“I feel like my time at Boston University was so influential,” says Jenn Carroll (COM’10). “I have stayed in contact with my BU professors who have given me great advice, given me opportunities to network, and then have recommended the next generation of incredible assistants.” Photo by Robby Klein

Film & TV

BU Alum Gets Emmy Nod for Her Work on Apple TV’s Pluribus

Jenn Carroll (COM’10) has risen from student producer at BUTV to coexecutive producer and writer on Vince Gilligan’s hit sci-fi series

When Jenn Carroll learned she had been nominated for an Emmy for the Apple TV series Pluribus, she was on a Zoom call with several of the show’s producers, waiting for the nominations to be announced. 

“I barely remember it, because we were so blown away,” says Carroll (COM’10), who is the show’s coexecutive producer. “We felt like a small, new sci-fi show that we weren’t sure if people were even going to like, let alone watch.”

The series stars Rhea Seehorn as Carol, a woman immune to an alien virus that takes over human minds, transforming the world—apart from Carol and a dozen others—into a peaceful, contented hive. Although the hive mind desperately wants Carol to join, she remains adamantly opposed. The series has been widely acclaimed by critics, earning a 99 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

The nomination, for Outstanding Drama Series, is Caroll’s third Emmy nod, following two for her producing work on Better Call Saul. Pluribus, from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, earned a total of 18 nominations. The Emmy Awards ceremony is Monday, September 14. 

“I called Vince to tell him the news, and he was outside trying to fix some plumbing issue,” says Carroll, speaking to Bostonia via Zoom from her Los Angeles–area apartment. Two Breaking Bad pillows, picked up from an AMC wrap party, flank the couch behind her. 

“He’s a superstitious guy, and so we never let him know when the announcement is going to happen,” she says. “He said, ‘Why am I getting all these texts?’ And I said, ‘You were nominated for three Emmys, but just wait—all of these members of the cast and crew were nominated.’ He was blown away.”

Carroll has spent much of her career moving through the ranks of Gilligan’s shows, from a postproduction assistant on Breaking Bad to a producer on Better Call Saul to her current position. That breadth of experience helped prepare her to write Pluribus’ critically acclaimed seventh episode, “The Gap.” 

“I think it’s such a gift when you’re early in your career to take as many different jobs as possible,” she says. “Even if you don’t want to be an assistant director or a set designer, it’s useful to work as an assistant in those departments so you can have a shared vocabulary that will help you when you’re producing or directing or writing.” 

Whenever she takes on a job now, she says, “I want to get everything possible I can out of it, learn everything I can, and then take on one more thing.”

A Lesson Learned at BU

Carroll says she learned that approach at BU. She chose the College of Communication largely because of BUTV, the student-run television station, and took advantage of every opportunity it offered. She worked in a variety of roles on shows, including Shadows, a sci-fi drama, and Bay State, which at the time was the nation’s longest-running college soap opera.

“I hear it is on hiatus, which is personally devastating,” says Carroll, who proudly wore her Bay State T-shirt for this interview.

She also participated in the Boston University Los Angeles program, BULA, where students intern during the day and take classes from industry professionals at night. She describes it as “Los Angeles with training wheels.” During the program, she interned on the soap opera General Hospital and, ironically, the Adult Swim dark comedy Childrens Hospital. She went on to become an office production assistant on TNT’s Men of a Certain Age, which led her to Breaking Bad, and then Better Call Saul. 

When Gilligan sent Carroll the pilot for his next project, Pluribus, she says, “I read it, and I said, ‘This could be my favorite show of all time. I might die if I don’t get to help shape the story.’ I had spent so much time working with Vince, but it was still terrifying to call him and say, ‘I would love to produce this show.’”

Building a New World

Pluribus reunited much of the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul team—a reflection of Gilligan’s “no assholes policy,” says Carroll, now a creative executive at Gilligan’s High Bridge Productions. “The challenge was figuring out the rules of the world, and then conveying those rules, because there are these sci-fi elements.”

That meant working with every department to figure out how this new reality should look and feel. “What are people wearing? Is there still graffiti up? How do we get weeds sprouting in our golf courses?” Carroll says.

“The Gap,” which follows the parallel journeys of two characters, was her time helming an episode. “It was a really fun episode to dive into the psychology of Rhea Seehorn’s character, Carol, and to see more of exactly how far Manousos Oviedo [another of the 13] went and what he was willing to do,” she says. 

“It was an incredible gift, and I’m thrilled with the response,” Carroll says. “I feel excited when I look around our Pluribus Season 2 writers room; almost all of us are former assistants on the show. That speaks to Vince, and I think that speaks to a certain culture that the shows have engendered.”

The 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards are Monday, September 14, and will be broadcast live on NBC, starting at 8 pm ET.