Giddens' Bible

The Creator Of AMBITIONS Talks About Conceiving OWN’s Newest Nighttime Drama

Prior to his gig as creator and executive producer of the new OWN sudser AMBITIONS, Jamey Giddens was the coowner and editorial director of Daytime Confidential, the dishy website dedicated to all things soap. Whether he’s actually writing them or about them, Giddens’s love for the genre is unmistakable.

Soap Opera Digest: Tell us about the world of AMBITIONS.

Jamey Giddens: The Carlisles hail from [wealthy] Buckhead and the Lancasters are from [impoverished] The Banks, which is a fictional stand-in for Vine City. Evan Lancaster grew up poor but went off to Harvard to become a lawyer and is now the mayor. We also have the Mexican/American Trujillos, who also come from The Banks, and Bella, the daughter from that family, is a fashion designer and an Instagram influencer. She’s kind of that Erica Kane-type, like, “I’m never looking back.” She’s not going back to the ghetto. Then, we have the Purifoys, the wealthy conservative pharmaceutical dynasty. They were actually inspired by multiple different big pharma dynasties.

Digest: You tackle several hot topics in your stories, like the opioid crisis and the perils of gentrification.