A Well-Scripted Life

If you have watched an episode of the very popular My Life with the Walter Boys on Netflix or Bel-Air—a contemporary spin on the Will Smith-led The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air of the 1990s—chances are you know the work of Tawnya Bhattacharya.

Becoming one of the most in-demand writers for television—series and films—started out with ambitions to be in front of the camera—or on a stage—not in a writers’ room. And the makings of what would become a successful career in Hollywood actually began when Bhattacharya was a student at Cornish College of the Arts.

Though she entered Cornish with aspirations of a dance degree—she’s been a dancer all her life, from tap to ballet to jazz—when it came time to audition for the program, she relented, instead shifting her interest to acting “much to the dismay of my mother,” Bhattacharya says, with a laugh.

And why acting? Simply put, “it was something I have always wanted to do.” (While studying acting she also dabbled in the playwriting program at Cornish.)

Like many fledgling actors, all roads—or is it broken dreams?—lead to Hollywood and after graduating in 1992 she moved south to Los Angeles where she stayed for a few months, before moving to Chicago and then Vienna, where she spent two years as part of a traveling theater collective. Once that gig was done, she returned to LA, which she calls home today. It was actually her experience as an actor that ultimately kickstarted her writing career.

“The frustration of waiting around for auditions is the reason I started writing, something I’ve always loved,” she says. “So, I started writing scripts.”

It was a feature film, not television, where Bhattacharya found her first official writing job, even before her entry into the Writers Guild. Though she was still thinking about acting—and to this day continues to be a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild—her passion was waning.

With an interest in TV writing, Bhattacharya honed her craft through her involvement in two writing programs—FOX Writers Intensive Writing and NBC’s Writers on the Verge—that ultimately helped open the door to television.

While she had a knack—and an ear—for dialogue, she was missing the story structure. She took a class to hone her skills and before long was teaching the class, which is where she met Ali Laventhol, a student at the time, who would one day become her future co-writer—and one-half of a powerhouse writing duo—on various TV and film scripts.

With Laventhol she has written and served as a co-executive producer for more than a dozen shows including Ginny & Georgia on Netflix and the erstwhile A Million Little Things at ABC, along with several made-for-television movies.

Though early on in their career Bhattacharya and Laventhol may have been known mostly for script writing in the young adult (YA) genre, often based on a popular book or series and ubiquitous these days on many of the major streamers, their writing credits—and work as executive producers—showcase an eclectic and diverse mix of genres from legal and cop shows to hospital-set dramas. And while they may have gotten their foothold in writers rooms scripting lines for a YA-oriented show, Bhattacharya is quick to note that they sought to not be pigeonholed.

“My writing partner and I had written in a lot of different worlds … but, somehow, we ended up on a couple of YA and streaming shows, including Famous in Love on Freeform. And then suddenly, people started thinking, ‘oh, they’re YA writers,’” says Bhattacharya. “That’s the thing about the business—people like to pigeonhole you. Once you’ve done something successfully, that becomes the box they want to put you in. But I think there are writers who can move between genres and different kinds of stories. We’ve always wanted to do that.”

And together they are telling the types of stories they want to tell. Most recently the pair sold two shows that reflect the breadth of their talents and their ability to write across genres, while infusing their desire for more edgier, sexier and darker themes, as described by Bhattacharya: One is a legal pilot, The Advocate, bought by ABC and the second is a young adult thriller based on the book The One That Got Away with Murder for Hulu.

These shows are also opportunities for the writing partners to be showrunners, leading all points of production. Aside from TV writing, they also pen movies, time permitting, and are currently meeting directors on a psychological thriller they wrote, as well as writing a Christmas movie for FOX Studios.

“We have been co-executive producers seven times and the head writers in five writers’ rooms. Throughout our career, we’ve learned a lot about best practices on running a healthy writers’ room, as well as what it takes to run a show and be responsible for anywhere from a couple writers to more than 300 across all departments,” Bhattacharya says. “We’re excited and ready for the opportunity to fully take the helm.”

And for more than a decade Bhattacharya has been helping other writers create their own content.

In 2011, she opened a TV and features writing school, Script Anatomy, to share with other writers her own experience and process to help them break into the industry and ultimately build a career doing what they love. Many of her students have done just that, selling TV and feature film scripts, writing novels or writing for or creating popular series including The Dropout, This is Us, The Morning Show, The Handmaid’s Tale, Severance and Grey’s Anatomy, among hundreds of others.

“I took my knowledge and looked at what was missing from the different classes I had done. What was missing was process,” she explains. “You’d be inspired (in class) then go home and face a blank page. I created a series of development tools when it comes to writing relationships and conflicts. It was very hands-on, applying what I’ve learned and working with the writers directly.

“If we didn’t have success stories,” she continues, “I would have shut it down. I’m really proud that our students have written for successful shows and have achieved this level of success.”

As Bhattacharya has experienced firsthand the ebb and flow of the industry, including an evolving TV landscape with the addition of several streaming companies to the industry-wide impacts during and after COVID and the last writers’ strike, she offers advice to writers or talent interested in pursuing this line of work: be versatile and flexible.

“The more skills and talent you have—being able to edit, direct, write—opens you up to more opportunities. I started in TV really late,” says Bhattacharya, who jokes that she is an “overnight success” 15 years in the making. “It’s never too late to jump in and don’t be afraid to try it. And you shouldn’t be afraid to pivot. The goal as an artist is to work and to make a living” doing what you love, whether that’s on the screen or stage, doing a podcast or voice work or script writing.

“Never say no to yourself. There will always be people that will say no to you or you’ll face rejection,” she says. “But say yes to yourself and know that the road to success is paved with no’s.”

Reflecting on her time at Cornish, it’s clear that the experience went beyond studying acting—it also became an important influence on the way she writes, even today.

“I loved going to school at Cornish and still feel like I’m in that world. I definitely think going to Cornish, acting, reading all these plays, helped me with my voice, with dialogue and scene work writing.”

When not writing or show-running Bhattacharya enjoys a host of hobbies including tennis, doing fun things around LA, reading, traveling and spending time with her husband and her Boston terrier, Disco.