Powell attained wider prominence for starring in the action film Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and the romantic comedy Anyone but You (2023).[2][3] He has since starred in the dark comedy Hit Man (2023), which he also co-wrote and produced, and in the disaster film Twisters (2024). His performance in the former earned him a nomination for a Golden Globe Award.
Early life and education
Glen Thomas Powell Jr. was raised in Austin, Texas, along with two sisters.[4] He is the son of Glen Powell Sr., an executive coach, and Cyndy, a homemaker.[5] His father's surname is originally Chutsky; his father is of Polish and Lipka Tatar ancestry.[6] Powell graduated from Westwood High School in northwest Austin in 2007, where he played high school football and lacrosse.[7][8] He attended the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin but left before finishing his degree. He initially expected to complete the requirements in spring 2024, but after his career limited his time commitments, he moved his goal to 2025.[9][10]
Powell began receiving larger roles in feature films around 2014. He played a hacker in The Expendables 3, an action movie that starred several well-known stars and that reunited Powell with Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. Powell later recounted asking Stallone for advice while filming on how to succeed in Hollywood.[18] Powell next took minor roles in the comedies Sex Ed and Ride Along 2. During this period, he also had a main role in the first season of the television show Scream Queens and a recurring role in the second season.[19] In March 2016, he co-starred as Finnegan in Everybody Wants Some!!, Richard Linklater's spiritual sequel to Dazed & Confused, which was filmed in Austin, Texas and released by Paramount.[20] Later that year, Powell played astronaut John Glenn in the biographical drama Hidden Figures.[21] In 2017, he had a minor role as Sergeant Dylan Chutsky in the Netflix film Sand Castle.[22] He then starred in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.[23]
Top Gun: Maverick and expansion (2018–present)
In 2018, Powell starred opposite Zoey Deutch in the romantic comedy Set it Up.[24] The movie was released on Netflix. Powell reflected in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he started getting more calls from contacts in the film industry after the movie's release,[25] and Jake Greenburg of The Guardian commented that it was the "first movie wise enough to let [Powell] take up real space".[26] Later that year, Powell joined the cast of Top Gun: Maverick.[27] He had initially auditioned for the role of Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, but the part went to Miles Teller. Powell's audition impressed producers, who offered him the role of Jake "Hangman" Seresin instead but Powell was reluctant to take the role because he viewed the character as underdeveloped. A call from Tom Cruise, the star of the film, convinced Powell to accept the part, with Cruise offering him greater control over the character.[15][28] The film was delayed multiple times due to the pandemic, but it turned into a "breakout role" for Powell upon its release in May 2022.[25]
Powell in 2022
Powell next worked as a voice actor in the animated film Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood, which premiered in March 2022.[29] He then played naval officer Tom Hudner in the biographical war film, Devotion. The film, which Powell executive produced, received positive reviews when released in November 2022, but it was a box-office bomb.[30] He next co-starred with Sydney Sweeney in the romantic comedy Anyone but You, which emerged as a sleeper hit, grossing $220 million worldwide.[31][32] Around its release in December 2023, the film generated buzz because of speculation about a potential off-screen romance between Powell and Sweeney, although the two stars later admitted that the appearance of a real-life relationship was part of a marketing strategy.[33] Powell remarked to The New York Times: "That's people wanting what's on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit".[34] He later indicated that the press tour was designed as "its own sense of entertainment".[17]
Powell produced and co-wrote the script of the romantic black comedy Hit Man with director Richard Linklater.[35][36] Several critics praised Powell's performance in it as an undercover police contractor posing as a hitman. Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times called it a "genuine star-clinching turn" for Powell,[37] while Sophie Butcher of Empire wrote that he "announces himself as a movie star and a filmmaking force to be reckoned with".[38] After premiering at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, Hit Man was released on Netflix in June 2024.[39][40] In the following month, he starred in the disaster film Twisters, a standalone sequel to the 1996 film Twister, playing a YouTube storm chaser.[41]IndieWire's David Ehrlich commended him for "churning pure charisma" in his part.[42] His performance in Hit Man earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.[43]
Powell started dating model Gigi Paris in 2019; their breakup became public in April 2023.[49][50] Powell is a licensed pilot. Tom Cruise, his co-star in Top Gun: Maverick, paid for him to attend flight school.[51] Powell has declared himself a diehard fan of the Texas Longhorns.[52] In 2024, Powell relocated from Los Angeles back to his hometown of Austin, Texas.[10][53]
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