The True Story Behind Hit Man Starring Glen Powell

Glen Powell works undercover in his latest film Hit Man.

The Richard Linklater-directed film, which hits theaters May 24 before streaming on Netflix June 7, follows Powell as a part-time New Orleans police officer who goes undercover as an assassin to catch criminals.

While it makes sense for him to disguise himself as the “ideal” killer of men, things hit a snag when he begins to fall in love with a woman who wants to kill her husband.

Although the film is full of twists and turns, perhaps the most shocking part of the film is that it is based on a true story.

The screenplay, written by Richard Linklater and Powell, is based on Texas Monthly an article of the same name by Skip Hollandsworth, detailing the remarkable career of a college professor turned hit man named Gary Johnson.

Talking to PEOPLE about the production of recent projects such as Hit Man and Blue angelsPowell noted that he has always “respected actors who had a firm hand in what they were giving to the world,” and is excited to do so in his career.

“I’m really having a moment where I can tell the stories I’ve always dreamed of and the movies that got me into this business in the first place,” he explained. “I’m trying to find gaps in the market, gaps that are kind of in my heart on a theatrical level, and deliver that to the audience.”

Here’s everything you need to know about the true story behind it Hit Man.

Warning: spoilers for Hit Man forward.

Who is Gary Johnson?

Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man.

Matt Lankes / Netflix

Johnson was born in 1947 to a father who was a carpenter and a mother who was a housewife Texas Monthly. He grew up in rural Louisiana, where his senior class consisted of 12 students.

After graduating, he spent a year in Vietnam working as a military policeman monitoring convoys. When he returned home, he worked in various law enforcement jobs, including a sheriff’s deputy and undercover work for the Port Arthur Police Department in the mid-1970s.

At the same time, he took night classes at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he earned a master’s degree in psychology.

He eventually moved to Houston in 1981 with hopes of enrolling in the University of Houston’s doctoral program in psychology. When he was rejected, he took a job as an investigator in the district attorney’s office, eventually paving the way for his future career as a fake killer.

What did Gary Johnson do for a living?

In 1989, Johnson took his first job as a fake hitman, which eventually turned into a 30-year career. Working as an investigator for the Harris County District Attorney’s office, Johnson became a master of disguise, assuming identities such as Mike Caine, Jody Eagle and Chris Buck.

“He’s the perfect chameleon,” said Houston attorney Michael Hinton, who used to be one of Johnson’s supervisors. Texas Monthly. “Gary is a truly great performer who can transform into whatever he needs to be, in whatever situation he finds himself in.” He never gets upset and never says the wrong thing. He can somehow convince people who are rich and less rich, successful and less successful, that he is the one. He fools them every time.”

In the film, it is stated that he assisted in more than 70 arrests as an undercover agent.

Despite his ability to morph into the ideal criminal, Johnson’s personality in real life was the complete opposite. As explained at the end of the film, he was “the coldest guy imaginable” and was an “animal-loving Buddhist”. Per Texas Monthlyhe lived alone with his two cats, named Id and Ego, and would spend his mornings outside, feeding his goldfish in a small pond, tending his garden and meditating.

In addition to working in the district attorney’s office, Johnson was also a teacher, teaching human sexuality and general psychology at a community college two nights a week.

Was Gary Johnson Married?

According to Texas Monthly, Johnson was married and divorced three times. “The real essence of Gary is that he’s a loner,” his second wife, Sunny, told the publication, noting that they are still good friends.

“He’ll show up at parties and have a good time, he’s always friendly, but he likes to be alone, to be quiet. It’s still amazing to me that he can turn against that other personality that makes people think he’s a vicious killer,” she added.

Is the figure of Adria Arjona in Hit Man based on a real person?

Adria Arjona as Madison Masters and Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man.

Courtesy of Netflix

While Powell’s character is somewhat based on Johnson, Adria Arjona’s character Maddy, who serves as his love interest in the film, is also partially inspired by the real person mentioned in Texas Monthly article.

At the end of the story, the interviewer mentions how Johnson recently did something completely “out of character” after receiving a phone call from a woman who wanted to hit out at her abusive boyfriend.

Before contacting her, Johnson did some research and discovered that she had been a victim of abuse and was “regularly beaten by her boyfriend” but was “too terrified to leave him for fear of what he might do if he found her.” .

Instead of putting together an operation to catch the woman and send her to jail, he referred her to social services and a therapist to get proper help and put her in a women’s shelter.

For Powell, those few lines are what inspired him to write Hit Man. “When a lot of other people tried to tell this story, they tried to keep it to just Gary Johnson’s position in the police department,” he said in an interview with Netflix. “A lot of things can be superfluous because he has been doing it for 30 years. However, there were perhaps a few sentences in the Texas Monthly article that talked about the relationship Gary had with this woman who was actually in danger.”

“I told Rick, ‘I think that’s the story. That’s the thread we need to pull,’” he recalled of how the script was created. “That’s why we started digging to see what that relationship was like and where it went. We still had the real Gary Johnson woven into our character, but the love story is where we started to take our creative license.”

Has Gary Johnson ever killed anyone?

The biggest liberty the film takes with Johnson’s story is the ending. (Warning: major spoilers for Hit Man forward).

After Maddy and Gary (whom she believes to be a hit man named Ron) begin a relationship together, things take a turn for the worse when Maddy’s abusive ex arrives on the scene and tries to talk “Ron” into killing her. Gary then informs Maddy of his ex’s plan, prompting her to take matters into her own hands and kill her ex. The news causes Gary to break down, revealing the truth about his identity and work as a fake assassin.

Things take a different turn when the police find out about the murder and hire Gary to try to get a confession out of her. The two eventually team up to clear her name, but Gary’s colleague Jasper figures out their plan and shows up at Maddy’s apartment to blackmail them both.

To clear their names, Gary decides they should kill Jasper. After Maddy drugs him by pouring beer on him, Gary puts a plastic bag over his head, suffocating him.

Unlike the twist in the movie, Johnson didn’t kill anyone in real life. The film even makes sure that part of the story is completely fictional.

Was Gary Johnson involved in the Hit Man?

Adria Arjona as Madison Masters and Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man.

Courtesy of Netflix

Johnson wasn’t directly involved in the project, although Powell and Linklater did a lot of research on him as they tackled the story.

“I’ve never had a chance to talk to the real Gary Johnson,” Powell told Netflix. “I listened to him a lot on old tapes and read a lot about what he was doing in police reports… We were creating a moment in time for Gary, not where he is now. Sometimes when you meet people in real life, you meet them at a different stage in their life and that can tarnish who they once were.”

Where is Gary Johnson now?

Johnson died in 2022, shortly before filming for Hit Man started. Powell told Netflix that he really wishes he could have “got a chance to meet him because Rick had a lot of respect for Gary and who he was.” Powell added that Johnson never got to see the final cut of the film, but he thinks they would have “really appreciated the story.” “I’m really glad we have that tribute to him at the end of the movie,” he added.

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Source: HIS Education