Peter Gould
Peter Gould at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con
Peter Gould at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con
OccupationTelevision Writer; producer
NationalityAmerican
EducationSarah Lawrence College (BA)
University of Southern California (MFA)
Notable worksBreaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Too Big to Fail
Spouse
Nora Doyle
​
(m. 1996)​

Peter Gould is an American television writer, director and producer. He worked on all five seasons of the AMC drama Breaking Bad. He was nominated for four Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards for his work on the series. After Breaking Bad ended, he went on to become the co-creator and co-showrunner, with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, of the show's spinoff, Better Call Saul. He became the series' sole showrunner after Gilligan left the writers room.

Education

Gould is a native of New York. His parents were both artists and met at art school.[1] Speaking of his education, he admits "I was a bad speller. I had terrible handwriting. Doing papers in school was agonizing for me."[2] He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College[3] in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 1990, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master of Fine Arts.[4]

Career

After graduating from college, he did commercials in New York for a while before entering USC Film School.

In 2008, he joined the writing staff of the first season of Breaking Bad as a story editor. He wrote the first-season episode "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal".[5] The first season writing staff was nominated for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for best new series at the February 2009 ceremony.[6][7][8]

Gould was promoted to executive story editor for the second season. He wrote the second-season episodes "Bit by a Dead Bee"[9] and "Better Call Saul".[10] The writing staff was nominated for the WGA award for best drama series at the February 2010 ceremony for their work on the second season.[11] Gould was promoted to producer for the third season and wrote the episode "Caballo sin Nombre"[12] and co-wrote the episode "Kafkaesque" with fellow producer George Mastras.[13] Gould was promoted again to supervising producer for the fourth season in 2011.

In 2011, he wrote the HBO television film Too Big to Fail based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's book of the same name chronicling the events of the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers from the point of view of Wall Street CEOs and US government regulators.[14]

With Gilligan, he became co-creator and co-showrunner of the spinoff series, Better Call Saul. The show debuted on February 8, 2015, and was the highest-rated cable television series premiere to date.[15][16] Gould would become the series sole showrunner after Gilligan left the writing staff early in the third season to focus on other projects. This transition had been planned since the show's debut.[17]

The episode "Uno" from the first season of Better Call Saul won the 2015 Writers Guild of America award for Best Dramatic Episode in February 2016.[18] The episode was written by Gould and Gilligan.

In 2017 and 2022, Better Call Saul was honored with a Peabody Award for "developing its own unique tone mixing legal drama, crime thriller, and dark comedy."[19]

Filmography

Screenplays

Year Title Role Notes
1994 Double Dragon Co-writer Based on the video game
2000 Meeting Daddy Writer and director
2011 Too Big to Fail Writer Television film

Television episodes credits

Year Show Season Episode number Episode title Director Writer Notes
2008 Breaking Bad 1 7 "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal"[5] No Yes
2009 2 3 "Bit by a Dead Bee"[9] No Yes
8 "Better Call Saul"[10] No Yes
2010 3 8 "Caballo sin Nombre"[12] No Yes
9 "Kafkaesque"[13] No Yes Co-written with George Mastras
12 "Half Measures" No Yes Co-written with Sam Catlin
2011 4 7 "Problem Dog" Yes Yes
10 "Salud" No Yes Co-written with Gennifer Hutchison
2012 5 3 "Hazard Pay" No Yes
2013 9 "Blood Money" No Yes
15 "Granite State" Yes Yes
2015 Better Call Saul 1 1 "Uno" No Yes Co-written with Vince Gilligan
2 "Mijo No Yes
10 "Marco" Yes Yes
2016 2 9 "Nailed" Yes Yes
2017 3 1 "Mabel" No Yes Co-written with Vince Gilligan
10 "Lantern" Yes No
2018 4 1 "Smoke" No Yes
10 "Winner" No Yes Co-written with Thomas Schnauz
2020 5 1 "Magic Man" No Yes
10 "Something Unforgivable" Yes Yes Co-written with Ariel Levine
2022 6 1 "Wine and Roses" No Yes
13 "Saul Gone" Yes Yes

Production staff

Year Show Role Notes
2008 Breaking Bad Story editor Season 1
2009 Executive story editor Season 2
2010 Producer Season 3
2011 Supervising producer Season 4
2012 Co-executive producer Season 5
2013
2015 Better Call Saul Executive producer Season 1
2016 Season 2
2017 Season 3
2018 Season 4
2020 Season 5
2022 Season 6

References

  1. ^ Denise Martin (September 23, 2013). "Breaking Bad's Peter Gould Talks 'Granite State'". Vulture.com. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  2. ^ "FROM "BAD" TO "BETTER": Television writer Peter Gould". 14 April 2015.
  3. ^ "News articles from 2013-2014: Merritt Wever '02 and Peter Gould '82 win Emmy awards" (PDF). Sarah Lawrence College. September 23, 2013. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 7, 2017. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
  4. ^ "Trojan Alum-inaries". alumnigroups.usc.edu. University of Southern California. September 2014. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
  5. ^ a b Tim Hunter (director), Peter Gould (writer) (2008-03-09). "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type of Deal". Breaking Bad. Season 1. Episode 7. AMC.
  6. ^ "2008 Writers Guild Awards Television & Radio Nominees Announced". WGA. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-12-19. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
  7. ^ Perry, Byron (2007-12-12). "WGA announce TV, radio nominees". Variety. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
  8. ^ "HBO tops WGA awards list with five noms". The Hollywood Reporter. 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-07-06. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
  9. ^ a b Terry McDonough (director), Peter Gould (writer) (2009-03-22). "Bit by a Dead Bee". Breaking Bad. Season 2. Episode 3. AMC.
  10. ^ a b Terry McDonough (director), Peter Gould (writer) (2009-04-26). "Better Call Saul". Breaking Bad. Season 2. Episode 8. AMC.
  11. ^ "2009 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". WGA. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-12-12. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  12. ^ a b Adam Bernstein (director), Peter Gould (writer) (2010-03-28). "Caballo Sin Nombre". Breaking Bad. Season 3. Episode 2. AMC.
  13. ^ a b Michael Slovis (director), Peter Gould & George Mastras (writers) (2010-05-16). "Kafkaesque". Breaking Bad. Season 3. Episode 9. AMC.
  14. ^ "Too Big to Fail - Interview with Peter Gould".
  15. ^ Rosenfeld, Laura (October 6, 2014). "This 'Better Call Saul' music video gives us a sneak peek of the new series".
  16. ^ Kondolojy, Amanda (February 9, 2015). "'The Walking Dead' Returns to 15.6 Million Viewers + 'Better Call Saul' is Biggest Series Premiere in Cable History". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015. Retrieved February 9, 2015.
  17. ^ Birnbaum, Debra (April 5, 2017). "'Better Call Saul's' 'Breaking' Point: How It's Gearing Up for Gus Fring". Variety. Archived from the original on July 22, 2020. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  18. ^ McNary, Dave (13 February 2016). "WGA Honors 'Big Short,' 'Spotlight,' 'Mad Men' at 68th Awards". Variety. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
  19. ^ "Peabody Awards: Better Call Saul". Peabody Awards. Retrieved January 17, 2019.

External links

Awards for Peter Gould
Authority control databases
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