Ed Zwick Remembers Making Of ‘My So-Called Life’: “I Vowed To Portray Real Adolescence”

deadline.com:

As My So-Called Life nears its 30th anniversary, Executive Producer Ed Zwick took a walk down memory lane Saturday to remind folks about working on the before-its-time drama that starred Claire Danes.

In a long X thread, Zwick shared an “origin story” about how he was first drawn to the work of Winnie Holzman before he would end up co-EPing her script with longtime producing partner Marshall Herskovitz.

Zwick chronicles his work on My So-Called Life, as well as thirtysomething, The Last Samurai and Glory in his upcoming book “Hits, Flops and Other Illusions,” out in February. “Kristy McNichol played ‘Buddy,’ an adolescent girl on ABC-TV’s Family,” Zwick began. “I’d write surly teenage dialogue and get network notes on my scripts with the initials N.O.B.

meaning “not our Buddy.” I vowed someday I’d get to portray real adolescence.” “Marshall wrote a provocative pilot for Showtime called “Secret Seventeen” about unruly, unapologetic, wised-up, highly sexualized teenagers in mall culture,” Zwick continued. “The network barely read it and summarily passed.