, so being really aware of that and trying to be a kind, good human doing it.”

What does Konner look for in a new writer? “Original voices” is what draws her to a project, she says.

Recalling watching Dunham’s first film, she shares: “when I saw Tiny Furniture it blew my mind, there was this 23-year-old woman who had made this movie for nothing in her parent’s house, casting her family and her best friend and she had just such a clear voice, she knew exactly who she was.”