Graham Yost | Showrunner and Executive Producer | Justified on FX

Graham Yost, 55, says he knew from the age of 18 that he wanted to be a filmmaker. He attributes his early love of film to the fact that his father, the late Elwy Yost, hosted a weekly film show on TV Ontario. “In our family, everything was about movies and books,” says Yost.

After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Toronto, Yost moved to New York. Already working on his own screenplays, he took a job as a technical writer and published several non-fiction titles, including Spy-Tech.

Yost began writing for television in 1989 on the Nickelodeon series Hey Dude. Next, he joined the writing staff of Full House (where he only lasted nine-and-a-half weeks). The day after he quit, he learned that his script for Speed had been sold to Paramount (it was later produced by 20th Century Fox). In 1991, Yost wrote for Norman Lear’s The Powers that Be, where he worked with the show’s creators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane (later of NBC’s Friends). His comedy series writing credits also include Herman’s Head.

His feature film credits include Broken Arrow, starring John Travolta, Hard Rain, Mission to Mars and The Last Castle.

As a producer, Yost won Emmy® and Golden Globe® Awards for the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. In addition, Yost garnered an Emmy nomination for writing the episode Apollo One, and he directed the fifth segment of the critically-acclaimed series. Yost later wrote/co-wrote two installments of the Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

In 2002, Yost created the critically-lauded TV series Boomtown for NBC. Cancelled in the fall of 2003, the late-lamented Boomtown was honored with a Peabody Award and two Television Critics Association awards. In 2006, Yost created Raines starring Jeff Goldblum for NBC. It aired in spring 2007.

Yost won an Emmy for The Pacific, HBO’s epic miniseries following three Marines through the Pacific theater of World War II. Yost directed and co-wrote an episode and served as co-executive producer. In 2013, Yost added another FX show to his producer credits with The Americans, the critically-lauded spy drama created by Joe Weisberg (who worked with Yost on the first season of TNT’s Falling Skies).

Yost is the showrunner on Justified, the Sony-produced series on FX, starring Timothy Olyphant, based on a character created by America’s pre-eminent crime novelist Elmore Leonard (who passed away in August 2013 at age 87).

Yost lives with his wife and two children in Monterey, CA.