Academy award-winning producer Mark Johnson (Rain Man, Breaking Bad, Downsizing) joins me in studio to talk about working with Academy award-winning director Alexander Payne (Nebraska, Sideways, Downsizing) on Downsizing. We also talk about his transition from feature films into TV, and how he got his start working on films in Spain.
About Mark Johnson
Producer Mark Johnson won the Best Picture Academy Award® for the 1988 drama Rain Man and two Emmys® for Outstanding Drama Series (2013 and 2014) for Breaking Bad. His career as a producer of more than 40 feature films includes Diner; The Natural; Good Morning, Vietnam; Best Picture nominee Bugsy, which earned a total of 10 Oscar® nominations; Clint Eastwood’s A Perfect World; Alfonso Cuaron’s A Little Princess; Mike Newell’s gangster drama Donnie Brasco starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp; the sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver; The Notebook, adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ best-selling novel; and the Chronicles of Narnia franchise. He is currently in post-production on the Alexander Payne film Downsizing starring Matt Damon; Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky starring Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig; and the Australian indie film Breath, based on the novel of the same name by lauded Australian author Tim Winton.
In the television space, Johnson was an executive producer of the Peabody®, Golden Globe®, and Emmy® award–winning drama Breaking Bad from the beginning of the series. The first season of Breaking Bad’s acclaimed spinoff series Better Call Saul was widely praised by fans and critics alike, garnering seven Primetime Emmy® Award nominations, two Critics Choice Television Awards, and named Outstanding New Program as awarded by the Television Critics Association. In 2016, the second season of Better Call Saul won an AFI Award for TV Program of the year and garnered six Emmy® Award nominations, a Producers Guild nomination, and a Golden Globe® nomination. Mark Johnson‘s television achievements also include the Sundance Channel’s first scripted series Rectify, which won the coveted Peabody® Award and garnered three Critics Choice Television Award nominations in 2016, including Best Drama Series. Along with Better Call Saul, he is currently also executive producing AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, which begins production on its fourth season this year, and Hulu’s Shut Eye.
Johnson currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Motion Picture Academy representing the Producers’ Branch and is the Chair of the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Selection Committee.