Emmy Roundtable: Showrunners ( with True Blood's Alan Ball)

The showrunner is the workhorse of the television business, acting as the head writer, producer, casting director, editor, sound mixer, studio liaison, network communicator, hand-holder and surrogate parent. The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond and Matthew Belloni recently gathered six of the best in the business -- Alan Ball (HBO's "True Blood"); Greg Daniels (NBC's "The Office," "Parks and Recreation"); Katie Jacobs (Fox's "House"); Jenji Kohan (Showtime's "Weeds"); Shonda Rhimes (ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice"); and Matthew Weiner (AMC's "Mad Men") -- to explain how they wear so many different hats.

The Hollywood Reporter: What do you tell people who aren't in the business when they ask what your job is?

Matthew Weiner: I tell them I'm a writer -- the head writer, sometimes. And I tell them that I basically have a job where I get to oversee the writing and control all aspects of physical production, from casting to editing to sound mixing. And while any show requires hundreds and hundreds of people to put it together, I see myself as the guiding taste on the show.

Jenji Kohan: We are the big casting agents for our show. We cast our writers' room. We cast our crew. We cast our department heads. There's a skill there for understanding who will be good at their jobs.

THR: So you're basically saying it's the perfect job for a control freak.

All: Oh yeah. Absolutely.

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