Glen Powell

Glen Powell (birthname: Glen Thomas Powell Jr.) has earned a reputation as ideal casting in clean-cut, all-American roles, often as astronauts and air pilots, such as “Hangman” in the 2022 megahit, Top Gun: Maverick. Powell got an early big-screen start in his mid-teens with small roles in such high-profile features as Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003), Andrew and Luke Wilson’s comedy, The Wendell Baker Story (2005), Richard Linklater’s topical drama, Fast Food Nation (2006), Ethan Hawke’s music drama, The Hottest State (2006), and Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters (2007).

Powell continued a string of small, supporting roles in major films with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), followed by writer-director Josh Boone’s comedy-drama, Stuck in Love (2012), and then a bigger role in the micro-budget indie, Best Friends Forever (2013) from star-writer-director Brea Grant. Glen Powell scored his first lead role in producer-director Will Wallace’s Western, Red Wing (2013), executive produced by Terrence Malick with Luke Perry, Bill Paxton, and Frances Fisher.

Powell joined the large ensemble of the Sly Stallone-written sequel, The Expendables 3 (2014), with Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and which globally grossed over double its $100 million budget.

After smaller budget fare like the Haley Joel Osment-starring Sex Ed (2014), Powell played support to Josh Duhamel, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Malin Akerman, Byung-hun Lee, and Julia Stiles in the thriller, Misconduct (2016), and then in the hit sequel, Ride Along 2 (2016), with Powell playing opposite Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt, and Olivia Munn, and grossing nearly $125 million worldwide.

Glen Powell reunited with Richard Linklater for the raucous Texas college comedy; Everybody Wants Some! (2016), with Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch, and Ryan Guzman, which failed to break even ($10 million budget) at the box office. Powell portrayed Mercury astronaut hero John Glenn in the Oscar-nominated NASA drama, Hidden Figures (2016), starring Taraji P.

Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, and Kirsten Dunst, earning a notable ten times ($236.2 million globally) its budget. Powell starred in co-writer-director Carlos Rincones’ The Bad Guys (2018), premiering at the Austin film festival in Powell’s hometown, followed by a co-starring role in the Mike Newell-directed U.K./France romantic drama, The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (2018), starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, and Tom Courtenay, earning $23 million in European theatrical release.

Glen Powell again joined Linklater in the familiar role of an astronaut for a starring vocal role in Netflix’s animated feature, Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022), with co-stars Zachary Levi and Jack Black. Powell continued a strong 2022 in a major supporting role in the Joseph Kosinski-directed Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer, and grossing an astounding $1.487 billion globally to become the highest-grossing movie of 2022. Powell served as executive producer and co-star in the J.D. Dillard-directed Korean War drama, Devotion (2022).

Glen Powell starred opposite Sydney Sweeney in the Will Gluck-directed rom-com, Anyone but You (2023), which was a contemporary spin on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and featuring Alexandra Shipp, Hadley Robinson, Michelle Hurd, Dermot Mulroney, and Rachel Griffiths, and released by Sony Pictures.

Powell then co-starred with Daisy Edgar-Jones in the Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. $200 million-budgeted sequel to Twister (1996), Twisters (2024), with Anthony Ramos, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane, and released in the U.S. by Universal. Expanding his artistic chops, Powell co-wrote with director Linklater the script for Hit Man (2024), in which Powell starred opposite Adria Arjona, Retta, Austin Amelio, Molly Bernard, and Kate Adair.

Powell starred in writer-director John Patton Ford’s black comedy, Huntington (date to be announced), a loose remake of the Alec Guinness-starring Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), co-starring Margaret Qualley, Ed Harris, Jessica Henwick, Zach Woods, Topher Grace, and Bill Camp, and released by A24 (in the U.S.) and StudioCanal (U.K. and France). Powell took the lead in the corporate crime drama, Monsanto (date to be announced), co-written and directed by John Lee Hancock and co-starring Laura Dern and Anthony Mackie.

Glen Powell assumed the title role of writer-director Edgar Wright’s dystopian sci-fi movie for Paramount Pictures, The Running Man (date to be announced), a remake of the 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and adapted (with co-writer Michael Bacall) from the novel of the same title by Richard Bateman (Stephen King’s pseudonym). Powell has been a producer on such movies as Hitman and the Paul Crowder-directed documentary, The Blue Angels (2024), produced by MGM/Bad Robot/IMAX and released by Amazon MGM Studios.