The Incredible True Story Behind Hitman on Netflix - Who is Gary Johnson?

 Richard Linklater's much-anticipated film Hitman is now officially streaming on Netflix. While watching this romantic action-comedy, you may be wondering if Hitman is based on a true story and if Gary Johnson is a real-life fake assassin.

Top Gun: Maverick stars and co-wrote by Glen Powell as psychology professor Gary

 Johnson, who discovers he has a hidden talent for being a fake assassin, including dramatically impersonating suspects with humorous costumes, accents, and mannerisms. He begins assuming fake identities to lure criminals into traps set by the local police, but things get hairy after he meets a potential client named Madison (Adria Argona).

According to Netflix's Tudum, Madison wanted to hire Johnson to kill her husband, but she ended up stealing his heart, igniting "a powder keg of deceit, pleasure, and identity confusion." In an interview with the streamer, Linklater described The Killer as a film about "identity, self, and passion." The director continued, "But on a plot level, it's just about a guy who takes things too far. His passion leads him to deceive the people he loves, and he's someone else. You have to deal with those consequences."

The filmmaker had previously adapted another Hollandsworth work for his 2011 film Bernie, but he found it difficult to find a central storyline for the film. That changed when he met Glen Powell, and together they began working on Hit Man, which premiered on Netflix on June 7 after a limited theatrical release.

"I remember Glen saying, 'Well, what if we don't stick to the facts? What if we relax for a moment?'" Linklater recalled to Netflix's Tudum.

He and Powell decided to focus on a story in the article, in which Johnson refuses to initiate a police operation to catch a woman who hired him to kill her tormentors, which ultimately leads to a romantic connection between them. However, there are some major differences between Powell's portrayal of Gary Johnson and his real-life counterpart.

Who is the real Gary Johnson?

The real Gary Johnson, the inspiration for the Netflix series Hitman, was a real college professor who worked as a hitman for the city’s police department. Johnson was the focus of a 2001 Texas Monthly article detailing how he became “Houston’s most wanted hitman” whose undercover operations resulted in “more than six dozen arrests.”

Johnson moved to Houston in 1981 in hopes of attending the University of Houston’s doctoral program in psychology. When he was not accepted, he accepted a job as an investigator for the prosecutor’s office. He found his “true calling” in 1989 when a 37-year-old lab technician named Kathy Scott contacted a bail bondsman and told him she needed a hitman to kill her husband. When the bail bondsman called the police, his boss told him, “Gary, you’re our hitman.”

So when the police got word from an informant that someone wanted to hire a hitman, they hired Johnson. The informant introduced Johnson to the man who was looking for the hitman. Johnson, after receiving the wire, had to make the other person clearly state that he wanted to murder someone, and then pay him.

"He was the perfect chameleon," prominent Houston attorney Michael Hinton told Texas Monthly. "Gary was a really great actor who could transform himself into any situation he needed to be in. He never let himself get flustered, and he never said the wrong thing. Somehow, he managed to make people believe, rich or not so rich, successful or not so successful, that he was that guy. He fooled them every time."

Hollandsworth described Johnson as "one of the greatest actors of his generation, a man so talented that he could act on any stage, on any script."

While Hit Man is inspired by Johnson's story of going undercover as a fake contract killer, some aspects of the Netflix film are fictional. Director Linklater mentioned that the real Gary used slight disguises, but not to the extreme shown in the movie. The character Glen in the film takes these disguises to the next level.

In reality, Johnson did assist an abuse victim, but there is no proof of any romantic involvement as depicted in the movie. Like his on-screen persona, Johnson faced challenges in his love life, having been married three times and described as a loner by his second wife. She mentioned that he enjoyed being alone and quiet, despite his ability to portray a different persona at social gatherings.