‘Breaking Bad’ & ‘Better Call Saul’ Creator Vince Gilligan Set For WGA Awards Career Honor

Erik Pedersen

21 January 2025 at 5:25 pm·2-min read

Say his name.

Vince Gilligan, who created the juggernaut AMC series Breaking Bad and followed it with the lauded prequel spinoff series Better Call Saul, will receive the WGA West’s Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement.

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He’ll pick up the award, which celebrates a guild member who has advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the television writer, February 15 during the Writers Guild Awards ceremony 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.”

Gilligan created Breaking Bad, which won back-to-back Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013-14 and is considered among the top TV shows on the 21st century. He followed that up in 2015 with Better Call Saul, which earned 53 Emmy noms during its six-season run but never won.

Gilligan, whose TV writing career began with The Lone Gunmen and The X-Files, has four Emmys on nearly two dozen career noms. He also has six WGA Awards — five for Breaking Bad and one for Better Call Saul — along with two PGA Awards and DGA Award for Breaking Bad. His small-screen credits also include Battle Creek, the Breaking Bad movie El Camino and Harsh Realm.

His next project is a drama series toplined by Better Call Saul standout Rhea Seehorn, which has a two-season order from Apple TV+.

The Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award is the WGAW’s highest honor for television writing.

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