Meet Rob Rosen | TV Director and showrunner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rob Rosen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rob, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I grew up in Boston; the only child of Eastern European immigrants. My parents were unassimilated and bitter war children. They had witnessed horrors I couldn’t understand, but America didn’t seem to salve their wounds. They felt alienated from the culture. So I retreated into a world of books and movies and TV shows. I was like an alien from a distant planet, studying the behaviors of what I perceived to be ‘normal’ and ‘well-adjusted’ people. While the name Dr. Huxtable conjures up an entirely different set of images now, at the time he seemed like the All-American dad I craved. Florence Henderson seemed like the perfect mom. And who wouldn’t want Mallory Keaton as a girlfriend. At a very young age, maybe 11 or 12, I decided that somehow, someway, I would crawl through the TV set and be a part of this world.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Instead of boasting about my achievements, I’m going to throw out some hard won wisdom; maybe it will help someone reading this. The television business is extremely challenging, and there will constantly be temptations to ‘go with the flow’ and ‘do what’s fashionable’ in the moment. Resist this at all costs. Once the machine has appropriated you, and stripped you of your individuality, you will just be another replaceable cog in the wheel. If you want to succeed you need to cultivate your own unique point of view and you must be consistently excellent. If you can achieve those two things, you will be amongst the 1% in this industry who consistently work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Los Angeles is an interesting city in that it often doesn’t show well- it can often seem like a series of freeways and warehouses- but it has quite a beautiful underbelly. If I had a guest staying with me for a week, I would definitely take them to the following places:

Downtown Beverly Hills
A hike through Temescal Canyon
Montana Avenue
PCH in Malibu
The Malibu Country Mart
Mulholland Drive at night
El Matador Beach
Manhattan Beach
The Venice Boardwalk
Tar and Roses in Santa Monica
The Getty Museum
and last but definitely not least, The Hollywood Bowl

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’ve been blessed to have been mentored by several people, but none had more impact than the late Judi Paparelli. She was a true eccentric and didn’t always have a full command of reality. But she believed in me well before I believed in myself, and consistently gave me support and encouragement when I hit dark times. It’s a debt I could never repay.

‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand changed my life. I know, it’s a polarizing title, but to anyone who’s read it, the book has little to do with politics and everything to do with artistic integrity and having the courage of your convictions.

Website: rprmedia.net

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robrosen14/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobRosen14