There’s nothing like a political-journalism drama series to bring out a bunch of media muckety-mucks for fancy drinks and top-shelf sushi—at least judging by Tuesday night’s premiere of The Girls on the Bus, an adaptation of Amy Chozick’s Chasing Hillary that drops on Max this Thursday. At the DGA Theater in Midtown and then afterward at Nobu 57 up the street, the illustrious guest list boasted cable news stars Chris Hayes and Abby Phillip, comms gurus Risa Heller and Eric Schultz, magazine doyenne Joanna Coles and, of course, a hearty contingent of Chozick’s former New York Times colleagues, including Michael Barbaro and Carolyn Ryan. (I suppose I should mention some of the actual celebrities, too, like Julianna Margulies, Constance Wu, and Danny Strong.)

The Girls on the Bus, which this past Sunday’s Times described as “a fictional and frothy account of the lives of women chronicling a series of Democratic presidential contenders on their way to the national convention,” is loosely based on Chozick’s experiences covering Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, as chronicled in her bestselling memoir. Chozick is one of the lucky ones whose books actually made it to screen after being optioned and then surviving the torturous development slog. And she’s one of the lucky lucky ones who got to maintain a leading creative role in the production process. We talk about that and Chozick’s career pivot and her Hillary PTSD and lots more in the condensed and edited interview below.

Vanity Fair: You’re pretty much a full-time Hollywood person now.

Amy Chozick: Yeah. I dipped back in last year for that big Elizabeth Holmes story, so if something I’m just dying to do came up—

You were dying to do a big controversial story that you knew would probably put a target on your back?

Honestly, yes. She hadn’t given an interview since the Theranos scandal, and she was about to go to prison, and I got to spend a lot of time with her.

How was it dealing with the backlash to that piece? I assume you didn’t miss that part of the game.

I’ve been exclusively focused on TV and film for three, four years, so I actually didn’t realize that the discourse is even worse now. I hadn’t really been on Twitter since Elon Musk took over. I texted some friends who deal with this shit every day, and I was like, has it gotten worse guys? They were like, Oh my God, yes!

Did you just sort of fall into screenwriting after the book got optioned or had you been you interested in making a career pivot?

I actually studied creative writing in college. I moved to New York to be a poet. I mean, that sounds ridiculous, because I didn’t have a trust fund or rich parents and I needed to support myself. So creative writing was always something that I wanted to do. I love journalism, but when I sat down to write the book, the ability to write in my own voice instead of newspaper voice just made me even more excited about pursuing fiction. And I love television. When I was on maternity leave, I wrote a horror script just for fun. I just loved it. So when the book ended up getting optioned I was very lucky, because a lot of times, your book gets optioned and it just disappears.

Even if it doesn’t just disappear it’s pretty rare that the author gets to be in the driver’s seat as much as you have.

I’m very lucky. It has been in development for a long time. I took the WGA showrunner training program and it was very important to have experienced partners. They all were encouraging me to be very central in everything, from casting to costumes to props to budget meetings. I think you’re right. It’s hard to get that.

Had you even envisioned it?

I definitely didn’t sit down to write the book thinking, maybe this can get me a job. I took a brief leave from the Times to do the initial writer’s room then I was back on staff at the Times, working on some other Hollywood projects on the weekends and at night. I loved journalism and I felt like the Times was my whole personality, so I couldn’t really envision leaving the Times just because of one TV project that may or may not get made. I actually sold another show to Max, a family drama, and I also had a feature script in the works with a very prominent producer. So I had lined up a few things lined up before I was confident enough to be, like, Okay, I’m going to do this for my job.

Was it hard to leave the Times?

I mean, I had to transition to a freelance relationship because I was so busy with screenwriting. But yeah, of course. All my friends were there and it was my whole identity.

You probably at one point thought you’d be there for life.

Of course. And I mean, I thought that both at The Wall Street Journal and at The New York Times. I remember getting there and seeing these esteemed guys at the Times—I don’t know if they still do this, I haven’t been in the office for a while, but they play chess. The old timers would play chess in the cafeteria, and it was a very much a place where you’re going to spend your whole career, and you could have an incredible career. It helped that I could still freelance and still had relationships there

Covering Hillary Clinton put you in the crosshairs in a big way. Do you have any lingering journalistic PTSD?

