Jamie Denbo on ‘American Princess’ and Her Real-Life Inspiration for the Series [Exclusive Interview]

Lifetime’s latest original series is unlike anything you’ve seen on television before. American Princess is a one-hour dramedy that centers on Amanda, an Upper East Side socialite who runs away from her own dream wedding when she realizes that the life she thought she wanted wasn’t actually right after all.

When she stumbles upon a Renaissance Faire, she experiences an unexpected awakening, leading her to leave everything she thought she cared about behind.

Jamie Denbo is the creator, writer, and executive producer of the series, which is inspired by her own true-life experiences working on the American Renaissance Festival circuit.

I recently sat down with Denbo during the ATX Television Festival to talk about her inspiration for the series, what makes it unique, and why it’s the perfect fit for Lifetime network.

“The most unique ideas come from true stories. And this was inspired by true events,” Denbo began.

“Not the wedding part but the running away to the Renaissance Festival part. I thought I was going away for the summer for Shakespeare In The Park. This was back just before the internet — I’m not that old — but right before the internet. So I really did not have the time to research what a Renaissance Festival was. I just thought we were going to be doing Shakespeare shows in the woods. That sounds like what they do at the public theater.”

“It was not. It was something else. Something completely different,” she continued. She went on to describe the community itself and how that made an impact on her life.

“It’s very communal. It’s very lovey. It’s very granola. And it’s pretty awesome. It was just a left turn from the life that I thought I was supposed to lead, which was more conventional. Let’s put it that way. And it’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for 25 years because it was so impactful. If it weren’t for that experience, I wouldn’t have chosen to be an artist as a full-time life choice. And it taught me so much about presumption and judgment and non-judgment, and how you can live your life as both a child and an adult at the same — and how it’s okay.”

Denbo worked at the Renaissance Fair for an entire season and went back again for another later on. She also did one-off fairs all over the East Coast.

“It’s a lifestyle, and a community, and it still exists. And it’s still relatively untouched. You know, even with the Comic-Con infiltration and like nerd-chic and everything, it’s still its own thing. It’s outdoors. It’s much closer to what a roving band of nomadic gypsies would be, ultimately,” Denbo explained.

And for Amanda on American Princess, it’s the perfect setting to learn more about herself and make some changes.

“It’s a place where you are aggressively everything. Hugged, loved, embraced, enjoyed, encouraged, enabled. It’s a very kind place, and for Amanda, that’s just not what she’s used to. She’s used to, ‘Don’t fuck up in front of people ’cause they’ll make fun of you.'”

The catalyst for Amanda deciding to leave her life to work at the Renaissance Faire isn’t just the fact that she finds her fiance with another woman on her wedding day.

It’s also the bloody scene caused by her reaction to finding them together. According to Denbo, a catalyst of that nature was necessary to send to her on the path to change.

“You have to set something up carefully to acknowledge that somebody’s going to leave the life they were on the path for. The reason we made it such an extreme trauma that would drive her is because that’s how it would work in this day and age. It’s hard to fall off a cliff willingly. People just don’t do that anymore. Especially with the sort of documenting of every moment of your life and social media and everything else,” Denbo said.

“It’s very rare that you take those kinds of steps, and we need to take those kinds of steps, and we need to take those left turns. I’m very lucky that it happened to me at a time where I could go ahead and take that left turn with nobody watching. Otherwise, I don’t know if I would’ve done it.”

“[Amanda] is a girl who can’t even sit still to think without her mother and her sister up her ass. And now all of her friends. So she’s going to — if she wants to truly pull herself together, it’s got to be somewhere different.”

“I do think you need a certain level of trauma, and embarrassment, and shame to propel someone to explore something completely different. Otherwise, they’re lukewarm,” Denbo continued. “She can’t go back, because she maimed somebody, and it’s all over the paper. [It’s] a good reason to get her to stay.”

As for what we can expect for the remainder of the season, we’ll continue to see Amanda at a crossroads. If you’ve seen the most recent episode, you know there’s a phone call at the end that will only make her decisions more complicated.

“Her family definitely keeps a pull on her,” Denbo teased. “This is a seasonal job, like I said, and what’s actually very convenient about that is it’s great for a television season because it gives her time to think and organize and consider and recalibrate everything. And with that comes vestiges of her old life, and all the nuance, and delight, and warmth, and crazy of this new life, potentially. So this whole season is her at a crossroads. She doesn’t just decide, this is it forever. That would be unrealistic.”

“But she jumps in for the moment, and then she has a lot of wavering back and forth, so we play with that a lot. And everyone has an opinion, you know? People don’t like it in our families when someone does something unexpected, no matter what it is. Whoever you date or whatever job or what are you major in, everybody’s got a fucking opinion. She’s gotta learn to hear those opinions without completely alienating everyone she knows and loves.”

“People have very strong opinions about Renaissance festivals, period. Either they are like, ‘Oh yeah! We go every year!’ or ‘That’s disgusting. What the fuck is that?’ Like they’re horrified,” Denbo acknowledged. “I think that’s a good place to be when you’re talking about subject matter because you get people talking and curious.”

It’s worth noting that American Princess is airing on Lifetime, which is focused on offering narratives for women by women, no matter how different those narratives might be from one another. “This is the female experience. This is what we call ‘The Female Experience Network.'”

“We’re gonna pass every Bechdel test. And that makes me very happy,” Denbo added. “I think of the Renaissance Faire specifically because it’s such an inclusive place, as being this universal experience. So I feel grateful to be part of a female push forward in terms of programming.”

Denbo also spoke a bit about what it’s been like to work as showrunner for the series and why being a woman in that role feels like an advantage.

“I think women are generally better at showrunning because most of the women I know don’t complain about it. And almost all the male show-runners that I know, do. That’s just a fact. All the men who found out I was showing were like, ‘Okay, be prepared. It’s going to be the worst year of your life. It’s going to be really tough. Call me if you need me.’ And all the women were like, ‘Hey! Have fun!'”

“It’s because women are multitaskers, and mothers, and we do everything anyway. And it’s just, honestly, that’s just fucking how it is. It’s the same way that most women with the mental load do everything in their homes, is the same way that we are really good a showrunning,” Denbo continued. “So I welcome that challenge. It was really, really, really fun. I loved being in charge. I loved it.”

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American Princess airs Sundays at 10/9c on Lifetime.

Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. There is still more to come!

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