Why Tom Cruise told Glen Powell to embrace his inner douchebag
Glen Powell has had an amazing last few years. In 2023, he appeared opposite Sydney Sweeney in the romantic comedy Anyone but You and in Richard Linklater’s crime comedy Hit Man. The following year, he stole the show as a charismatic a-hole tornado chaser in Twisters, sharing some unbelievable chemistry with Daisy Edgar-Jones. The 36-year-old had been around for a long time before these films, but their success finally helped establish him as a top contender.
The ball properly got rolling on Powell when he appeared in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. As Jake “Hangman” Seresin, he joined a group of recruits under Pete Mitchell’s command at the titular Navy flight school as they prepared for a potentially life-threatening mission. Hangman’s brash attitude and antagonism towards both Maverick and Rooster (Miles Teller) helps drive the narrative and his redemption arc is the cherry on top of a fantastic legacy sequel.
On the set of the movie, which grossed over $1billion and was nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards, Powell grew close with co-star Tom Cruise. The Hollywood icon personally called Powell to offer him the role and ensured he would have greater control over how he was portrayed. Cruise also paid for Powell to attend flight school, allowing him to gain his pilot’s licence.
Speaking with Variety, the Texas-born star revealed some advice that his mentor once imparted on him. “Sometimes you can fall into the trap of wanting to be liked on camera,” he told the publication. “And in a movie like this [Top Gun: Maverick], where you know there’s going to be a lot of eyes on it, you don’t want to be Draco Malfoy. But Tom gave me this advice: ‘For the ending to work, you have to completely lean into that. Everybody else in the movie is questioning their own ability. You’re the only guy that’s not questioning it. So if there’s any sort of apology in anything you say, the movie doesn’t work. Lean into the douchebaggery of it all.'”
Powell has one of those faces you can’t help but hate. Not because there’s anything wrong with it – quite the opposite. He’s like a marble statue that comes to life as if John Wayne had had a baby with Michaelangelo’s David. His chiselled features make him an easy target for mere mortals to despise, and this is often reflected in the characters he plays. “I keep getting cast as a douchebag,” he said, specifically referring to his role in Scream Queens, in which he played an egotistical necrophiliac.
Hangman wasn’t the part in Top Gun: Maverick that Powell first went up for. The actor explained that he initially wanted to play Rooster and spent months preparing for his audition, including living on real naval bases. He was downhearted when the part went to Teller instead, but that’s when Cruise called him to offer him something else. “It took a year-plus to actually shoot the movie,” he revealed. “Tom’s a perfectionist, and so he was like, ‘We got to get it right.’ And I saw the movie, and then Covid happened, and I was like, ‘Oh, man, we’re sitting on this awesome thing.’”
With Powell set to star in Edgar Wright’s upcoming remake of The Running Man and in a movie called Huntington alongside Margaret Qualley, Topher Grace, and Ed Harris, his incredible run of form looks set to continue.
