Glen Powell recently revealed how he followed Tom Cruise‘s advice to nail his own stunts in The Running Man. Powell is playing the character of Ben Richards in the upcoming Edgar Wright film and previously worked with Cruise on the 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick. The Running Man is set to release in theaters on November 14, 2025.
Glen Powell on doing his own stunts in The Running Man
Glen Powell recently sat down with GQ and talked about doing his own stunts in The Running Man, explaining how Tom Cruise’s advice helped him.
Powell said, “I knew that based on the Stephen King book, Ben Richards was a tank. I was like, Okay, I got to be a bit of a weapon. And so that’s why I trained the way I trained on this. I put on a lot of muscle. A lot of it was functional. A lot of it was so I could absorb hits. But a lot of it was also authentically for an audience.”
Following the Mission: Impossible star’s advice, Powell further stated, “I went from going, ‘Oh, I’m an actor on a movie,’ to ‘I’m a high-performance athlete. ’And I’m just very lucky that I have someone like Tom, who I could literally go, ‘Hey, what do I do to survive something?’”
Additionally, Powell also revealed that Cruise was the one who convinced him to sign on for Top Gun: Maverick when Powell was close to passing on it. He stated that he was typecast into playing the roles of arrogant characters and said, “I’ve never been Mr. Cool. And what’s funny is you start getting cast in certain things — like Hangman is not me, right? I’m not that guy. That’s the funny part about Hollywood. You can’t really choose it. People have to cast you in these movies. And I think what I started realizing is that people got enjoyment out of watching me be really cocky and confident.”
Originally reported by Ishita Verma on ComingSoon.
