Johanna Schneller is one of North America’s leading freelance journalists specializing in 

entertainment features. She has profiled the most prominent actors of our time – among 

them, Julia Roberts, Diane Keaton, Brad Pitt, Julianne Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff 

Bridges, Liam Neeson, Robert Downey, Jr. and Nicole Kidman. Her cover stories have 

appeared in every major magazine, including Vanity Fair, In Style, Premiere, More and 

Ladies Home Journal. She was a senior writer in the Los Angeles bureau of GQ magazine 

from 1990 to 1994. 

 

Her weekly Bigger Picture column in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, 

has been nominated for five National Newspaper Awards, and won in 2021. For two 

years, she also wrote a daily What I’m Watching TV column in The Toronto Star and 

Metro. She is the president of the Toronto Film Critics Association. 

 

As co-host of CBC’s summer series The Filmmakers, Schneller interviews directors and 

film experts about classic Canadian films. She also hosted TVO’s renowned film series 

Saturday Night at the Movies. As well, she regularly conducts on-stage interviews for the 

Toronto International Film Festival, the Directors Guild of Canada and the Toronto Public 

Library. 

 

Schneller co-wrote the best-selling book Uncontrollable, about Rob Ford, Toronto’s 

notorious mayor; and the best-seller Woman Enough, about the transgender cyclist 

Kristen Worley’s legal battle with the International Olympic Committee. 

 

As a screenwriter, Schneller’s work includes adaptations of Sailor Girl, based upon the 

novel by Sherri Lee Olson, for Markham Street Productions; Every Lost Country, based 

upon the novel by Steven Heighton, for Rhombus Media; Girl Crazy, based upon the 

novel by Russell Smith, for House of Films; and The Girls in the Balcony, based on the 

book by Nan Robertson. 

 

Schneller earned a BA in English from the University of Virginia. She took the American 

Film Institute’s script analysis course in Los Angeles, and the inaugural television writing 

course at the Canadian Film Centre. She and her husband, the writer and broadcaster Ian 

Brown, live in Toronto near their two grown children. 

 

1994 – present: Freelance writer for Vanity Fair, In Style, Premiere, TV Guide, More, et. 

al., specializing in entertainment features and celebrity profiles 

1999 – present: Big Picture columnist, The Globe and Mail 

2015 – 2018: Television columnist, The Toronto Star and Metro 

2017 -- present: Host, CBC’s The Filmmakers 

2004-2006: Host, Saturday Night at the Movies, TVO 

1995- 1999: “Entertainment Week in Review” panelist, Midday, CBC 

1990- 1994: Senior Writer, GQ magazine, LA bureau 

1992-1994: Script reader, Mirage Productions (under Sydney Pollack) 

 

BA, University of Virginia, 1984 

Graduate, American Film Institute script analysis course, 1992 

Graduate, Canadian Film Center TV writing course, 2000