Ilana Peña, The Latina Showrunner Claiming her Space in Hollywood
Ilana Peña is a TV show creator, executive producer, showrunner, and writer building her tv legacy with hard work and authentic storytelling at the helm of it all. Peña is the creator behind the Disney+’s coming-of-age comedy, “Diary of a Future President” focused on a Miami teen who goes on to be president of the United States. Created with CBS Studios and Gina Rodriguez’s I Can and I will Productions, DOAFP has captured the hearts of young fans and industry critics. After receiving some critical success for her work including Forbes 30 Under 30 2021, a NALIP win for Best Latinx TV Show, a GLAAD award nomination for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming, and more Peña remains focused on the future of her creativity and how she can continue to uplift others. Starting in Hollywood as an assistant and working her way into the acclaimed writer’s room of “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”, Peña has been putting steps towards her success for years and is an example of how talent, perseverance, and networking can truly pay off. As a Latina creator placing a Latinx family center stage on screen and with her otherwise growing list of projects, Peña is trailblazing a way for women and BIPOC writers. Honest about what it takes and not immune to imposter syndrome, she dives deep in conversation with TLL about the reality of gaining and maintaining success in Hollywood.
Interview via Zoom and edited by Kim Hoyos
On Early Life + Background:
Was there anything in your childhood that inspired your creativity?
My dad passed away when I was five years old. I found theater when I was eight and unbeknownst to me at the time, it's what allowed me to work through those feelings.
I was always a creative kid, always writing, always looking for the spotlight. The theater was just like a really lovely way to channel it, because it also involved a lot of people and I felt very seen. I was fortunate enough to go to a performing arts camp over the summers. I went to an all-girls arts camp, which was pretty incredible to have an environment of all young women. I had a raspy voice for a child so I played a lot of male roles, which are a lot of the time meatier than the female roles.
What an impactful experience! How else did you see your curiosity in art flourish?
At camp, I took a video class not knowing what it was or never really had used a camera for anything other than making movies in my room with my brother and stuff like that. The first film I made a silent film about Charlie Chaplin going to camp and I loved it.
I worked with a partner and I'm realizing now she was the DP, editor and co-creator while I was the director, actor and writer. We would run around camp and make these films. In fact, once in my cabin with my bunkmates, we were playing a game of roses and thorns. It’s a game which you should never play when you're 13- because it’s about naming one good thing about someone and one bad thing about someone. And someone stated “my bad thing” was I was spending too much time in the video studio. And so I was like, alright, then I'll take it! And I went in every day and started doing more and more videos. I was deeply a theater kid, but now looking back at it - being a director, creator, writer and showrunner, it's very much like running around that camp with a little camera.
What was your higher education experience like? Did you study what you’re doing now?
I was a theater major in college and then I took my first playwriting class freshman year and I loved it. I loved writing for the stage and exploring those worlds. I was really falling in love with playwriting. I went to school right outside Chicago and I thought I was gonna stay [there] and sort of do storefront theater as a playwright.
How did you realize you wanted to write shows? How did that expand from playwriting?
I got into this program called Creative Writing for the Media where each quarter we did a different kind of writing- so short film, feature film, playwriting, and fall of senior year was TV writing. And I had no experience with TV…I wasn't a TV head. But I fell in love with TV writing because it combined all of these things that I loved about playwriting and that I was starting to love about film. So the type A student in me, I was like “Oh, there's like a career in this, a path that I can have, and I can make my art and live a life from it.”
And I wrote the very first thing I wrote was a girl spec to date exactly where I was at the time. And I just really, really liked the medium. I kept writing and I got into the sitcom class where we wrote a pilot of a sitcom that was produced and filmed. I ended up working in casting and I just really wanted to be part of the production. So I helped cast the background extras and I just really loved it and wanted to be in that room kind of always.
On Breaking into the Industry
How did your career in TV start?
[Post grad] I lived in New York and when I moved to LA, I was so eager to just be in that room. I wanted to be around the [industry]. I didn't care if I was getting lunches or cleaning a whiteboard. I just wanted to be there and I felt lucky enough.
My first job in LA was a script PA on a sketch, an animated sketch comedy show for Comedy Central. It wasn’t very much like my kind of writing. I think you know your voice pretty early if you are a creative person or you know the kinds of stuff you like. And it’s easy to say “that’s what I want to work on” especially if you see friends who are working on things that are very “your voice”. But I learned more from jobs on shows that I maybe wouldn't have watched, had I not been working on them. At this animated sketch comedy show, I was reading submissions every day. I was reading submissions sent from all over including from agents and managers. I was just reading and reading and reading and reading. And I was figuring out what was good and what wasn't good, finding my favorites and the ones I didn’t like as much. Even though I'm not a sketch writer, it was like: “Why do I like that? What is funny?”
