It’s been billed as one of the best movies of the year, but Hit Man‘s real people are as wild as they are portrayed on-screen. The film comes from the minds of Top Gun: Maverick hottie Glen Powell and director Richard Linklater, known for films like School of Rock and Dazed and Confused.
The premise is as follows: Inspired by an unbelievable true story published by Texas Monthly in 2001, a strait-laced professor Gary Johnson discovers his hidden talent as a fake hitman. He meets his match in a client who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities.
Related: A look over Glen Powell’s previous relationships
“When you read the article, there is no doubt that there is a character there that is fascinating,” Powell told AFrame. “You’re like, ‘Whoever this guy is, I want to spend time with him.’ The problem is the article stopped at a great character. But there was a paragraph within the article that, basically, talked about this woman that Gary Johnson met.”
He continued: “She was trying to hire him to kill her husband, and it was the first time that Gary was like, ‘I don’t think this person is a killer.’ All these other people were trying to get money, or find a quick fix to life’s complicated problems; this woman was actually in danger, and he saw the difference.” Without further ado, let’s dive into Hit Man‘s real people.
Meet Hit Man‘s real people
According to the movie’s opening moments, “What you’re about to see is somewhat a true story inspired by the life of Gary Johnson.”
Gary Johnson (played by Glen Powell)
PHOTO : NETFLIX / COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION
Born in 1947, Gary Johnson was a real-life undercover cop and the most fascinating details of his life were detailed in 2001 by Texas Monthly writer Skip Hollandsworth. His physical attributes were described as “tall but not too tall, thin but not too thin, with short brown hair that has turned gray around the sideburns” and “soft brown eyes.”
Unlike the film, Johnson lives in Houston, not New Orleans, but most of his characteristics are reflected in the film pretty accurately. “He’s the perfect chameleon,” prominent Houston lawyer Michael Hinton described in the article. “Gary is a truly great performer who can turn into whatever he needs to be in whatever situation he finds himself. He never gets flustered, and he never says the wrong thing. He’s somehow able to persuade people who are rich and not so rich, successful and not so successful, that he’s the real thing. He fools them every time.”
His code phrase “all pie is good pie” is accurate, per the article, as well as his love for cats, teaching, and philosophy. After more than 70 arrests, life as an animal-loving Buddist, and serving the US during the Vietnam War, Johnson died in 2022. He did not, as the film portrays, murder anyone. “We made that part up,” the film cheekily notes in the closing credits.
Madison (played by Adria Arjona)
PHOTO : NETFLIX
The character of Madison, played by Adria Arjona, is loosely based on an unnamed, real person in the Texas Monthly article. She appears right at the end, described as a young woman who had been talking to a Starbucks employee about “the cruel way her boyfriend had been treating her. There was no way to escape him, she said. Her only hope was to find someone to kill him.”
The police were tipped off, but as in the film, Johnson did some research on her before meeting up. He discovered that she had indeed been a victim of abuse, “too terrified to leave him because of her fear of what he might do if he found her.”
As is shown in the movie, Johnson doesn’t set up a sting operation, but instead “referred her to social service agencies and a therapist to make sure she got proper help.” Hit Man takes their relationship further by sparking a passionate romance between them, but there’s no evidence that happened IRL between Johnson and this woman. “The greatest hit man in Houston has just turned soft,” writer Hollandsowrth observed, speaking with Johnson at a Mexican restaurant. “Just this once,” he said, flashing an “enigmatic smile.”
The film also fabricates her killing her estranged husband, who in a twist of events tries to contract the fictional Gary to kill her after becoming jealous.
Lynn Kilroy (played by Jo-Ann Robinson)
PHOTO : NETFLIX
The wealthy woman depicted around 20 minutes into the Hit Man film is likely based on Lynn Kilroy, the wife of a millionaire Houston investment banker and one of Gary Johnson’s most notable stings. Her husband, William, filed for divorce earlier that year. She pleaded no contest to the charge, according to the Houston Chronicle, and received five year’s probation for trying to solicit her husband’s murder in 2001.
Monte (played by Jonas Lerway)
PHOTO : NETFLIX
The character of Monte, the teenager who offers the fictional Gary a few bucks and a handful of PlayStation 5 games to off his mom, is incredibly based on a real person. IRL, he was Shawn Quinn, “a brilliant kid with an IQ of 131” who in 1993 gave Johnson seven Atari computer games, three dollar bills, and $2.30 in change “to kill a male classmate he thought was trying to win the affection of a girl he liked,” per the Texas Monthly article.
The 17-year-old received 10 years probation, per the LA Times, having pleaded no contest to the charges. State District Judge Denise Collins also ordered Quinn to pay a $500 fine, attend counseling, and cut the time he spends on his computer from an average of eight hours a day to 90 minutes.
Roberts Holliday (played by Morgana Shaw)
PHOTO : NETFLIX
Tammi, the woman who offers the fictional Gary a boat for killing her estranged husband, is based on the real-life Roberts Holliday, a 31-year-old oil rig worker. “He then said he wanted Johnson to drive over there, slit his wife’s wrists, and hold her until she bled to death,” the article reads. “If Johnson killed her in a way that looked like suicide, then Holliday would not only be able to collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy but also be able to sue his wife’s doctors for malpractice for failing to treat her.”
This appears almost verbatim in the film in Tammi’s dialogue with Powell’s Russian alter-ego: “See, I filed a mental health warning against him a while back describing him as suicidal, so it’ll make sense to everyone. Then I can sue his doctors for malpractice. … I’m thinking, cut the wrists, then hold him ’til he bleeds to death?”
Her story in the film is combined with another real-life character who contracted Johnson to blow up the home of her employer, a well-known Houston surgeon, with the surgeon in it. “For her down payment, she offered Johnson a luxury motorboat,” the article reported.
