Summary

• The Girls on the Bus showcases four diverse female journalists who form a powerful bond while uncovering election-changing secrets.
• Amy Chozick and Julie Plec bring the campaign trail to life with compelling characters and fantastic performances.
• The show addresses important political issues, highlighting the impact of different perspectives on real-life issues like reproductive rights.

The Girls on the Bus follows four female journalists with various perspectives, levels of experience, and styles of reporting. Sadie is an ambitious young newspaper writer who can't help but lead with her heart; Grace has been on the campaign trail for years and is always the first with a scoop; Kimberlyn stands out working for a conservative cable news channel on a democratic campaign trail; and Lola is a social media influencer who gained her popularity through trauma and wants to use her platform for real change.

The Girls on the Bus was inspired by Chasing Hilary, written by Amy Chozick, who is also a co-creator of the series. She, along with acclaimed television producer Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries), brings her time as a journalist on the campaign trail to life through compelling characters. The Girls on the Bus features powerful performances by the four women at the heart of the show, led by Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Natasha Behnam, and Christina Elmore, along with their other cast mates, Griffin Dunne, Scott Foley, and Brandon Scott.

Screen Rant interviewed co-creators Amy Chozick and Julie Plec as well as producer Rina Mimoun about their new Max show, The Girls on the Bus. Chozick explained how her book, Chasing Hilary, was adapted, and Mimoun praised Benoist's ability to lead the set. Plec broke down the four lead characters and shared that she has more stories to tell in the world of The Vampire Diaries.

Adapting The Girls On The Bus Was A "Peak Life Experience" For Chozick

Screen Rant: Oh my God, this show is amazing. I watched it in a day, and truly my only complaint is I need season 2 right now. It's so good.

Amy Chozick: Music to Warner Bros.' ears. Thank you.

Amy, what was the adaptation process like of bringing the heart of your book to life in a TV show?

Amy Chozick: It was, as I told Greg Berlanti, a peak life experience, I have to say. I actually ended up meeting Warner Bros. executives, Susan Robner, Clancy Collins White, while I was still writing the book, and I told them about it, and they were just kind of instantly in. And then Greg Berlanti came on to produce it and he and Sarah Schechter identified this chapter, "The Girls on the Bus", and said, "We knew we didn't want to relive 2016. Nobody wants to see that again."

So we identified this chapter, "The Girls on the Bus", and how these women, very different women, became a found family on the campaign bus. And so, from there, luckily I ended up meeting Julie Bleck, and we dreamed up these four women. And yeah, it was incredible. By the time we were creating a fictional Democratic National Convention, it was a huge production.

You saw the show, so you've seen our balloon drop. But it was very surreal and incredible to be on set of rewriting history in a way. Rina would always encourage me in the writer's room, "What conversation do you wish you could have had with a candidate when you were covering politics? Because here you can." So it was just such a privilege to play with our imaginary friends and get to say something about the world.

Benoist Brought A Real "Leadership" As Both A Producer & Star On The Show

Oh, I love that. And then Julie, what did Melissa bring not only as the lead of the show, but a producer as well?

Julie Plec: Oh my gosh. Well, I wasn't there while she was there. But I am a very, very huge fan of hers and a good friend of hers. And I can say there's not a nicer, more responsible, more respectful, more passionate, more engaging, more kind actor on this planet. She is the real deal. She's everything that you wish for. So I will pass the torch to Rina to answer the second half of the question, but I can only imagine she was incredible.

Rina Mimoun: Yeah, she brought leadership and I think there is this concept, we all know there's No. 1 on the call sheet, and what does that mean? And so often in universes, No. 1 on the call sheet is the person that everyone fears, because if they're in a bad mood, everyone's in a bad mood. And Melissa takes the responsibility so seriously, and in fact never shows up in a bad mood.

If she's ever had one, I've never seen it, because when she comes to work, she understands that she's there to be that person. And I think she took that element of a producer, as well. She took it really seriously. She helped us choose a lot of our crew heads. She was part of the meetings in all of that. And her priority, which was wonderful, was, "I want them to be nice people." And especially, I remember specifically when we were setting up meetings with hair and makeup, because the cast is sitting in that trailer, that's where they show up at 4:30 every morning.

And yes, some people would say, "I want the person that's going to make me look the most beautiful." And Melissa was like, "I want the person who is going to make me feel the most comfortable and make everyone in the trailer feel the most comfortable." And that was sort of how she was from top to bottom. Yeah, we could talk about how much we love Melissa forever. She's amazing. She's just amazing.

