“Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan has been tapped to receive the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement at this year’s Writers Guild Awards. The award, chosen by the west coast arm of the Writers Guild of America (and its highest TV writing honor), recognizes members who have “advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the television writer.”
Gilligan, whose credits also include “Breaking Bad” spinoff “Better Call Saul,” was additionally one of the notable writers on “The X-Files.” A multiple Emmy and WGA Award winner, Gilligan will be recognized at the 2025 Writers Guild Awards ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Beverly Hilton.
“‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’” Gilligan said in a statement. “Cribbing from a better writer is about all I can think to do right now, preoccupied as we all are by what has happened to beautiful Southern California. But this award is a true honor, and I appreciate it deeply.”
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The Virginia native first broke into the business via his screenplay “Home Fries,” which won the Virginia Governor’s Screenwriting Award in 1989 while he was attending NYU. That script was turned into a movie starring Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson. He later joined Season 2 of “The X-Files: in 1995, and wrote nearly 30 episodes as he worked his way to exec producer. He also then helped create and exec produce the spinoff “The Lone Gunmen.”
Gilligan created “Breaking Bad” in 2008, and co-created the prequel “Better Call Saul” in 2015 with Peter Gould. “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” were named as “TV Programs of the Year” ten times combined by the American Film Institute.
Past honorees for the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement iinclude Linda Bloodworth Thomason, Yvette Lee Bowser, Merrill Markoe, Jenji Kohan, Diane English, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Bochco, Susan Harris, Stephen J. Cannell, Shonda Rhimes, David Chase, Marta Kauffman & David Crane, Larry David, Garry Marshall and Alison Cross.