SerpApi.Org
Location Managers Guild International is giving a TV kingpin its highest honor this year.
The group is set to fete Breaking Bad, Pluribus and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan with its 2026 Eva Monley Award. He’ll received the career prize during the 13th annual LMGI Awards on August 22 at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica.
"It's not easy to knock on a homeowner's door and convince them to let 300 strangers traipse through their kitchen,” Gilligan said. “It's hard to pound the pavement to find a place to park dozens of trucks, close enough to set for a quick hop yet magically out of every camera angle. And it's no picnic to convince a neighborhood to let you swarm their streets with cranes and Musco lights - not to mention the trailers. But these are the kinds of miracles location managers and their scouts perform every day. They're some of the hardest-working folks in the business, and I couldn't respect them more," said Gilligan.
Gilligan is in the Emmys hunt again this year with his latest show Pluribus, which landed 18 nominations for its rookie season on Apple TV. Has has four career Emmys for the landmark AMC drama Breaking Bad, including back-to-back Outstanding Drama Series wins in 2013 and 2014, and its prequel Better Call Saul earned 53 Emmy noms during its six-season run but never won. All three of those shows were filmed in Albuquerque, NM.
Gilligan, who penned a pair of features before launching his TV writing career with The Lone Gunmen and The X-Files, also has six along with two PGA Awards and a DGA Award. His small-screen credits also include Battle Creek, the Breaking Bad movie El Camino and Harsh Realm.
"Vince understands what location professionals have long known: every road, skyline, desert landscape, and suburban kitchen has a story to tell. In his work, locations do not simply serve the narrative - they help create it. Landscapes become characters. Settings shape decisions, reveal hidden truths, and, at times, determine fate itself. He has transformed ordinary places into iconic destinations known to audiences around the globe, proving that a location can be as emotionally powerful as a performance, as revealing as a line of dialogue, and as unforgettable as the characters who inhabit it.”
LMGI said earlier that it will present its 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award to Mike Fantasia and its Trailblazers Award to the Association of Film Commissioners International.
