Glen Powell has been on a roll lately, taking on roles that push him physically and mentally. From surviving deadly tornadoes in Twisters to outsmarting criminals in Hit Man, Powell keeps proving he’s more than just a charming face on screen.
He recently stepped into one of his most challenging roles yet as Ben Richards in Edgar Wright’s upcoming adaptation of The Running Man, based on Stephen King’s classic story. It actually ended up being a pretty great flick!
According to Powell, it was Top Gun: Maverick that gave him the best crash course in how to handle the kind of intense, high-stakes filmmaking this project demands.
“I think I did learn on Top Gun what it takes to deliver something specific for the audience. Like, riding in the back of those planes a couple times a day, you are exhausted, but what you do is you put your head down and you focus for this finite amount of time, because you know it’ll last on film forever.”
In Top Gun: Maverick, Powell played pilot Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin alongside Tom Cruise, and the experience was grueling but it paid off in some awesome ways. The actor spent so much time in the cockpit that he even earned his real pilot’s license after production wrapped.
“Even though you’re getting these little pieces, what you see is in the greater whole of the movie, what the impact is when an audience feels that the person they’re rooting for is going through a traumatic, intense thing, it translates it.”
Powell says that mindset of pushing through exhaustion for the sake of authenticity is something he’s carried with him into every project since.
“I kept that in the back of my head, you know, the ‘film is forever’ feeling, which is, ‘do what you have to do’ – don’t take any shortcuts, so you give the audience that full experience.
“I think I’ve taken these last few years since Top Gun [and] I’ve had the best film education I can even imagine, which is I get to work with some of the top filmmakers in the world and I’m really trying to learn and treating it like my film school.”
That attitude is perfect for The Running Man, which promises to be a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled ride. The story follows Ben Richards, a man forced to participate in a brutal televised competition where he must survive being hunted across a dystopian America.
If he can evade capture for 30 days, he’ll win enough money to save his sick daughter, but no one has ever survived that long.
The movie delivered stylish action, dark humor, and the kind of kinetic energy that made Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World instant favorites.
Combine that with Powell’s dedication to realism and intensity, and The Running Man could easily be one of next year’s most exciting action films.
