Aline Brosh McKenna (born August 2, 1967) is an American filmmaker. Her credits include writing '' The Devil Wears Prada'' (2006), ''

27 Dresses ''27 Dresses'' is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher, written by Aline Brosh McKenna, and starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden. The film was released in the United States on January 18, 2008. It received mixed re ...

'' (2008), ''Morning Glory'' (2010), '' We Bought a Zoo'' (2011) and co-creating

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

's '' Crazy Ex-Girlfriend''.

Early life and education

Brosh was born to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in France and, at the age of six months, moved with her family to

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, where she lived variously in Fort Lee, Demarest and Montvale, and attended Saddle River Day School in Saddle River. She graduated ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Career

After graduating, McKenna moved to New York City to seek a job in

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

. While there, she did some freelance writing work. A script she wrote during a six-week course in

screenwriting Screenwriting or scriptwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is often a freelance profession. Screenwriters are responsible for researching the story, dev ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

helped her get an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

, and, in 1991, she moved to Los Angeles. By age 26, she had sold a comedy feature and a television pilot, and continued to write a number of feature and television scripts. She also wrote an episode of

Margaret Cho Margaret Moran Cho (born December 5, 1968) is an American stand-up comedian, actress and musician. In her Stand-up comedy, stand-up routines she critiques social and political problems, especially about race and sexuality. She starred in the Ame ...

's sitcom '' All American Girl''. However, it would be eight years until her first movie, 1999's

Matthew Perry Matthew Langford Perry (August 19, 1969 – October 28, 2023) was an American and Canadian actor, comedian, director and screenwriter. He gained international fame for starring as Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom ''Friends'' (1994– ...

- Neve Campbell romantic comedy '' Three to Tango'', was produced. In 2004, she wrote '' Laws of Attraction'', starring

Pierce Brosnan Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He was the fifth actor to play the fictional secret agent Portrayal of James Bond in film, James Bond in the List of James Bond films, James Bond film series, starri ...

and

Julianne Moore Julie Anne Smith (born December 3, 1960), known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress and children's author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent ...

. She adapted Lauren Weisberger’s novel '' The Devil Wears Prada'' into the 2006 film of the same name, directed by

David Frankel David Frankel (born April 2, 1959) is an American filmmaker. He directed '' The Devil Wears Prada'' (2006), '' Marley & Me'' (2008), '' Hope Springs'' (2012), '' Jerry & Marge Go Large'' (2022), and the first and fourth episodes of the Netflix mi ...

and starring

Meryl Streep Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career ...

Anne Hathaway Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. List of awards and nominations received by Anne Hathaway, Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime ...

and

Emily Blunt Emily Olivia Laura Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is a British actress. The recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Emily Blunt, several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition t ...

. Though her first two produced features were both romantic comedies, McKenna has reiterated that ''The Devil Wears Prada'' is not, and has instead described it as 'competence porn', noting: 'The real love story is, she ends up with that newspaper, having understood the world better and having understood her naiveté better'. The film earned McKenna a

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. McKenna explored the nuances of the characters of Miranda (Meryl Streep's character) and Andy (Anne Hathaway's character) in ''The Devil Wears Prada'' in a 2006 interview with Jan Huttner:

"I wanted to make sure the audience understood why she had so much power in her world; and then understand that there was a cost for her, because we wanted Andy to walk away from a life as opposed to walking away from a person. She sees how much Miranda has sacrificed in her personal life, and that’s just not what Andy wants to do. Miranda’s held to a different standard than male executives might be held to, and she lives under a microscope."

She wrote ''

'' starring

Katherine Heigl Katherine Heigl ( ; born November 24, 1978) is an American actress and model. She portrayed Izzie Stevens, Dr. Izzie Stevens on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television medical drama ''Grey's Anatomy'' from 2005 to 2010, a role that b ...

in 2008. The film took its place quickly as a classic romantic comedy, telling the story of a bridesmaid of twenty-seven weddings finding her own love. Her next produced movie was 2010's ''

Morning Glory Morning glory (also written as morning-glory) is the common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose taxonomy and systematics remain in flux. These species are distributed across numerous genus, gene ...

'', starring

Rachel McAdams Rachel Anne McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Canadian actress. After graduating from York University in 2001 with a BFA in theatre, she worked in Canadian television and film productions, such as the drama film '' Perfect Pie'' (2002), ...

Harrison Ford Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. Regarded as a cinematic cultural icon, he has starred in Harrison Ford filmography, many notable films over seven decades, and is one of List of highest-grossing actors, the highest-gr ...

and

Diane Keaton Diane Keaton (née Hall; born January 5, 1946) is an American actress. She has received List of awards and nominations received by Diane Keaton, various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a Bri ...

