An Interview with Gemma Burgess & Meredith Glynn from ‘My Lady Jane’

(L-R) Meredith Glynn and Gemma Burgess attend the My Lady Jane Global Red Carpet Premiere on June 24, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty

Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn are a pair of talented writers that helped to bring to life the new sensation series, My Lady Jane, on Prime Video and we here at NTG had the distinct honor of sitting with both of them to discuss the genesis of this series and so much more.  
 
John Betancourt: I'd love to start by learning what inspired each of you to want to bring this book to the small screen.
 
Gemma Burgess: The book itself. I fell in love with it as a fan, and then thought, this has to be on television.
 
Meredith Glynn: You were riding the subway, yeah?
 
Gemma Burgess: Yeah!
 
Meredith Glynn: And you saw a young woman reading it close to her face, and if a young woman is so involved in something, then it has to be incredible.
 
Gemma Burgess: That's right. So, I bought it and read it just for me, and didn't know anything about it, and fell completely in love.
 
Meredith Glynn: And I read Gemma's pilot. She was looking for a partner, and I fell in completely in love with her pilot and with her, with herself and with the book when I read it shortly thereafter, but what really drew us to it, honestly, is that when we started talking about the show, we were both obsessed with Lady Jane Grey when we were teenagers.
 
Gemma Burgess: That's right. So, you know the Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes movie, Lady Jane, which tells us true story. It's beautiful and super depressing, and there's a Delaroche painting, and I had the poster on my wall when I was 13, and we were both just very romantic early teenagers who loved Lady Jane Grey.
 
Meredith Glynn: When you’re that age, you're drawn to the beautiful and super depressing perhaps? (Laughter from all) And then you reevaluate it when you're a little bit older, and you're like, “No, wait, that was really messed up.” She was this incredibly educated woman who was made queen, but still was a pawn and still was beheaded.
 
Gemma Burgess: And then we just thought, if we can make a show that retells her story, where she has a happy ending, and then also make it feel like The Princess Bride and, Black Adder, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and A Knight's Tale, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
 
Meredith Glynn: All these things that we love.
 
Gemma Burges: Then we could do it.
 
John Betancourt: What kind of challenges went into creating this positive and unique adaptation?
 
Gemma Burgess: The challenges are mostly the English weather.
 
Meredith Glynn: Yes, we built a massive set piece at Dover Castle, standing in for the Tower of London. And Dover is iconic and beautiful and so cool, but we happened to be shooting in the middle of November at night. So, the winds were not with us those nights, let's just say. And thankfully, our production designer, the brilliant Will Hughes-Jones, mapped every inch of that castle, and recreated it. We all recreated it on a sound stage in Pinewood three months later.
 
Gemma Burgess: Yeah, that was a challenge that just became, like, just awe inspiring about what can be done.
 
Meredith Glynn: And how incredible our team is, and we always knew it, but just watching that was astonishing.
 
John Betancourt: What are you each most excited for audiences to experience when they settle in to watch this?
 
Meredith Glynn: The love story between Jane and Guildford?
 
Gemma Burgess: Oh yeah, the love story. All the love stories. Some of the love stories are quite shocking.
 
Meredith Glynn: Yeah, but no spoiling.
 
Gemma Burgess: Yeah, we can’t do that.
 
John Betancourt: Last question I have for you today, if you could describe the series in one word, what would that word be?
 
Gemma Burgess: Swashbuckling.
 
Meredith Glynn: Romanta-cy.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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