The Stunning Transformation Of Glen Powell
Step aside, Matthew McConaughey — the new "king of rom-coms" has been crowned, and his name is Glen Powell. Since his role as the insufferable yet lovable jerk Chad Radwe on "Scream Queens," Powell's career has seen a meteoric rise as he's starred in everything from romantic comedies to action films. He's noticing it, too. "This is the first time in my life where when I walk around LA I'm a little bit more on the radar," he told Vogue in late 2023.
The Texas native has been on the scene for a while, but from 2015 onwards his name has been attached to just about every iconic movie: "Top Gun," "Set It Up," "Hidden Figures," "Anyone But You," and more. Powell's career is finally getting the actor the recognition he deserves — and he has no intention of slowing down. "There is no finish line when it comes to this job," he told Vogue. "I don't think there's any sort of goal outside of continuing to collaborate with some of my heroes and continue to do this job at the highest level and push myself as much as possible."
But how did Powell become a bonafide Hollywood star? We've traced his steps from his early days in Texas to the roles that put him on the map.
He grew up in Austin
Glen Powell was born on October 21, 1988, in Austin, Texas, to his father Glen Powell Sr, an executive coach, and his mother Cyndy Powell, a stay-at-home mom. Powell has two sisters named Lauren and Leslie, and the actor is very close with his family. "I have a huge, rowdy Texas crew who gets me in all the right kinds of trouble," he told Nylon in 2014. "If you are lucky enough to meet them, you'll figure out quickly why I'm constantly home and that all of my farfetched and seemingly impossible stories about my family are actually all true."
According to Powell, growing up in a culturally rich city like Austin taught him to appreciate the arts rather than judge them. "People are fearlessly pursuing their passions and doing things just because they want to," he told Austin Monthly. "That's always just been part of the fabric of the town."
Powell attended Westwood High School, where he played lacrosse and football. Years later, Powell's athletic background would be useful for his action-packed films. "There is a scene where I scale an elevator shaft, sprint across a roof, and run and leap off an eleven-story building. If you aren't an athlete (and a little crazy), I don't know how you step into something like that," he told Nylon.
His passion for film started at a young age
When 5-year-old Glen Powell went to see "Jurassic Park" with his dad in 1993, it ignited his passion for film. He became fascinated with the making of Steven Spielberg's cult classic, returning to the cinema multiple times to rewatch it and diving into the film extras when the VHS tape came out. Armed with a home video camera and an old computer, he began making his own sci-fi movies, casting his friends and creating makeshift backdrops. "I didn't know if I was going to be a writer, actor, producer, or an entertainment lawyer," he told Austin Monthly. "I just knew that I wanted to be in the business."
Powell's parents wanted to nurture his passion, so they enrolled him in acting classes at the Austin Musical Theater. In 2000, he was cast as the understudy of Winthrop, the male lead in the production "The Music Man." Being immersed in the theater world and witnessing the talent and work ethic of his castmates showed Powell what it would take to succeed in the entertainment industry. He credits casting director Donise L. Hardy, who pushed him to audition for every local commercial or film, as the person who helped him thrive. "She really celebrated actors. She made me want to show people what I had," Powell explained. "There was an intensity, but you never forgot that you were playing pretend."
He wrote a letter to Sylvester Stallone that helped him land a role
Glen Powell is living proof that if you want something badly enough, you have to go out and get it. After landing minor roles in "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over," "The Wendell Baker Story," and "Fast Food Nation," he landed a role in the major movie franchise, "The Expendables" — and all because he wrote a letter to actor Sylvester Stallone.
"The Expendables 3" boasted a star-studded cast including Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and, of course, Sylvester Stallone. A huge fan of the franchise, Powell needed a way to make himself stand out from the thousands of Hollywood actors eyeing the role. "I told [Stallone] that in Texas I grew up with a gun range in the basement, learned to fight from my uncles who lived and breathed mixed martial arts, and spent much of my childhood finding new and creative ways to cheat death," Powell revealed to Nylon in 2014. "I had been preparing for this role my entire life. I promised Sly to go into the trenches with him if he went with me. He told me recently that my letter sealed the deal."
Years later, "The Expendables 3" is still one of Powell's favorite experiences to date. "Shooting guns and kicking ass with living legends were the reasons I got into the business in the first place. The hardest part was not smiling," he said.
His move to Hollywood was not immediately successful
While working on the film "The Great Debaters," it was director Denzel Washington who convinced Powell to finally leave Austin for Hollywood, a move he had been resisting until then. "You've just got to jump in with both feet. It may not be quick. It may not be fun. But you've got to bet on yourself," Washington said. He was right. For a while, Powell landed only minor parts in movies. "I failed for a very, very long time," he told Austin Monthly.
