‘Off Campus’ Showrunner Louisa Levy on Adapting New Adult Romance for TV

When Louisa Levy set out to adapt the Off Campus book series by Elle Kennedy, she wasn’t just translating a beloved romance to the screen. She was solving a structural challenge every TV writer eventually faces: How to turn internal, character-driven prose into a visual, youthful episodic thrill ride.

The result is Off Campus, a college-set romantic drama that balances emotional intimacy, sex positivity, and aspirational tone, all while grounding its characters in the messy, formative reality of early adulthood.

But Levy’s path to showrunner, and her approach to adaptation, have been anything but conventional.

Levy didn’t begin as a traditional screenwriter. She studied theater directing at Columbia and then participated in a “devised theater” program in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she unknowingly trained for the job she would later hold.

“It was my first showrunning experience,” she says. “You take a group [of actors and writers], and together you devise the show. Without realizing it, that’s essentially what a showrunner does.”

That background, building a story collaboratively without a pre-existing script, translates directly to television writing. It also shaped her understanding of story as something discovered through character and ensemble dynamics, not just plotted on the page.

Her entry into television came through mentorship, working as an assistant to Tony Phelan and Joan Rater on Grey’s Anatomy, produced by Shonda Rhimes. There, she absorbed both big and small storytelling mechanics.

“I got my start at Shondaland with a season 10 show, which you'd think would be towards the end of its tenure, but it's still going on. When they left Gray's and went to their overall deal at CBS, I got to see what a Season 1 show looked like, because they were working on Madam Secretary at the time. I got to see the pilot development process as well. I had an incredible masterclass because I was lucky enough to work for them during this extraordinary period of their career.

One lesson stuck in particular: Giving the audience what they want.

“Shonda [Rimes] has her finger on the pulse of what her audience wants. She created language, terms like ‘You’re my person’ and reflecting people back through television.” 

That concept of writing to let the audience see themselves in TV characters serves as the main framework for Off Campus.

Levy came to Off Campus through an open writing assignment, devouring the novels in rapid succession.

“I got so excited by these characters and this world. They feel like people we want to hang out with.” 

But adapting that feeling required a key shift: Turning the internal into the external, since novels allow readers to know a character’s inner thoughts. Television usually doesn’t. The main character, Hannah (Ella Bright), is a classical musician, struggling to write her own music when she catches feelings for the school’s hottest bad boy, Justin (Josh Heuston). He’s a guy who exudes confidence.

In the books, Justin is a football player. Wanting Hannah and Justin to have a bigger connection beyond hormones, Levy strategically transformed Justin into a rock musician. Now they have something in common. “We don’t have the ability to drop into Hannah’s head and understand it. We have to externalize it.” 

By making Justin a musician, Hannah’s attraction becomes visible and thematic. She’s not just drawn to him physically; she aspires to his musical confidence.“She not just has a crush on him, but also kind of wants to be him. It adds a fun layer to that crush.” 

For screenwriters, this is a great lesson in building behavior and an environment that allows the characters to dramatize their wants and needs.

At its core, Off Campus runs on a familiar romantic trope: The love triangle. But Levy approaches it with solid structural competence, saying that if Hannah is caught between two lovers, Justin and Garrett (Belmont Cameli), “You really do have to invest in both of them,” she says. 

Even in a skewed triangle, where the narrative clearly favors one pairing, both options must seem possible. Otherwise, the tension collapses. More importantly, Levy leans into what romance does best, creating that longing, lovesick feeling we can all relate to. “You get to play yearning,” she says. Delaying the protagonist’s emotional and physical gratification creates forward movement in the story. It’s not just about who ends up together, but the exciting process of getting there. 

The show also deploys classic tropes (like the fake relationship) but reframes them through a distinctly female perspective. “The show is very female gaze, and we deserve more shows that are in our gaze.” 

For writers, this highlights a broader craft principle: Tropes aren’t clichés if they’re executed through a specific, intentional point of view.

One of the show’s defining qualities is its tonal balance. It’s neither as heightened as Euphoria nor as stylized as Bridgerton; instead, it lands in a space Levy describes as both aspirational and grounded. But you know what you’re getting into with the first scene, when Hannah is working one of her work-study jobs cleaning the hockey players’ locker room, when she stumbles upon Garrett taking a shower. We get a good look at Garrett’s firmly toned, sexy rear end through Hannah’s POV – and the show is off and running. 

Levy says the tone was discussed quite a bit in the writer’s room. “We talked a lot about balancing the joy and the optimism with the deeper backstories.” 

A key rule emerged: Show impact, not exploitation. “We never actually show any trauma. We show the aftermath because the show is not about trauma. It’s about survival and healing.” 

This key rule allows the show to have depth while staying on the lighter side and having fun. Think a sexy Jane Austen romance. 

Levy’s entry into protagonist Hannah came through an unexpected tool: Music. “I have a Hannah playlist that helped me tap into her psyche”, Levy explains 

This method of building a character’s internal world through external stimuli, such as music, is common among writers. But for Levy, it was a way into Hannah that allowed the character to be a contradiction.

Hannah had to be confident and sarcastic, yet insecure and diminished around her crush, Justin. 

“The challenge was finding this character who wasn’t so shy she disappears, but also has this debilitating crush. She doesn’t belong with the person who she feels she has to diminish herself around.” 

In other words, character inconsistency isn’t a flaw; it’s a helpful storytelling tool.

For emerging writers, Levy’s advice cuts through industry noise. “Write what excites you, not necessarily what you think other people want to see.” 

She emphasizes that even in adaptation, voice is everything. “A different person could adapt this show, and it would be very different. I could only write the version that I saw.” 

The main takeaway is that originality isn’t only about concept, it’s about your voice. “And it doesn’t mean everyone will like it,” she adds. “But it does mean that it’ll be yours.” 

With Off Campus already renewed for Season 2, Levy hints at an approach that should resonate with TV writers. “There might be some things we didn’t quite accomplish in Season 1 that we might accomplish in Season 2.” 

Rather than treating each season as a closed system, Levy is designing the series as an evolving adaptation, one that continues to mine the source material while expanding its emotional world.

Off Campus is streaming on Prime Video.