, followed shortly after by 2011's adaptation '' I Don't Know How She Does It'', with

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. In a career spanning over five decades, she has performed across several productions of both Sarah Jessica Parker filmography, screen and stage. List o ...

and

. McKenna has jokingly referred to ''The Devil Wears Prada'', ''Morning Glory'' and ''I Don't Know How She Does It'' as 'The Blackberry 3', a thematically-linked trio of films featuring women who see their

Blackberries BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

more than they see their own families. In an interview for ''The Ringer'', McKenna compared that lifestyle to her own as a showrunner: "Striving for perfection, you can easily end up having it fill all the gaps in your life because that’s the kind of job, like being a showrunner, that you’re never done, you’re never finished, you could always be doing something else." In the same year, McKenna wrote

Cameron Crowe Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American filmmaker and journalist. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award. Crowe started his career a ...

's '' We Bought a Zoo'', an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Benjamin Mee. The film received positive reviews overall, with a ''London Evening Standard'' critic commenting, "You have to admire the thoroughness with which ''We Bought a Zoo''--which is the film Disney would make if they still knew how--caters to the whole family." In 2014, she wrote the musical comedy-drama '' Annie'', directed by

Will Gluck Will Gluck (born November 7, 1978) is an American filmmaker, songwriter, and composer. He is known for writing and directing films such as ''Easy A'' (2010), ''Friends with Benefits (film), Friends with Benefits'' (2011), the ''Peter Rabbit'' f ...

and with

Quvenzhané Wallis Quvenzhané Wallis ( ; born August 28, 2003) is an American actress and author. In 2012, she starred as Hushpuppy in the drama film ''Beasts of the Southern Wild'' (2012), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, becomi ...

in the title role. The film was a contemporary adaptation of the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. McKenna returned to television in 2015, when she teamed up with singer and comedian

Rachel Bloom Rachel Leah Bloom (born April 3, 1987) is an American actress, comedian, singer, writer, and producer. She is best known for co-creating and starring as Rebecca Bunch in The CW musical comedy-drama series ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'' (2015– ...

to create the romantic musical comedy-drama '' Crazy Ex-Girlfriend''. The show was originally developed for Showtime, with a half hour pilot produced. When Showtime opted not to proceed, McKenna and Bloom reworked the series for

, including expanding it into an hour-long format. The CW renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on October 21, 2016, and a third season, which premiered on October 13, 2017. McKenna is the series' showrunner and an executive producer. In a 2018 interview for '' Deadline'', when asked about ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'''s commentary on gender, she said:

I mean it’s so fun to poke fun at. There are also still lots of things that haven’t been talked about. You still have to fight to get the word clitoris on the air and people still freak out when you talk about periods. We’re taking on some other gynecology because it’s always fun for us and threatening to the patriarchy.

In March 2017, McKenna inked a two-year overall deal with

CBS Television Studios CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount (Network) Television, as a re ...

, the studio behind ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'', to develop new projects for network and cable through her production company Lean Machine. The following October, she teamed up with Rene Gube, a producer and recurring guest star on ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'', for a single-camera comedy called ''Big Men'' that has been set up at

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. McKenna made her graphic novel debut in late 2017, working with artist Ramon Perez on ''Jane'', a modern retelling of

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...

's 1847 novel ''

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...

.'' The graphic novel was published by

Boom! Studios Boom! Studios (stylized as BOOM! Studios), is an American comic book and graphic novel publisher. They are headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. The company is a subsidiary of Random House division of Penguin Random House sin ...

Scriptnotes

McKenna was the first ever guest on the screenwriting podcast '' Scriptnotes'', hosted by

John August John August (born August 4, 1970) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist. He is known for writing the films '' Go'' (1999), '' Charlie's Angels'' (2000), '' Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' (2003), '' Big Fish'' (2003), '' ...

and

Craig Mazin Craig Mazin (born 1971) is an American writer, director, and producer. He is best known for creating, writing, and producing the HBO historical disaster drama miniseries ''Chernobyl (miniseries), Chernobyl'' (2019) and co-creating, co-writing, an ...

. She made her debut on the show's 60th episode, a live event at the

Austin Film Festival Austin Film Festival (AFF), founded in 1994, is an organization in Austin, Texas, that focuses on writers' creative contributions to film. Initially, AFF was called the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters Conference and functioned to launch the c ...

in October 2012. She is, by a long distance, the podcast's most frequent guest, having made over two dozen appearances in subsequent years. In recognition, Mazin christened her 'the

Joan Rivers Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedienne, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that w ...

of ''Scriptnotes'''. McKenna guest-hosted the podcast for an episode in January 2014, filling in for Mazin.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
Aline Brosh McKenna: Screenwriting Lecture
part of th
BAFTA Screenwriters on Screenwriting series

nytimes.com, August 25, 2011
Aline Brosh McKenna on Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:McKenna, Aline Brosh 1967 births Living people 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American screenwriters 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American screenwriters 21st-century American women writers American television writers American women television producers American women television writers American women film directors American women screenwriters Film directors from New Jersey French emigrants to the United States Harvard University alumni Jewish American screenwriters Jewish women writers People from Demarest, New Jersey Writers from Fort Lee, New Jersey People from Montvale, New Jersey New York University alumni Saddle River Day School alumni Screenwriters from New Jersey American showrunners Television producers from New Jersey