Oh, that's such a smart detail. And then Rina, one of my favorite parts of the show, truly, is that this not only deals with very different political perspectives, but it shows how they truly affect people with reproductive rights. We see a little bit of a debate, but then it's like, "Okay, but this is impacting a real life." Why was it important to show those two aspects of politics?

Rina Mimoun: The way you framed that is actually so interesting. I think what we would like to sneak in and sort of say and make sure everyone really knows is politics sounds like this terrible thing. And we get into fights about it, and it's really mean. And I have a young child who was growing up saying, "I never want to get involved in politics ever", because it's created so much tension.

But what the flip side of that is, it's really f----ng important. It really affects every single aspect of our lives, and for some people more than others. And right now, I think women are feeling the particular squeeze of how much voting in one particular way, and understanding what your vote means all the way down the line and how it's going to ring back and hit you right where you're home. You don't think it matters. And then, "Oh my goodness, look at that. I can't pick up a pill."

And that's just the first step when it comes back, and you can't get your birth control pill. That is all coming back around. So the show is hopefully not — again, we do not aim to preach, and I think Julie put it best. We're here to entertain. But there is a little bit of it's important. It's not glib. And I think that's one of the things that I really appreciated about the show and about the way that we all treated the show is, "Let's not be preachy, but let's not be glib because it matters."

Yeah, no, it feels very authentic and sincere, which is I think why it hits so well. And then Amy and Julie, can you talk to me about showing these four different women who have not only very different experiences in life and journalism, but very different perspectives on the world as a whole?

Julie Plec: Oh, I mean, that was, to us, the key. Amy's talked about how there's a version of an adaptation of her memoir that could have been a Julie & Julia story, a young woman trying to make a name for herself in a career up against a more established woman who wants literally nothing to do with her. And I think that that one day would actually make a great movie.

So I hope that we get to do that too. But when we settled on making it a show about the kind of found family that develops in a bus-tour-across-the-country circumstance, we just had to ask ourselves, "Okay, well, we don't want the bus to be full of a bunch of women that just look like us and sound like us and think like us. So let's start figuring out who these women are."

And it was really important to us to have what, at the time when we started this process, I perceived to be the new wave of activists, which is the young kids, and specifically in this case, the Parkland kids who had just gone through a pretty extraordinary gun tragedy. And from the ashes of that tragedy came not one, not two, but 10 new, very, very, very vocal activists.

And so we looked at Emma Gonzalez and said, "What would it look like if Emma Gonzalez, a few years later after being in the national spotlight and on the cover of Time Magazine and invited to the White House, then decided she wanted to hit the road and be a real journalist, but had no training, no schooling, and no credibility other than that she had more Instagram followers than the Washington Post?" So that was the heart of where Lola started as a character.

What is new journalism? What is influencer journalism? For better or for worse, what is it, and what is the voice that these young activists are allowed and are going to continue to have in the journalistic space? Then we said, "Women have been doing this for a while. It's not new. Women have been clawing to get their way onto that bus for some time. Well, who was one of the first women to get on the bus? And what is she like today? Is she a dead mother? Is she a mentor? Is she a crazy old b---h? What is she?" And the questions led to who Grace is.

And then with Kimberlyn, it was, we need to represent the other side of our aisle, personal aisle. Not everybody here can be a blue-flag-toting Democrat, so we need a Republican. But who can we create that is a compassionate, believable, credible and likable Republican?

And we said, "Well, who would have every right to be a fiscal Republican in this world if we took certain people out of the equation? They would be a very, very smart black woman." So then we went down a deep dive of trying to shape who Kimberlyn was going to be. We had a good time coming up with all these characters, knowing that Sadie was a blend of Amy and me and women heroines that we love. And ultimately, then Rena. It was a blast. It was a real blast.

Plec Teases A Key Vampire Diaries Story She "100%" Wants To Tell

I love it so much. I have to switch gears for one second because my editor is a huge Vampire Diaries fan.

Julie Plec: Oh, yes.

So her biggest question was, is there more story to tell there?

Julie Plec: A hundred percent. Yeah. I have a story I still want to tell. I know that the people who own the book have a story that they still want to tell. I'm sure Warner Bros. has plenty of stories they want to tell. So the hope is they'll give me the opportunity to do it again. So we'll see.

About The Girls on the Bus

Four female journalists who follow the every move of a parade of flawed presidential candidates, finding friendship, love, and a scandal that could take down not just the presidency but our entire democracy along the way.

Check back for our other The Girls on the Bus interviews:

• Melissa Benoist & Natasha Behnam
• Carla Gugino & Christina Elmore
• Brandon Scott & Griffin Dunne
• Scott Foley

The Girls on the Bus debuts on Max on March 14.

Source: Screen Rant Plus