But Powell remained resilient and was prepared to wait patiently for his big break. "I decided I wouldn't look at the industry as a competition. If I had, I would have been discouraged," he said. "I had to repeatedly remind myself, 'It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.'"
During his early days in Hollywood, he also sold some of the screenplays he wrote. "Not great screenplays, but decent enough ideas to not have me get evicted," Powell told Vogue.
His breakout role was on the TV show Scream Queens
Glen Powell's big break came after playing narcissistic frat boy Chad Radwe, the boyfriend of Emma Robert's character Chanel, in Ryan Murphy's slasher comedy series, "Scream Queens." (Think "Glee" meets "American Horror Story" — two of Murphy's other hit shows.) Not only did the series bless us with some of the most outrageous, hilarious one-liners, but it also put Powell on the map.
Despite Chad being a vain, selfish, egotistical jerk, Powell's performance made him one of the most beloved characters on the show, before he was — spoiler alert — killed off halfway through Season 2. "The beauty of that character is he's not really a character that fits into the plot necessarily — he's just a guy who's there to make you laugh so that's why I kind of love him so much," Powell told Variety.
Chad's death, which was mourned heavily by "Scream Queens" fans, was a little too daunting for Powell, who typically performs his own stunts. "When they showed me what that stunt looked like, I was like, 'That doesn't feel glorious or fun at all,'" Powell told Entertainment Tonight. "The stunt guy legitimately fell like 20 feet right on that thin mat. I only fell from like four feet or so to match his fall [for the shot], and my neck was even hurting the next day."
In 2016, he played Finnegan in Everybody Wants Some
In 2016, Glen Powell starred in the comedy "Everybody Wants Some," the so-called "spiritual sequel" to the 1993 high school comedy "Dazed and Confused" that starred Matthew McConaughey. Powell played Finnegan, a charming baseball player who is somehow good at everything but lacks the cocky arrogance stereotypically associated with jocks. "Rick [Linklater, the director] kept saying this character was the hardest one to cast," Powell told Rolling Stone, adding "Most people are just bullsh*tting. So Rick said, play him like the person everybody says they were in college. The bullsh*t version of their story? Make him that guy!"
According to Powell, the 1970s set film is his favorite movie he's ever made. "There's not going to be a more charmed, lovely experience. When that movie ended, I sobbed as I was shaving off my thin mustache," he told Vogue.
The set of the film is also where Powell met Zoey Deutch, with whom he would later work on the movie "Set It Up." Their reunion was not coincidental; Powell actually recommended Deutch for the role after "Game of Thrones" actor Emilia Clarke dropped out — a testament to the type of guy he is. "We're constantly giving each other sh*t, and [Deutch] doesn't let me get away with anything. It's rare that you can find [that] kind of honesty with another actor like that," he told Vanity Fair.
He created rom-com magic with Zoey Deutch
In 2018, there was one rom-com everyone was talking about: "Set It Up." Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch play overworked assistants who team up to trick their demanding bosses into falling in love. "Set it Up" stands out from the sea of rather cringey modern rom-coms that Netflix has churned out over the years, with many fans comparing it to the nostalgic classics that slayed in the early 2000s.
Fans praised the chemistry between Powell and Deutch, calling for the duo to make more films together and branding them the new Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks or Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. "The banter that you see in [Set It Up] and our banter offscreen is basically the same," Powell told Vanity Fair. "Hopefully, we get to make many, many more movies together." Thankfully for fans, Deutch and Powell are slated to reunite in the rom-com "Most Dangerous Game."
To prepare for the role in "Set It Up," Powell took a team of assistants to lunch and listened to them swap horror stories about their bosses. He also spent time at a venture capitalist firm in New York, where he got the idea to give his character the haircut he calls "that horrible Southern swoop." He described to Vanity Fair how "every dude had the same haircut."
He was glad his sit-ups for Top Gun: Maverick 'weren't for nothing'
Glen Powell may not have been alive when "Top Gun" hit the box office in 1986, but he became a fan after watching it with his dad at home. Neither of them knew that decades later, Powell would be cast as Hangman in the sequel, "Top Gun: Maverick." " I was 10 years old, and I remember him handing me the VHS and saying, 'Hey man, we're gonna watch 'Top Gun,' " Powell told Access Hollywood."I liken it to a dad playing catch with his son for the first time. It just meant something to him."
