Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Antonia Ellis

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is focused on writer and producer Antonia Ellis.

Antonia grew up in Ohio, attending the University of Miami (in Ohio), receiving a B.S. in Communications and then receiving a Masters of Liberal Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Harvard University.

She is a former music major in classical piano who started her career in concert promotion/production, music videos and was even a radio disc jockey. She also studied abroad in London and worked at the BBC.

Her first job in the industry was working as a production coordinator on the 1988 film Screwball Hotel, using the name of Toni Ellis. She later worked as an assistant to the producers on Young Guns II; as a location assistant on both the 1990 films Coupe de Ville and The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine; as an assistant to the producers on City Slickers and as a post-production supervisor the 1992 TV movie Red Shoe Diaries.

It was in 1993 that she landed a job as an associate producer on the popular series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman where she worked for two seasons; and then she worked from 1999 to 2004 as a co-producer and then a producer on Sex and the City. She followed that up by working as a co-producer on the short-lived Love Monkey and then as a producer and supervising producer on Men in Trees. She then shifted to academia, becoming a professor at the University of Arizona.

In 2014, she worked as a co-producer on Mozart in the Jungle before working as a writer and producer on the long-running Royal Pains. She was also a co-producer on Bull in 2016, a co-producer on the Amazon series Z: The Beginning of Everything in 2017 and is now the co-producer on the new CBS drama Instinct, which stars Alan Cumming.

Antonia loves yoga and scuba diving, is a dog lover and enjoys sugar-free baking.

The next new episode of Instinct will air on CBS on Sunday, April 29 at 8/7c.