Debora Cahn On How Her Work On ‘West Wing’, ‘Homeland’ &’Greys Anatomy’ Led To Creating Her Emmy-Nominated ‘The Diplomat’ – Behind The Lens

For Debora Cahn, getting to create and run her own Netflix hit series was simple. First, get jobs and spend years writing and producing on iconic shows like The West Wing, Homeland and Grey’s Anatomy.

Cahn is creator, showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat, which she thinks of as sort of the flip of West Wing, a show she joined in its fourth season and stayed through the 2026 finale, with a focus on international affairs rather than domestic politics. For its third season, Diplomat has received more Emmy nominations than ever with seven, including two for Cahn — Outstanding Drama Series and Writing in a Drama Series. It is especially sweet because this reps her first Emmy nomination for writing, though she is a two-time WGA Award winner (for “The Supremes” episode of West Wing and the limited series, Fosse/Verdon). In all three years of the series, star Keri Russell has been nominated, and the show itself was also up for Drama Series last season too.

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Cahn says she has learned from the best, including of course West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and Grey’s Anatomy creator Sondra Rhimes, the latter show she joined early on in 2006 before leaving in 2013. She also worked under Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter as a writer and co-ep of HBO’s Vinyl, and wrote the TV Movie Paterno starring Al Pacino among other impressive credits.

Cahn joins me for this episode of my Deadline video series, Behind The Lens where we talk about her remarkable career, the upward trajectory of The Diplomat at the Emmys, how the show resonates in this upside down political climate and how she keeps it relevant, plus where it is going in the fourth season now underway in the writers room, and so much more including the meeting during the production of Homeland where Cahn jotted down just five words that led to the creation of The Diplomat.

RELATED: It Starts On The Page: Read ‘The Diplomat’ Season 3 Script “Amagansett” With Foreword By Debora Cahn

To watch our conversation and to go ‘behind the lens’ with Debora Cahn just click on the link above.

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