The movie Glen Powell was convinced he’d ruined: “The most atrocious thing you can do”
One of the worst things you can do when you’re trying to create something is to stop partway through and ask people what they think, because while the end product is always going to be better than the initial stages, the feedback will throw you off completely, which is something The Running Man’s Glen Powell faced, once hating an early version of one of his films so much he literally threw up in a bush.
Powell is obviously much more than just a hunky good-looking male lead, although if you ever have the misfortune to see 2024’s execrable Twisters, you may disagree, but don’t let that put you off; he has got far more in his locker as his performance in Richard Linklater’s 2023 film Hit Man showed, in addition to the fact he co-wrote the script and served as a producer on the movie.
The role that really set him on the path to A-list stardom was 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, and an example of Powell evidently caring about his craft is that, despite being offered a part on such a major blockbuster, he initially turned it down, feeling that the character he was due to play was underdeveloped.
In the end, Tom Cruise himself had to intervene to convince the actor to take it and promise that he could have greater control over the portrayal.
And that kind of concern over his output was also present several years earlier, when Powell, who had previously been playing small roles in TV shows and fairly minor movies, was offered a decent part in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, which told the real life story of three Black female mathematicians who proved vital to Nasa in the 1960s as they fought the Soviets against the clock to reach the moon.
It was a revelation among critics on release, with the three central stars, Janelle Monae, Octavia Spencer and Taraji P Henson garnering huge acclaim for their performances, and the film brought in almost $250million at the box office against a budget of just $25m.
Powell also had an important role to play in the movie as John Glenn, the legendary astronaut who lived a truly heroic life, going from WWII fighter pilot to becoming the first American to ever orbit the Earth. It was probable that he knew what a pivotal part it was likely to be for his career, adding to the pressure he put on himself, such that an early screening of the rushes one day proved tough for him to stomach, as he told Deadline:
“I remember watching [Hidden Figures] for the first time on the Fox lot, and this was before all the effects were done, the music was in [and] the sound design, and I literally left the movie, and I puked in the bushes. I thought I ruined this movie. I was like, ‘All these women put in these great performances, and it’s like the legacy of these women, I was like, ‘I literally ruined this movie’. It feels like the most atrocious thing you can do as an actor is just be terrible in a movie about real-life people that need a real-life story.”
Luckily, the man had not in fact ruined the film, which would go on to be nominated for three Academy Awards, and he meanwhile has more major movies on the way, including the JJ Abrams-directed fantasy epic The Great Beyond, and a thriller called How to Make a Killing with Margaret Qualley.