Oh for sure. There was a lot of controversy around everything you write about any presidential candidate, but particularly I think around the most prominent woman ever to get that far. So yes, of course I have lingering PTSD. I have to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed just being in my pajamas, moving words around in Final Draft.

In terms of the PTSD was there a therapeutic element to making The Girls On the Bus?

Totally. It was very cathartic. And it was especially cathartic when we decided, there is no Hillary and no Trump in this world, we’re playing in a totally fictional world. So hopefully it’s an escape from the darkness of politics and, frankly, the bleak media landscape right now. In the finale, we recreated the Democratic National Convention, and I had a few cameos from real-life Hillary and Obama aides.

Which ones?

Jennifer Palmieri and Eric Schultz. I remember one moment, Jen and I were looking at each other and we’re like, This is so weird, we’re at a fake Democratic primary. I got to rewrite history. It’s very surreal. When I walked into the writer’s room each day, my partner would ask, what conversation do you wish you had covering Hillary or Obama or any of these candidates that you didn’t have? Because that’s the conversation we can have in our make-believe world.

What about some specific anecdotes from your reporting life that did make it into the show?

When [former FBI director James] Comey reopened his investigation, the Wi-Fi was out on the Hillary campaign plane, and so nobody knew what was happening until the plane landed. We have an episode where the bus breaks down and they lose Wi-Fi, just to show, like, how reporters lose their minds when there’s no Wi-Fi. There was an incident where, the day Hillary named Tim Kaine, we were at a rally in Tampa and she was flying to Miami, and her press secretary always flew on her plane, not with the press. But he flew with the press that night to brief us about the VP pick, and then the plane couldn’t take off. The press plane had a problem, and then the crew timed out, so we were stuck on the airplane for hours, and he was losing his mind because he was stuck with the press. And so I was like, Okay, when the bus breaks down and there’s no Wi-Fi, we have to have the press secretary with the press corps.

Fictional scripted TV has to be unrealistic to an extent. Was that a tricky thing for you, considering this is a show about journalism, and you’re someone who spent her previous professional life nailing down facts?

There was a real commitment to authenticity. We really tried to get the details right, everything from the press file being a disgusting tangle of power cords to the Marriott rooms all looking the same.

What about some of the show’s more unrealistic elements?

It’s very hard to even get close to a presidential candidate. Journalists can’t just walk up and talk to candidates, but again, we’re creating drama.

What political or journalism dramas did you look to as you were making this show?

Our North Star was Broadcast News. And another big reference was Almost Famous. You really wanted to be a writer for Rolling Stone after watching that movie, and join the bus with Cameron Crowe, and that was a big influence for us.

What about specific journalists, either who consulted on the show or whose fingerprints are on it in some way?

She didn’t consult, but an inspiration for the character of Grace is very much Andrea Mitchell, how she kind of befriended younger women on the bus and always looked so classy and poised, but was also so take-no-prisoners when she was asking questions. And Maureen Dowd. I made everyone in the writer’s room read her coverage of Geraldine Ferraro because she wrote things like, What will a female presidential candidate do with her purse? And then Abby Phillip was actually a consultant, because broadcast is a whole other thing, having to look perfect and do stand-ups, and what does the embed do and all of those things. She was really helpful with that. Melissa Benoist [who plays national newspaper reporter Sadie] shadowed Ashley Parker at The Washington Post.

Now that we’re heading into the main event of what could be a totally wild, in some ways unprecedented, maybe even unhinged election season, is there a part of you that wishes you were back in the fray?

No. I’m very grateful to have gotten to cover historic campaigns. I actually happened to be the pool reporter with Obama in 2008, so I got to be with his campaign when the results were running, and then to vote with Hillary in Chappaqua and then be at the Javits Center that night. To me, with those bookends of my presidential campaign coverage, it’s like, I’m good. I really admire everybody doing it right now, but I’m good.