Jamie Babbit on Directing Gilmore Girls, Only Murders and More

Some directors spend their careers locked in a particular genre, but Jamie Babbit is not one of them. “I have wanderlust, so I love exploring and shooting in ways I’ve never shot before,” says the native of Shaker Heights, Ohio. She got her start working production-assistant and script-supervisor shifts on films with directors like Martin Scorsese and David Fincher. “I worked so many different jobs for five years,” she says.

Her feature-film directorial (and cowriting) debut was 1999’s queer classic But I’m a Cheerleader, which led Babbit’s agent to ask, “What’s next?” Her answer: “I’ll always make independent films, but I really want to make money directing, so I’ll do any directing you have.” Soon, she was working with TV impresarios like Ryan Murphy, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Greg Berlanti. “There are showrunners I’ve worked with over and over again, and it’s my chance to really collaborate with brilliant artists,” she says.

Here she wanders with us through her TV past and present.

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Popular (The WB, 1999-2001)

Before Glee, Murphy launched his first TV series about high-school rivals–turned-stepsisters (Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope), and he needed directors. “The first meeting I ever had on anything was Popular,” Babbit says. “I met Ryan, who had never really done anything, and I had never done anything except for But I’m a Cheerleader. So, I learned how to do TV with Ryan.” Babbit directed 11 episodes across the show’s two seasons and also landed her first producer credit. She’d team up with Murphy again, directing three episodes of Nip/Tuck in 2003 and ’04.

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Gilmore Girls (The WB/CW, 2001-07)

Sherman-Palladino’s quick, snappy dialogue stood out on the WB/CW series, but the directing template began with Babbit’s mentor, Lesli Linka Glatter. “She had a career working on The West Wing, so when she did the Gilmore Girls pilot, she started that film language with long Steadicam shots, which was so perfect for the dialogue,” she says. “It was almost like a game of ping-pong.” Babbit directed 18 episodes and later reunited with Sherman-Palladino to direct two episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2018.

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The L Word (Showtime, 2007-08) and Looking (HBO, 2014-15)

Babbit feels lucky to have worked on this pair of revolutionary LGBTQ series. Directing two episodes of the Showtime series “felt like one of the most joyful times, because I got to tell the stories of the lesbians I have been around my whole life,” she says. And as for the HBO series (pictured) starring Jonathan Groff, for which she directed three episodes, she says, “I felt like young people in San Francisco’s tech boom talking about PreP [HIV-prevention meds] and doing gay sex scenes was so much fun and felt really special.”

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Silicon Valley (HBO, 2016-18)

Babbit scored her first directing and producing Emmy nominations for the tech comedy, but her initial meeting with creator Mike Judge was jarring: “I recognized Mike’s voice but didn’t know that he was the voices of Beavis and Butthead!” She got the job and went on to lens eight episodes across seasons three, four and five. “Mike is one of those showrunner artists who is such a special, amazing human, and I love his deadpan humor.”

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Only Murders In the Building (Hulu, 2021-25)

While directing 11 episodes to date (across all five seasons) and executive-producing the murder-mystery-comedy, Babbit scored two more Emmy nominations. As for working with stars Steve Martin and Martin Short, she says they’re “very precise, prepared actors who want the lines to be right.” She likens that prep to her directing work but says she stays ready for surprises: “Ideas might get thrown out, but at least you’re starting with some architecture, and then it’s jazz in the moment.”

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A League of Their Own (Prime Video, 2022) and My Lady Jane (Prime Video, 2024)

“I am not someone who gets disappointed when queer shows get canceled after one season,” she says of these series, instead appreciating they were given a chance. During the 1940s-set League (pictured, based on the ’92 film), she befriended and learned from 80- and 90-year-old lesbians who were alive in the ’40s. Jane, a historical fantasy set in the 16th century, is “cinematically my favorite pilot that I’ve ever made,” she says, hoping audiences will discover the show “in 10 years and say, ‘Wow, that show is fucking amazing!’”

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Shrinking (Apple TV, 2024)

Babbit dug into her TV past for a season-two episode of the comedy starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. “I actually cast Kelly Bishop, [who played] Emily Gilmore on Gilmore Girls,” she says. Another highlight: riding in Ford’s golf cart. “He said, ‘Jamie, do you want a ride back to your trailer?’ As we were flying through the Warner Bros. backlot, a studio tour was going by. Everyone was so excited to see Emily Gilmore and Harrison Ford on the same day!”

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Red, White & Royal Wedding (Prime Video, TBD)

“It was a no-brainer to say yes to direct the sequel to Prime Video’s most downloaded movie ever, Red, White & Royal Blue (pictured),” Babbit says of the upcoming TV film, currently in post-production. While staying true to the first film (directed by Matthew López), she wanted to expand and celebrate the gay relationship portrayed by Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine. “Heated Rivalry did so well, so how do we do something that has a lot of heart but also a lot of sex?”

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This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, issue #7, 2026, under the title, "Jamie Babbit."