Everyone wants Glen Powell to be a movie star – him included. But are we all putting too many eggs in one basket?
How many “the next movie star” pieces have you read about Glen Powell?
At first glance, the idea that a good-looking, charismatic actor would attract something of a media frenzy would have been a no-brainer. But after 20 years without a new, chiselled face emerging from the Hollywood machine, you can forgive the film journalism industry for getting a little excited. “The death of the movie star” is a phenomenon many have blamed for the decline of the original blockbuster. If we’ve finally found one – whether it’s Powell or the two or three others making their way into the spotlight this year – maybe we can get movies like the original Twister again, rather than one expanding the same franchise. Big Storm, perhaps, or Bloody Hell, That’s A Lot Of Wind.
The film industry seems to be getting a little excited, too, and is engaging in star-hunting like it hasn’t since the 2000s. Shaken by systemic change, studios are desperate to find a new way back to bankability. Maybe it’s natural, then, that we’re looking at the old Hollywood model to get them out of a rut. Star power was the currency of cinema for its first century of existence, after all – the magic can’t have disappeared entirely, can it?
Hence a renewed interest in projecting big dreams onto young talent. Between Wonka and Dune: Part Two, Timothée Chalamet is finally enjoying his prophesised ascendence into the mainstream. Zendaya took centre stage (court?) in the promotional campaign for Challengers. Paramount execs were reportedly convinced to cast Paul Mescal in Gladiator II when they heard the, er, vocal reaction to his shirtless scene in A Streetcar Named Desire on the West End.
Even amongst his contemporaries, though, Powell feels like a unique animal. Zendaya and Mescal graduated onto the big screen from acclaimed turns on TV (in Euphoria and Normal People respectively). Chalamet has been a critically acclaimed indie darling for years following his work with Greta Gerwig and Luca Guadagnino.
Powell, by contrast, has been very vocal about where he wants his career to take him. A post-Maverick friendship with Tom Cruise, taking advice from Denzel Washington and comparisons to fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey have put his career on a one-way trip to the big leagues. Now, the stakes for him personally feel higher than most – if he can’t be the biggest actor on the planet, his screen presence is such that it’s hard to imagine him going back to anything smaller.
Read more: TV shows are taking years to film new seasons – why?
It helps that Powell’s career seems so tailor-made to the position he now finds himself in that you’d have thought he was being advised by an 80s ad agency. Aside from lending his voice to a few animated projects, he’s largely avoided the pull of TV to avoid over-saturating screens with his image. Two of his first lead roles – in Everybody Wants Some!! and Set It Up – showed off his comedy and dramatic chops in crowd-pleasing fashion. His blockbuster breakthrough as a cocky pilot in Top Gun: Maverick introduced him to a mass audience, Netflix’s Hit Man and the surprise success of rom-com Anyone But You proved he didn’t need a franchise to get a film off the ground without the pressure that comes from leading a four-quadrant hit.
But that pressure is now on its way. It’s moving in from the west, with strong winds and a tornado warning the size of a house. Twisters might have started life coasting on the success of the 1996 original, but the promotional storm it’s kicked up has been laser-focused on its leading man – despite his character arguably taking on more of a supporting role to Daisy Edgar-Jones’ meteorologist. The weather-‘em-up has become Powell’s movie to lose.
Because if movie stardom plays off a kind of invulnerability, Powell’s position in 2024 couldn’t feel more precarious. One flop at the wrong time could prove fatal in a media landscape trained to cry doom-and-gloom at the first sign of trouble (see The Fall Guy). With the number of potential stars to replace him in the low-single digits, Powell might be one of the last movie stars we have – but putting too much stock in that could risk ending his career before it gets off the ground proper.
