Glen Powell claims ‘Twisters’ contains “one of the most incredible action sequences of all time”
With recent roles in Anyone But You and Netflix’s Hit Man, Glen Powell has confirmed himself as one of Hollywood’s most exciting leading men and looks set to increase his prominence again as Tyler Owens in Twisters.
The disaster flick is set to arrive on July 19th. It is directed by Lee Isaac Chung, based on Mark L. Smith’s screenplay, adapted from a story by Joseph Kosinski. A standalone sequel to the hit 1996 movie Twister, which boasted an ensemble cast featuring the likes of Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, alongside Powell, the new movie stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Brandon Perea, Anthony Ramos and Daryl McCormack.
Putting a contemporary twist on the tale of terrifying tornadoes found in the original, Powell’s character, Owens, is a charming but rash social media star who relishes posting his storm-chasing antics online. He, Jones’ Kate Cooper and Ramos’ Javi test out a new tracking system as multiple tornadoes converge over Oklahoma.
In a new interview with Fandango, the three stars of Twisters discussed working on the movie and the authenticity of using practical effects, and Powell revealed that he believes one of the sequences ranks among the finest ever seen in an action film.
“There’s a sequence in the movie that I think is going to be one of the most incredible action sequences of all time,” Powell explained. “It all happens in a oner and I think that we shot that in December with a rain machine. One of the coldest nights I’ve ever experienced, getting dragged across a pool by a wire.”
It might be surprising to hear that Twisters heavily employed practical effects, but Chung was committed to making the action as realistic as possible. Powell called it “maybe the most physical thing that I’ve ever done”, as production sought to recreate the experience of a human getting sucked into a tornado and being hit by flying debris.
Watching stuntmen flung into the sky, trucks moving, and jumping into a pool while being hauled along, created a “fully physical experience”, Powell recalled.
Despite such physical demands, Powell and the rest of the cast had to keep pushing and put their bodies on the line to recreate the intended experience.
“The investment as an actor that you have to have is like it can’t be delicate, it can’t look tender,” he concluded.”Tornadoes aren’t tender and you have to put your body on the line in order to sell that experience so I think like the cool part about this cast is that everybody is that invested. Everybody’s willing to put their body on the line to do things that sell the movie, you know, sell the experience.”
In other news, the director of Hit Man, Richard Linklater, claimed last week that finding a home for the Netflix movie was an ordeal as “the industry really didn’t want to make the film”.
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