What else did you take from those early experiences?
When we'd have meetings, [about submissions] it was helping me form a point of view. And through meeting people, I started creating like the beginnings of a community. Next I went onto a period drama on the CW and that was where I learned how a writer's room functioned. And again, a period drama is not something that I thought that I would be working on. But I was eating it up and doing research on Queen Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, really learning this is what goes through the process of what a script coordinator did, what a writer's assistant did, and learning what me as an executive assistant was supposed to be doing.
How did your experience as a Hollywood assistant prepare you for your career?
After that show, when I went on to my next show, I was a show runner's assistant. And I did that on a TBS show and then on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Being a showrunner's assistant taught me so much about being a showrunner. Still, to this day, I go to old emails because I was cc’ed on everything I'm just like “Okay, how did they handle that?”. Because I saw how all of it worked on this TBS show. It was a first season show, 10 episodes writer's room before production, which is exactly what Diary of a Future President was. I learned how that all worked because we were hiring the DP and a line producer.
How did mentorship add to your journey as a creator?
I was watching Aline (McKenna) and Rachel (Bloom) and just soaking it all up. They also really took it upon themselves to be mentors and supporters of my career and saw me as a person with something to say.
I would bring Aline grapes to set when she was directing and she'd be like “Just stay and watch this scene and here's what we're doing. We're doing it again this way because dah, dah, dah.” And that was huge because I ended up directing and I ended up showrunning. As a writer's assistant, obviously the writer's room, I just learned everything. I learned how to pitch a joke, break a story, how the rhythm of a room feels and it changed my life. I mean everyone's path is different, but my assistant path, I really do feel like it gave me the foundation to be a showrunner in a way that I don't know if I would've had I just been a staff writer.
What do you hope for in the future of Hollywood?
I hope for a lot of things. I hope that the next “me’s” of TV don't have as much fear as I had and feel more welcomed into this industry. I try to give that to the people I work with, the way that it was given to me. But I think that there can be a lot of fear - “I don't belong here. It's not my turn yet.” I played that game for a little bit and was way more successful and saw more rewards when I was unapologetically myself. And when I was unapologetically in the space that I was in. I wish for young women, non-binary folks, and people of color, and anybody who, who feels underrepresented is to come into this space like we own it. Because if that's the step to owning it- if the film bros can do it, why can't we?
On Diary of a Future President + Growth from Imposter Syndrome
Diary of a Future President has made a splash as such an authentic, hilarious, and inclusive coming-of-age show! COVID expected, What was different with the production of season 2?
I could definitely feel the pressure heading into season two. It was the first time I was officially a showrunner in title. And personally, I was feeling it was my shot, I didn’t want to let any one of the people who've believed in me down. And then of course, with COVID, I'm like a leader thrust into wartime. There were all these decisions.
In terms of the show, there’s some pressure regardless because there is not yet ubiquity in the Latina space.I don't wanna speak for other creators, but I think that there is pressure that shows deliver and speak to the community, are also really good, get to a million seasons and sort of check every single box off. So I felt a lot of pressure first season as well. Then, gratefully with people connecting with the show, it became even bigger than me or wanting to prove that my show was good. It then became these characters have journeys and these people are watching them and it's bigger than me. It’s making sure that Elena's journey is satisfying.
Season 2 just became so much faster. But I also felt it was calmer than season 1 because I knew the world and it didn't feel totally unknown. I felt like I had a tribe of people who were helping me make this thing, which I also felt season 1, but season 2, I felt like the fans were helping craft this thing. It's not just the cast and the crew, it's the people that you've never met, who are helping to form what this world is and that's so special.
Executive producer, showrunner, staff writer- what role do you gravitate towards most? What do you want to do more of?
I was an executive producer on season 1 and the creator. And going into this from being a staff writer on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend after I had just been promoted from writer's assistant, I felt very new and like finally in the room. And then someone was like “wanna go into that special room?” I know that there was a part of me that thought this happened to me too early. Like dreams came true, but they came true like ahead of schedule. I felt a bit like I was just too young and too inexperienced to thrive in this. I wouldn't even let myself get imposter syndrome. I didn't say out loud to anybody except my therapist or my mom, that this happened to me too early because I was so grateful.
