Jason Katims
Jason Katims
Jason Katimsis an American television writer, producer, and playwright. He is best known for being the head writer and executive producer of both Friday Night Lights, on which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series in 2011 for his work on the series finale, and Parenthood. He has also worked on Relativity, which he created and wrote for; Roswell, which he developed, produced and wrote for; Boston Public, which he co-wrote; Pepper Dennis; About...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth30 November 1960
CountryUnited States of America
I feel like not only are 'Parenthood' fans passionate, but that passion has grown over the run of the show and people got more invested as the show has gone on. That really does help keep shows on the air.
There's something about the alchemy of the show - the actors, the writers, the directors, the editors - that makes 'Parenthood' unique. You get so deeply embedded with these characters because you go through life with them, and that's our priority.
It's so funny because a lot of times we'll have these discussions as writers, and you feel like you're having a discussion with your wife: 'I don't know. Are they ready to have another baby? Is it time? Well, she's not getting any younger.'
I feel that people are basically trying to do their best in the world. Even when you see people making mistakes, you understand why theyre making a mistake. Everybody has flaws, everybody has demons, everybody has ghosts, but I think you watch people and you see everybody trying to do their best.
People think about autism as something with kids. Well, those kids grow up.
To me, when you have people trying to put their best foot forward but facing conflict, that's when stories are the most interesting.
I did a lot of freelance desk publishing jobs when I graduated from college. I sort of earned a living doing that while I was writing plays, which was what I wanted to do. My hope was to become a playwright.
The frustrating thing about Friday Night Lights is I know a lot more people would respond to the show if they saw it.
You're breaking up, you're getting together, you're changing your life, you're arguing with your parents, you're making terrible mistakes, you're having great triumphs. It's what happens to teenagers.
The shows I've been working on, especially 'Parenthood' and 'Friday Night Lights,' I think are completely character-driven stories. I think, for most writers, that's a privilege to be telling those kinds of stories. It's erroneous to me.
'Parenthood' is a story about people's lives - the title helps. Very early on during the show's launch, the title was something familiar for the audience. It grabbed people's interest.
That's the thing that I've always kind of kept in the back of my head in writing about teens, that everything is so important, all the time, every day. Every day of your life, you're changing and making decisions and everything is an emergency to you.
Something that I learned from 'Friday Night Lights,' sometimes if you have four or five scenes in an episode, it's not having less than having 10. It's what you do with those scenes.
I'm not somebody who goes online after every episode airs because that would be, for me, getting too much feedback and too much information.