Pakistani-American TV writer and producer Robia Rashid is the creator and showrunner of hit Netflix coming-of-age series Atypical.
Robia Rashid and the cast of Atypical
Rashid has previously worked on hit sitcoms Will & Grace, The Goldbergs, and How I Met Your Mother.
The Hollywood Reporter featured Rashid on their list of eight showrunners to watch in 2017.
Robia Rashid’s career in TV writing
Rashid’s first big TV break was a writing job with the popular NBC sitcom Will & Grace. In 2005, she had just earned her master’s degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Rashid moved to Los Angeles after graduating to work on the show.
“I was at NYU in the graduate dramatic writing program, and I took a TV writing class with former Sex and the City writer Cindy Chupack,” Rashid told Writing Pad. “She liked a spec I wrote and gave it to her agent.”
From 2008 to 2012, Rashid was a writer and producer on CBS hit comedy series How I Met Your Mother.
“The great thing about TV writing is that the writers are also the producers,” she said. “You’re on set, you’re involved in editing, sound mixing, really all parts of what makes a show happen.”
Rashid also wrote for the 2006 Fox show The Loop, The Goldbergs, and the 2007 The CW sitcom Aliens in America.
Rashid’s undergraduate degree is in education. Before pursuing writing at NYU, she worked with the Posse Foundation in Boston. The organization sends groups of kids to college on scholarships.
“Every week I would meet with these groups of ten kids and train them to be a group,” Rashid told Deadline. “We would talk about race…gender…affluence, and how that affected their lives. And then they went to college all together. And I look back at that now and I’m like, ‘oh, I was running a…writer’s room!’ Without even knowing it, it was such great prep for being a showrunner.”
“And then I applied to grad school at NYU. That’s when I first started TV writing, when I was at NYU.”
Robia Rashid wrote plays in childhood
Rashid is half Pakistani and half European. She grew up in northern Vermont.
“I’m biracial,” Rashid explained. “My dad is Pakistani. My mom is White, English, Irish. But [my dad] is not traditional at all. He came here when he was 16. He’s a hippie.”
Rashid began writing plays in early childhood. She composed a novel in third and fourth grade.
“In second grade I wrote a play that we performed for kindergarten,” Rashid recalled. “My mom typed it on her little typewriter and my brother was in it and my best friend was in it. I was the witch. So I’ve been writing pretty much my whole life.”
“My mom was really inspiring to me,” she continued. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and she would work the night shift…Still, she managed to type up my plays, and get those little spiral things to bind my stupid books. She really made me feel like my voice mattered.”
Robia Rashid on Netflix’s Atypical
Rashid wrote Atypical’s pilot script. Netflix bought it, ordered a full season, and premiered the show on August 11, 2017. The show follows Sam, an 18-year-old with high-functioning autism who navigates family, friends, love, and independence.
“After working in network TV for a while, I just wanted to do something for myself,” Rashid told Vulture. “I was very aware that more people were being diagnosed with autism, and it was interesting to me that a whole generation of kids were growing up knowing that they were on the spectrum and wanting independence.”
“That point of view seemed so interesting to me — and such a cool way to tell a dating story. You’ve seen the story of somebody looking for independence and looking for love before, but not from that specific point of view.”
Rashid’s inspiration comes in part from having a close relationship with someone on the spectrum. “It’s a world I feel comfortable in and a story that I really wanted to tell right,” she told The Wrap.
Atypical wrapped up its fourth and final season in 2021.
Stream Atypical on Netflix.
