Shonda Rhimes returned to running her three shows back to back to back on ABC Thursday night, but the Shondaland chief says she doesn’t have a favorite — instead, she tries to give all three shows equal attention.
“We try to divide my time pretty equally between ‘Grey’s’ and ‘Scandal,’” Rhimes said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night. “‘How to Get Away With Murder’ is really run by Pete [Nowalk] and I am — I call it the grandmother — I hold the baby, say it’s pretty and give it back. And ‘The Catch’ is new and it’s sort of just getting off the ground, so I feel like I really have it all covered.”
With three Shondaland shows running on the network and another about to start, host Jimmy Kimmel asked Rhimes if ABC execs have ever said “no” to a story she’s pitched. After she answered affirmatively about a time “in the beginning” of her relationship with the network when her ideas fell on deaf ears, Kimmel then tried to convince the prolific Rhimes to pitch a show about locksmiths.
Rhimes also discussed last season’s detrimental death of Derek Shepherd, a.k.a. McDreamy, and the subsequent fan outrage that followed.
“It was really about a way to keep a love story alive,” Rhimes said about Patrick Dempsey‘s exit. “Patrick was ready to go, but he couldn’t just walk out on [Meredith, played by Ellen Pompeo].”
During her appearance on the show, the writer-director-producer also revealed that Kimmel’s show was the most terrifying thing she’s ever done. In April of last year, Rhimes and Kimmel did a special episode of “JKL” titled “Behind The Scandalabra,” an inside look at Rhimes’ show “Scandal” following its finale.
“I was terrified the whole time,” said Rhimes. “I don’t think I said a word … I was panicking, it was the first time I did anything like that.”
She admitted that that incident inspired her to try things that would usually “scare the bejeezus” out of her. From there, she went on to hold a commencement speech at Dartmouth and appeared in a guest spot on “The Mindy Project.” As a result, she’s releasing a book titled “Year of Yes” on Nov. 10, which chronicles her year of saying yes to, as Rhimes cast it, “every terrifying thing that comes in my way.”
Watch Rhimes talk about TGIT above, and watch her discuss feeling terrified and pitching new shows below.