Glen Powell makes confidence funny by letting us see the effort behind it. We rate him as a leading man, especially when a script risks embarrassing him; making him pleasant is rarely enough.
Fi1m perspective
In Anyone but You (2023), Glen Powell takes off his trousers on a beach before two families and behaves as though the matter can still be settled professionally. We laughed because he keeps trying to look in charge when the situation has made that impossible. His Ben is forever checking whether his confidence has persuaded anyone. Will Gluck gets more from that uncertainty than from the couple's shouted insults. With Sydney Sweeney, Powell is most convincing when the script lets them speak quietly.
His leading-man breakthrough came with Top Gun: Maverick (2022), after supporting work as John Glenn in Hidden Figures (2016). He also co-wrote and produced Hit Man (2023), directed by his recurring collaborator Richard Linklater. Its disguises and multiple personas are a useful direction for an actor already good at showing someone trying to impress.
Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters (2024) gives him a simpler job, and he does it well. His Tyler sells T-shirts from his truck and enjoys the storms, but has also read the research Kate assumes he has not. Powell makes the swagger companionable rather than tiresome. He and Daisy Edgar-Jones work well together, which makes the script's habit of keeping them in separate trucks especially frustrating. The script wastes a pairing it ought to have trusted.
Edgar Wright finds a useful alternative in The Running Man (2025). As Ben Richards, Powell holds his jaw tight and his eyes down, with the grin kept for moments when it might get him something. The anger mostly works, even as the chase becomes repetitive and the satire keeps explaining itself. He need not be amiable to hold our attention.
The limit is clearer in John Patton Ford's How to Make a Killing (2026), where his Becket Redfellow sets about killing the relatives between him and a fortune. He keeps Becket so composed that the performance scarcely develops. We never feared him, because the planning and waiting reveal so little of his enjoyment. Give Powell a comedy willing to make him look foolish; he can take it.
Biography
Glen Powell is an American actor. Born in Austin, Texas, he began his career with small roles in films including Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) and Fast Food Nation (2006). He attended the University of Texas at Austin.
Powell gained attention for supporting parts in The Expendables 3 (2014), the series Scream Queens (2015–2016), Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), Hidden Figures (2016) as John Glenn, and Set It Up (2018). He portrayed Lt. Jake 'Hangman' Seresin in Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
He starred in Anyone but You (2023), co-wrote and produced Hit Man (2023), and appeared in Twisters (2024) as Tyler and The Running Man (2025) as Ben Richards. Powell voices Fox McCloud in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) and plays Becket Redfellow in How to Make a Killing (2026). His performance in Hit Man earned a Golden Globe Award nomination.