The surrealism isn't lost on Powell. "The dream of this business is to occupy the costumes of your heroes. And to occupy a flight suit with Tom Cruise is as cool as it gets," he told People. "I'm still pinching myself." While Powell admits he felt a lot of pressure to live up to "Top Gun" fans' expectations, he repeated the words said to him by Cruise: "Pressure's a privilege."
Speaking on the iconic beach scene, which inspired countless thirst-trap memes of the shirtless cast, Powell says he was flattered. "I'm glad we're viral on TikTok. I'm glad those sit-ups weren't for nothing," he said. He also added that his then-girlfriend, Gigi Paris, was the first to send him all the TikToks that worshipped his abs.
He pivoted from Hangman to Hit Man
In 2023, Glen Powell co-wrote and co-produced the movie "Hit Man" with "Everybody Wants Some" director Richard Linklater, realizing a childhood dream. "I used to write movies growing up, and a creative writing class was my favorite class," he told Vogue, adding, "The fact that my first, actually produced writing credit is with Richard Linklater is as cool as it gets." With a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it's clear Powell is just as good a writer as he is an actor.
The film follows a psychology professor posing as a fake hitman for the New Orleans Police. He breaks protocol by helping a woman flee her abusive husband, falling in love with her in the process. Powell admitted this type of movie is not one that he or Linkalter would typically make on their own, but said, "The two of us together, it makes for a really interesting cocktail."
Powell came up with the idea during the pandemic after reading an article fittingly titled "Hit Man" in Texas Monthly, which was based on a real-life psychology professor who moonlit as a — you guessed it — fake hitman for the police. "And there was this one specific line in the article about this woman who was trying to kill her husband, and it turns out she was actually in danger. She was trying to get him before he got her," he explained to Vogue.
His performance in Anyone But You opposite Sydney Sweeney got people talking
In 2023, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney starred in the film "Anyone But You." Set in Australia, the film follows Powell and Sydney's characters who share an intense dislike for one another after their first date goes wrong but end up attending the same destination wedding together.
The film has all the ingredients of a classic rom-com: Two extremely good-looking leads. A staged relationship. A slew of hilarious mishaps and an enemies-to-lovers arc. But perhaps its biggest selling point is the undeniable chemistry between Powell and Sweeney, which was so convincing it sent rumors flying that the co-stars were having an affair. (Powell was dating his girlfriend Gigi Paris at the time; Sweeney was engaged to producer Jonathan Davino).
"When all that stuff happened, you know, publicly, it felt disorienting and unfair. But what I'm realizing is that's just a part of this gig now," Powell told Men's Health. Sweeney addressed the rumors with Glamour, saying, "It was really hard on Glen, which made me sad ... because [otherwise] it was such a beautiful experience for the both of us. I care for him so much."
Despite the rumors, Powell wouldn't hesitate to be Sweeney's co-star again. "She's an impressive person, and what she does on screen is electric. I would work with her again in a heartbeat," Powell told Business Insider.
He followed Tom Cruise's advice when working on a later film
In 1996, the hit film" Twister", starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, earned $494 million at the global box office. Now, Glen Powell is starring in the 2024 film "Twisters," alongside "Normal People" actor Daisy Edgar-Jones. Powell insists the film is not a reboot, and he wants viewers to expect something different. "We're not trying to recreate the story from the first one. ... It's just its own standalone story in the modern-day," he told Vogue.
Powell recalled a piece of advice given to him by his "Top Gun" co-star Tom Cruise, who told him, "If you want to make movies of a certain size and scope and scale, you have to figure out what can connect with everyone around the world in every territory." Powell believes the subject matter will resonate with today's audience, and it's easy to see why. The amount of natural disasters in recent decades has skyrocketed in the wake of climate change. "And humans-versus-weather is a very universal idea, how powerless we really are in the face of these cataclysmic forces," said Powell.
In 2023, he announced he was preparing for his Broadway debut
While "Scream Queens" fans won't be able to see Glen Powell reprise his role as Chad Radwe, there is some good news. The actor told Vogue that he's reunited with the show's co-creator, Ryan Murphy, for a special project. "Ryan Murphy and I, we're actually making a musical together. We don't really have any plans to be back in the television world together, but we'll be on Broadway together," Powell revealed.
When asked whether the musical would revolve around his iconic "Screams Queens" character, the actor seemed to deny it — without actually saying no. "The Chad Radwell Musical. That's the funniest idea." Hmm. Funniest and best idea, we'd say.
Glen Powell writes movies. He acts on the small screen. He acts on the big screen. And now he's making musicals? It's hard to believe. Glen Powell is apparently the multihyphenate we didn't know we needed.