I did a complete 180 between seasons one and season two. I realized that this happened to me at the perfect time because that's when it happened to me and I am completely deserving of this role. And the things I don't know, I will admit I don't know them and I will learn. And the things I do know are way more than I thought I knew! So much of this job is instinct and kindness and energy and initially I was distrusting that I had those things. When I owned those things, I was able to open myself up to all of the things that I was learning and saw that I had mentors who helped give me advice on the managerial stuff of how to run a show.
How did you work against your imposter syndrome?
I can say with confidence after show running for one season officially and two seasons sort of another season unofficially that I'm good at it and I've worked really hard to be good at it. But that's something that was a really long journey for me to be able to say, I think especially as a young Latina woman, it's not like I had a million examples of what this looked like in the industry. It's not like the 22-year-old guys from Harvard who get their own shows immediately. I had, you know, Tanya (Saracho) and Gloria (Calderon Kellett) and casual supporters telling me I could do it. I think especially, being young would mess with me. I would have people who, as their boss, would say things to me like “You're younger than my daughter.” And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that but now I don't let that get to me anymore. I let that actually empower and inspire me. Like, yeah! And I’m your boss. So I've had a really big mental health journey between seasons 1 and 2.
On Creative Workflow
How do you stay inspired? How do you work with creative block?
We wrapped Diary filming in January 2021 and then we didn't air until August 2021 and that was a big chunk of time and I hadn't had that before. I had left Crazy Ex-Girlfriend early to staff season 1 of Diary. I didn't really have a break between seasons 1 and 2, I always thought I would just keep going and going. When I found out that we weren't going to air immediately. I definitely had that moment of like, well who am I without Diary? What am I going to do with my time? I'm a well-run dry!
I had a week of being kind of sad and I was home in South Florida, during the pandemic with my family. And I started to think about why I love working on the things that I love working on. It’s because I do it with people I love and they're things that I love to do. I am blessed enough right now to be in a position where I can make the calls on my career and see what happens so I sought out projects with people.
With Crystal (Ferriero) for Hermanas, I've worked with her in the Diary writer’s room. I know that I love working with her and I know I love her voice. Working on Hermans with her, doesn't feel like work. It's fun! She's a genius. Then I have a comedy that I'm developing with a friend that was just an idea that we'd always talked about socially. Then I basically called her and I was like, “I have time. Let's do it.” And we did it. I also sold a movie with another friend of mine. I just sought out collaborations and I have a few things that are my own.
How do you decide what projects to pursue?
I’ll ask: do I love working on this? Is it with people that I wanna work with? Like producers, executives. I looked for the joy, I didn't look for what's like expected of me. And when you do that, the right projects find you and then you're not limited. Like Hermanas is an hour-long, soapy drama while some other things I'm doing are much more comedic. I have YA work, some older-skewing things.
Every director has their own sense of stylistic choice and has their ‘Thing’ that makes their work memorable and 100% authentically theirs. What would you say is your ‘thing’ as a director?
I directed up episode nine of Diary and I had eight directors before then to kind of pick their brain and watch them. Because again, I wasn’t a film major. I haven't seen every Hitchcock movie. I’m not a film bro. I think that I thought that there was a gap that I had that I needed to fill.
I was soaking it all up from these directors, asking “What’s the secret?”. And 8 out of 8 of them said the story was most important and to always honor the story. That’s the part that’s in me and that I was the least nervous about. Every director’s style is different but I’m coming from the character first. If there's something like cool visually that aids the story, that’s great. I think that if I had a style, it's just kind to trust the words on the page and to let the actors fuel ownership over what they're saying.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I just directed an episode of Gordita Chronicles on HBO Max, but it reminded me how different the pace of production is then development. Like it's just go, go, go. And I miss that, I really do. I hope to be in production for something soon. I love development. I'm grateful to have the time, but it is much slower so I try to create my own schedule.
On a typical day I'll usually have a zoom or two or three about a project and either notes call or a writing session. And then I'm trying to take as many meetings as I can with just about new things And I block out time to outline or do a beat sheet for any other projects. But I also try to do things I can't do during production like take a walk or get a drink with a friend at 5:00 PM or sleep. I really try to do stuff like that and try to travel. I just give myself the gift of things that I can't do in production and sometimes it's honestly like going to the dentist at 2:00 PM on a random day just because I can.
What other kinds of projects would you like to create?
I would love to write a musical whether it's for the stage or screen. I'm not a songwriter; however I did contribute to the songs in the original musical in Diary season 2. But I would want to collaborate with somebody and write an original musical. It's the stuff that like raised me, A Chorus Line, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Gypsy, Into the Woods - it's such a big task and I hope I'd be good at it. But with Crazy Ex Girlfriend, it fueled a fire in me. I have people I can look to who are doing that and who are good at that. And I would love to write an original musical.