Glen Powell might just be a perfect man — at least, that’s how his former castmates and collaborators describe the Top Gun: Maverick actor.
Powell received lavish praise while attending his Texas Hall of Fame induction hosted by the Austin Film Society on Thursday night, an event timed to the upcoming release of the actor’s Netflix movie Hit Man, which reunites Powell and his Everybody Wants Some!! writer-director Richard Linklater.
The event at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios included speeches from Rodriguez (who first cast Powell in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over), Linklater, Tom Cruise (previously taped) and his Hit Man co-stars Adria Arjona, Retta and Sanjay Rao.
Arjona referenced the recent “summer of Glen Powell” headlines, which refer to the 35-year-old starring in Hit Man (which has a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and then, a month later, the highly anticipated sequel Twisters.
“I want to make something really clear: This isn’t your summer, Glen, this is the Glen Powell decade,” Arjona declared. “[Glen] is not just incredibly good looking with like 13 abs — I don’t know, I personally haven’t counted. He shape shifts and it’s impossible to predict what he’ll do next. He’s a creator. He’s a writer and producer. He’s funny and, man, is he smart. He’s one of the hardest working people I know. But most importantly, he is a good person. He doesn’t like winning on his own. He wins as a team and never makes it about himself. Glen, you’re pretty close to perfect, my friend. You light up everyone around you. And if there’s one thing that bothers me about you is that I didn’t meet you sooner.”
Arjona told the audience that since she didn’t have anything but “beautiful things to say” about her co-star, she phoned his sister looking for some gossip. Powell’s sister, Leslie, told her a story about when she was in third grade and she asked her older brother to join her on stage for her tap dancing performance.
“It’s an age when kids usually start caring what others think and want to be cool,” she said. “But not you. You didn’t care about being cool. You cared about what was important to her. You always put others first, both in your personal life and in your career.”
Cruise taped a brief video praising his Maverick co-star and hinted the two would work together again amid rumors of a third Top Gun movie in development.
“Congratulations Glen on the incredible honor of being inducted into the Film Hall of Fame, in the country of Texas,” he dryly quipped. “It was a great experience working with you on Top Gun: Maverick and to see all that you have created since. And Glen, I have to say your Texas-sized talent is only matched by your Texas-sized heart. I look forward to working with you again. Enjoy the rest of your evening, and enjoy this well deserved celebration of you, my friend.”
While his Hit Man co-writer and director Linklater praised Powell’s “most determined to work ethic you’ll ever encounter” and noted he’s “just a truly great guy and fun to be around. Like, what is a movie star? It’s a person you want to hang out with. Well, that’s Glen — a person you never get tired of being around.”
In Hit Man (trailer below), Powell plays a teacher who also works part time for the New Orleans police as an undercover fake hit man for hire, whose life is complicated when he falls in love with a woman who wants to kill her husband. The film (which is loosely based on a true story) will play in select theaters May 24 and arrives on Netflix on June 7.
