Writer Lindy West, whose 2016 memoir was adapted into a film for the Hulu series “Shrill,” has revealed that she felt “strange and invisible” during the three years she spent making the show, in part due to the influence of her colleagues.
West relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles to produce Shril, which starred Aidy Bryant. Bryant was also a co-creator along with Ali Rushfield.
In his new memoir, Adult Braces, released today, West details how the show was picked up to series because Hulu had an opening in their schedule, even though he hadn’t finished writing the pilot yet. But having arrived in Los Angeles with what she describes as “naive positivity,” she soon realized that “all the veteran TV people were working as hard as they could to meet deadlines. No matter how nice I was, they didn’t have much time or patience until ‘Take an Author to Work Day.'”
Once she entered the writers’ room, her story fell apart and there were further disappointments. “The lead character’s name will no longer be Lindy. The show will no longer be set in Seattle. The character written to represent[West’s eventual husband]Ayham will no longer be a love interest.”
“I had an identity crisis,” West says. “It’s very corrosive to an already weakened psyche to make a show about the most vulnerable and embarrassing parts of your life, and then sit in the writers’ room and listen to all these skinny white guys from Harvard debate, ‘So when should we let our father die?'” Your real father is actually dead. It’s just decided that he should never die because it’s no fun for his father to die. ”
West says he was given a variety of excuses for the change, including that it was what the studio wanted and to protect the show from lawsuits. “Even though I was perfectly received, I couldn’t escape the fact that what I said seemed almost polite. And it didn’t mean I was dismissed in the usual way you often hear in Hollywood — I was told by executives Being warned about punishment, being forced to keep quiet and follow the ratings—I mean, as the weeks went on, I started to feel like I was being treated. I started to feel like everyone else had already spoken privately when I went to meetings.”
She also detailed how the cast and some of the creators, including the writers and producers, spent time together outside of work and posted photos on Instagram. “I wasn’t invited,” she reveals.
When one of his friends, Samantha Irby, was removed from the writers’ room for Season 2, West decided to speak out. “When I finally got up the courage to complain, crying on the phone to producers who didn’t have the time – I realized that even that origin story was slipping under our feet. It was Aidy’s magic that brought us all to this moment, because the show would never have been made without a star on it. A real star. Not me. Her magic. Not mine. Not ours.”
West says in his new memoir that although he had some input into the show, such as approving props, writing the script, and casting dogs, “‘Sharyl’ was never my show, and in the ways that were important to me, I was never really there.”
“My real personality wasn’t there, and I didn’t really see it on screen. I loved my co-workers, but I never really got to know people well enough to feel at home, and after Scream was canceled, I didn’t really get to see them on screen. I might have had more work to do. I was given the illusion of power while the real decision-makers were on the phone without me. I didn’t want to be undermined so many times by the adjustments in my life before I started to know who I was.”
When the show was ultimately canceled in 2021 after three seasons, West says he was “oddly relieved.” Three months later, she says she received a package from the production office that confirmed how her colleagues felt about her. It was a book of behind-the-scenes photos that didn’t feature a single photo of West, and her name was misspelled on a post-it note on the cover.
