Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Lauren Iungerich

Lauren Iungerich (Photo by Kevin Parry/The Paley Center for Media)

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on writer, producer, director and showrunner Lauren Iungerich (pronounced: you-know-rick).

At the end of her junior year in college Lauren interned as an assistant to Arnold Kopelson, the Academy Award winning producer of films like Platoon, The Fugitive and Seven. After she graduated, she went to work as a Feature Film Development Executive, writing at nights and on the weekends. It was in 2000 that she quit that job in order to write full time. She then ended up getting hired to write a movie for Warner Bros., having a script optioned by Mel Gibson’s company. The executives there then asked her if she had any TV ideas and she spent the next couple of years selling TV pilots that, unfortunately, did not make it on the air.

But eventually she ended up getting a job on the writing staff of the short-lived ABC Family TV series 10 Things I Hate About You thanks to a play she wrote during the writer’s strike. From there ABC Family asked her to write something for them, which lead her to making some Web content such as My Two Fans, which was about a woman who has her own fan club that gives her advice.

Now, Lauren is the series creator, writer, director and showrunner of the popular MTV comedy Awkward, which is set in a California high school focusing on teenagers that will start its second season tomorrow night on MTV at 10:30 PM. And with the success of Awkward, Lauren has developed a second comedy called Dumb Girls that will focus on twentysomethings.

Lauren got married last year, but is a self-described American Bridget Jones, who has no problem embarrassing herself or writing about it. You can follow her on Twitter @laurenei.