Early years and education Walley-Beckett was raised in
Vancouver and attended the
Banff School of Fine Arts. In 1982, she joined the
Arts Club Theatre Company.
Career Walley-Beckett worked from the mid-1980s until the early-2000s as a television actress. She guest-starred on many series, including
MacGyver,
21 Jump Street,
Wiseguy,
The Pretender,
Chicago Hope,
Diagnosis Murder, ER and Tropical Heat. ( only episode 6 season one ). She began writing for television in 2007 as a staff writer for the short-lived
NBC detective drama
Raines, starring Jeff Goldblum. In 2008 she joined the writing staff for the legal drama
Eli Stone and penned the episode "Heal the Pain". She joined
Breaking Bad as a story editor for the
second season and wrote the episodes "
Breakage" and "
Over". The second season writing staff were nominated for the
Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for best drama series at the
February 2010 ceremony for their work on the second season. She was promoted to co-producer for the
third season in 2010 and wrote the episodes "
Mas" and (with
Sam Catlin) "
Fly." She was promoted again to producer for the fourth season in 2011. For the fifth season, Walley-Beckett wrote "
Gliding Over All" and
"Ozymandias"; the latter received universal praise from critics, and has since been called one of the greatest episodes of television ever broadcast. On August 25, 2014 she won the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "Ozymandias", becoming the first solo woman to win the award in the Drama category since
Ann Biderman won in 1994. After
Breaking Bad ended, Walley-Beckett, a former ballet dancer, created the ballet drama miniseries
Flesh and Bone for
Starz. The show premiered in November 2015. In January 2016, it was announced that Walley-Beckett would create, write and executive produce a television series based on children's classic
Anne of Green Gables for Canada's
CBC.
Netflix came aboard in August to distribute the show internationally. The series,
Anne with an E (titled
Anne during the first season) aired on
CBC in Canada and was later made available for streaming on
Netflix. The series premiered on March 19, 2017, on CBC and on May 12 internationally. It was renewed for a second season on August 3, 2017, and for a third season in August 2018. Shortly after the third season was released in Fall 2019, CBC and Netflix announced that the series was canceled. She wrote the 2018 film
The Grizzlies alongside
Justified creator
Graham Yost, directed by
Miranda de Pencier. ==Filmography==