Yahoo News Who was Gary Johnson, whom Netflix's Hit Man is based on?
Netflix's latest movie Hit Man is released today, and stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, and is based on the true story of fake assassin Gary Johnson, but who was he?
Hit Man sees Glen Powell star as Gary Johnson, a university professor who lives alone with his cats, who begins working with the police as an undercover hit man intent on arresting people who have attempted to hire a hit man. While on the job he meets Maddy (Adria Arjona) who tries to hire Gary to kill her abusive husband. A romantic relationship quickly develops between them, and that's when things start to get a little complicated.
As the movie begins a disclaimer pops up saying "what you're about to see a somewhat true story inspired by the life of Gary Johnson" and ends with a dedication to Gary, who is revealed to have passed away in 2022.
So who was Gary Johnson? And was he really a fake assassin? Here's what you need to know.
Who was Gary Johnson?
Netflix's Hit Man is based on the real life story of Gary Johnson, who as shown in the dedication at the end of the movie, really was an undercover assassin who made over 70 arrests in his career, and thankfully didn't murder anyone as that was just added onto the film.
Gary's story was first told in a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth in 2001, titled 'Hit Man'. The report revealed the truth about Gary's life that he was in fact a staff investigator for the Harris County district attorney’s office who was on call to play a fictional hit man for various police departments around Houston.
In order to be able to arrest someone who is suspected of hiring an assassin, the police have to be able to have proper evidence the suspect is hiring someone, which is where Gary came in. Gary was then tasked with wearing a wire and meeting up with the suspect, where he needed them to say they wanted to hire him to kill someone and would pay him to do it, which is very similar to the movie depiction.
Gary was described as "Laurence Olivier of the field" in the Texas Monthly piece and similarly to Gary in the movie, the real life Gary would alter his disguise to fit the suspected client he was going to meet.
According to Glen Powell who played a fictionalised version of Gary, the real Gary was a very chilled out individual. When speaking to Cosmopolitan UK Glen revealed he didn't speak to Gary before filming, but heard he was chilled out about his life being turned into a drama.
"I purposefully didn’t speak to Gary on the early side [of filming]," Glen explained. "Gary was such a chill guy, it wasn’t like he thought ‘I need to talk to this guy who’s playing me’ . They were like ‘Gary they’re making a movie about you; and he’s like ‘OK’.”
With over 70 arrests under his belt, Gary sadly passed away in 2022 before the movie based on his life was released.
Was Gary and Maddy's relationship real?
In the movie during one of his undercover operations, Gary meets a woman named Maddy who hires him to kill her abusive husband. But rather than getting her arrested, Gary convinces her to leave her husband and use the money she would have paid him to start a new life. The pair then begin a romantic relationship.
This didn't actually happen in real life, however there is one incident from the original Texas Monthly story that may have inspired the love story of Gary and Maddy.
At the end of the feature Skip Hollandsworth shared an anecdote about a woman who was looking for someone to kill her abusive boyfriend. She had told an employee at a Starbucks about her plan and they informed the police.
Before heading over to meet her, Gary did some research into the woman's case and found she had been regularly beaten but was too afraid to leave her partner for fear of retribution. And so instead of going forward with the undercover arrest, he referred her to social services and got her a therapist, and she would be able to move into a woman's shelter.
Hollandsworth finishes the story by revealing how he said to Gary, "The greatest hit man in Houston has just turned soft." And Gary replied, "Just this once."
Hit Man is available on Netflix now
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