Vince Gilligan
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Factsheet
- Lived with his mother and his brother following his parents' divorce in 1974.
- Started dabbling with filmmaking in elementary school after his art teacher gave him a Super 8 camera.
- Made his first film, Space Wreck, when he was 12.
- Claimed first prize at a film competition at the University of Virginia when he was 13.
- Earned a scholarship to the Interlochen Arts Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Michigan, and spent eighth grade there.
- After graduating from NYU, he won the Virginia Governor's Screenwriting Competition for a script titled Home Fries, which later became a full-length film.
- Became a protégé of Rain Man producer Mark Johnson, who helped Gilligan become a writer for The X-Files.
- Pitched Breaking Bad to several networks and was continuously rejected before AMC signed it.
- A certified free-fall skydiver.