Michelle MacLaren facts for kids

Michelle Maxwell MacLaren is a talented Canadian director and producer for television. She has helped create many popular TV shows, like The X-Files, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Westworld.

Michelle MacLaren won two big awards called Primetime Emmy Awards in a row (in 2013 and 2014) for her work as a producer on the show Breaking Bad.

Early Life

Michelle MacLaren grew up in Vancouver, a city in British Columbia, Canada. She went to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Her cousin is a well-known television host named Ashleigh Banfield.

Career Highlights

"I don't see myself as a female director, I see myself as a director who happens to be a woman."

Michelle MacLaren first started directing with an episode of The X-Files called "John Doe". This episode was written by Vince Gilligan, who she later worked with on Breaking Bad. When she directs action scenes, she thinks of them like solving a math problem. She often uses many cameras and wide lenses to capture the action.

She has been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards. All of these nominations were for her work on Breaking Bad. She was nominated twice for directing episodes ("One Minute" and "Gliding Over All"). She was also nominated four times for Outstanding Drama Series as an executive producer, winning this award in 2013 and 2014.

MacLaren also won two Producers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama awards for Breaking Bad in 2014 and 2015. When Breaking Bad celebrated its tenth anniversary, many people praised MacLaren. She directed 11 episodes, which was more than any other director on the show.

In 2014, MacLaren signed a special deal with HBO. This deal meant she would get to look at new project ideas first for two years.

In 2014, it was announced that MacLaren would direct the movie Wonder Woman. This would have been the first solo movie for the famous superhero. However, in 2015, she left the project because of "creative differences." This means she and the studio had different ideas about how the movie should be made.

She was also an executive producer and directed the first episode (called the pilot) for the HBO show The Deuce. She was the first director hired for the show. This meant she helped set the overall look and feel of the show, which was set in the 1970s.

In 2016, MacLaren announced she would direct a movie based on the book The Nightingale. She was excited about this project because it tells a strong story about female characters who become unexpected heroes.

That same year, she directed an episode of the HBO series Westworld. Later, when the directors for the final season of Game of Thrones were announced, some news sites were disappointed. Michelle MacLaren was the only woman who had directed episodes for the series before, but she was not included in the final season.

In 2017, MacLaren visited the Dubai International Film Festival as a special guest. In 2018, she was confirmed to direct the movie Cowboy Ninja Viking.

She is also working with Vince Gilligan (from Breaking Bad) on a short TV series for HBO called Raven. It is based on the true story of the Jonestown massacre.

Filmography

Film

• Population 436 (2006)

TV series

TV movies

Awards and Nominations

Primetime Emmy Awards

Producers Guild of America

See also

In Spanish: Michelle MacLaren para niños