A Columbus resident joins writing team for HBO Max series

This story was originally published by the Ledger-Enquirer.

Columbus resident Natalia Temesgen continues her climb as a successful writer in show business.

Her latest step premieres April 7 with Episode 4 of the new HBO Max series “Julia,” about the late pioneering cooking star Julia Child.

Each of the eight episodes is a collaborative product among the six-person writing team, Temesgen told the Ledger-Enquirer, but she was responsible for writing this episode’s script.

“If people loved what they saw in that first drop of 1-3, they’re going to love 4, and they’re going to love 5, 6, 7 and 8,” she said. “It’s a totally cohesive show.”

Following her stint as a writer for the fourth and final season of “Dear White People” on Netflix, Temesgen sees getting this gig as establishing her among Hollywood writers.

“After the second one, it’s like, ‘All right, you’re in,’” she said with a laugh.

COMPELLING STORY OF JULIA CHILD

Temesgen explained what she finds compelling about the “Julia” story.

“Julia Child has become a symbol for so many ideals, but I think that what she represents as well is something we’ve been missing in our TV and probably in our zeitgeist moment in general, which is just like an encouraging, can-do spirit that seems kind of indomitable by any kind of hurdle in her way,” she said. “… A show that makes you feel encouraged and that dreams are within reach is just a really lovely message to get right now.” Writing a show that her grandmother, parents and children can watch at the same time is a pleasant benefit.

“It’s the kind of content that’s safe for all sorts of demographics and age groups,” she said. “I’m excited a lot more people in my life will be able to enjoy this one than some other things I’ve written before.”

Part of the attraction to the show for Temesgen, 35, was that it tells the story of a woman “finding a new lease on life, in her career, at a moment that doesn’t seem to be the correct time and the way a loving marriage can support those kinds of things.

“It felt very much like how I felt: leaving home for months in the beginning and my husband being such a supporting trooper. … He just recognized how excited I was,” she said. “That’s the way Julia’s and Paul’s relationship played as well. So I was just drawn to the idea of showing a really earnest partnership in marriage that can be malleable and can respond to the needs of both people, even in a time where gender equality was just not nearly as much of a thing.”

COLLABORATING THROUGH COVID

“Julia” is filmed in Boston because Julia Child lived across the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her show “The French Chef” was produced by Boston’s public television station, WGBH, and aired nationally from 1963-73. Temesgen spent a month there for last summer’s filming of the episode she wrote.

“I had a blast,” she said.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the writing team met only virtually, with three writers in New York, two in Los Angeles and Temesgen in Columbus. They plan to continue that model even after COVID isn’t a pandemic, she said.

“I just feel very grateful that I can not only live out my dreams but also do it where I want to be,” she said.

And that’s in Columbus, where her family moved when she was 8. Temesgen attended fourth grade at Brookstone School and graduated from Columbus High School in 2004. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English at Princeton University and a master’s degree in dramatic writing at New York University, she met her husband, Pete, in Boston.

They moved to Columbus in 2013 to raise their children, Aria, 9, and Paul, 6, and live closer to her father, Dr. Vincent Naman of Chattahoochee Plastic Surgery, and mother, Diane, a registered nurse and the office manager. Pete is a lawyer at Huff, Powell & Bailey and was appointed Monday night by Gov. Brian Kemp as State Court judge in Muscogee County.

WHY STAY IN COLUMBUS

Besides living in her hometown and close to relatives, Temesgen listed other reasons she wants to remain in Columbus.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “… There’s actual nature here and the river and all of that. There’s a rich cultural and artistic history here that feels like it feeds the community now. We have a relationship to it, and that inspires me. And then the people are just wonderful. On the whole, Columbus is just a super supportive and engaged community.”

Staying in the Chattahoochee Valley also allows Temesgen to continue teaching at Columbus State University, where she received tenure this year and will be an associate professor of creative writing when the fall semester starts.

“I love that job so much,” she said, “and I love my students.”

Although her Hollywood success makes working as a professor financially unnecessary, Temesgen continues to teach because she wants to give back to her craft and her community.

“I just think it’s important that as long as I’m here and physically able to, I should be working with these students,” she said. “I feel motivated to give them as much information to help equip them to possibly enter this field as I can. I’m a better teacher because of the work I’ve been doing in Hollywood now because I didn’t have firsthand experience. Now, I look at them as potential future colleagues.”

SEASON 2 OF JULIA?

Temesgen was coy about whether “Julia” will have a Season 2, deferring to HBO’s expected announcement this month.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm internally about the show,” she said, “and I think it’s got a future. … We’re hoping we’ll get to continue to tell a lot more stories and follow (Julia’s) career and ascendancy all the way to the end.”

If there is a Season 2, she would continue on the writing team, Temesgen said, and be co-producer as well.

“Coming from trying to just get my foot in the door in 2019 to, just in over two years, be securely in the middle ranks — certainly not entry level anymore — I’m ecstatic,” she said.

NATALIA TEMESGEN’S NEXT PROJECT

Temesgen’s next project, scheduled for release in the fall, is “Reasonable Doubt” on Hulu. The series is about a Black female defense attorney who bucks the system. Temesgen is executive story editor and wrote one of the episodes.

Writing for “Julia” helps Temesgen feel that Hollywood producers haven’t typecast her as a writer of subjects involving only race.

“It’s wonderful to feel that I can add value to a story that is not centered around being a Black person,” she said. “I identify with Julia as a wife or a working woman with dreams. It’s just great to feel that I’m not — so far in my career — I’m not being pigeon-holed in one particular area. I really appreciate that. … It seems like they had an interest in writers that had theater backgrounds.”

Her theater background was born as a student at the Springer Theatre Academy in Columbus and blossomed as an award-winning playwright with productions in Atlanta, Boston, New York and Philadelphia — as well as at the Springer Opera House, where “Ace: The Eugene Bullard Story” premiered in 2017 and “Look Forward: The Ruby Bridges Story” will run from Sept. 30-Oct. 9.

Springer producing artistic director Paul Pierce told the Ledger-Enquirer Temesgen’s success is an example of content ruling over geography.

“Natalia was diligent about developing her talent,” Pierce said. “She went to the people that could make a difference and had a say, and eventually her talent was able to be shared.”

Temesgen’s ultimate career goal is to create an original TV series and bring it to fruition.