Aline Brosh McKenna

Aline Brosh McKenna (born August 2, 1967) is an American filmmaker. Her credits include writing The Devil Wears Prada and its 2026 sequel, 27 Dresses (2008), Morning Glory (2010), We Bought a Zoo (2011) and co-creating The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Early life and education Brosh was born to a Jewish family in France and, at the age of six months, moved with her family to New Jersey, where she lived variously in Fort Lee, Demarest and Montvale, and attended Saddle River Day School in Saddle River. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University.

A script she wrote during a six-week course in screenwriting at New York University helped her get an agent, and, in 1991, she moved to Los Angeles. She also wrote an episode of Margaret Cho's sitcom All American Girl.

However, it would be eight years until her first movie, 1999's Matthew Perry-Neve Campbell romantic comedy Three to Tango, was produced.

McKenna explored the nuances of the characters of Miranda (Meryl Streep's character) and Andy (Anne Hathaway's character) in The Devil Wears Prada in a 2006 interview with Jan Lisa Huttner:"I wanted to make sure the audience understood why she had so much power in her world; and then understand that there was a cost for her, because we wanted Andy to walk away from a life as opposed to walking away from a person. She sees how much Miranda has sacrificed in her personal life, and that’s just not what Andy wants to do. Miranda’s held to a different standard than male executives might be held to, and she lives under a microscope." She wrote 27 Dresses starring Katherine Heigl in 2008.

Her next produced movie was 2010's Morning Glory, starring Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton, followed shortly after by 2011's adaptation I Don't Know How She Does It, with Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan. McKenna has jokingly referred to The Devil Wears Prada, Morning Glory and I Don't Know How She Does It as 'The Blackberry 3', a thematically-linked trio of films featuring women who see their Blackberries more than they see their own families. In an interview for The Ringer, McKenna compared that lifestyle to her own as a showrunner: "Striving for perfection, you can easily end up having it fill all the gaps in your life because that’s the kind of job, like being a showrunner, that you’re never done, you’re never finished, you could always be doing something else."

In the same year, McKenna wrote Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Benjamin Mee. The film received positive reviews overall, with a London Evening Standard critic commenting, "You have to admire the thoroughness with which We Bought a Zoo--which is the film Disney would make if they still knew how--caters to the whole family."

In 2014, she wrote the musical comedy-drama Annie, directed by Will Gluck and with Quvenzhané Wallis in the title role. The film was a contemporary adaptation of the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. The CW renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on October 21, 2016, and a third season, which premiered on October 13, 2017. McKenna is the series' showrunner and an executive producer. In March 2017, McKenna inked a two-year overall deal with CBS Television Studios, the studio behind Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, to develop new projects for network and cable through her production company Lean Machine. The following October, she teamed up with Rene Gube, a producer and recurring guest star on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, for a single-camera comedy called Big Men that has been set up at CBS.

McKenna made her graphic novel debut in late 2017, working with artist Ramon Perez on Jane, a modern retelling of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre. The graphic novel was published by Boom! Studios.

Scriptnotes McKenna was the first ever guest on the screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes, hosted by John August and Craig Mazin. She made her debut on the show's 60th episode, a live event at the Austin Film Festival in October 2012. She is, by a long distance, the podcast's most frequent guest, having made over two dozen appearances in subsequent years. In recognition, Mazin christened her 'the Joan Rivers of Scriptnotes '. McKenna guest-hosted the podcast for an episode in January 2014, filling in for Mazin.

Filmography Film Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes 1999 Three to Tango 2004 Laws of Attraction 2006 The Devil Wears Prada Nominated- BAFTA Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated- Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay 2008 27 Dresses 2010 Morning Glory 2011 I Don't Know How She Does It We Bought a Zoo 2014 Annie 2021 Cruella 2023 Your Place or Mine Directorial debut 2026 The Devil Wears Prada 2

Television Year Title Director Writer ExecutiveProducer Notes 1995 All-American Girl Episode "Young Americans" 2015–2019 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Also co-creator and showrunner;Made an uncredited appearance as the prosecutor in episode "I Want to Be Here"