Glen Powell: The Life Story Behind Hollywood's New Star

Glen Powell spent ten years in Hollywood being almost famous. He had the looks, the charm, and the talent, and he kept getting close to the breakthrough without ever quite reaching it. He played the best friend, the rival, the handsome man in the background of someone else’s story, and he did it so well that casting directors kept calling him back, but audiences did not yet know his name. Then, in the space of two years, everything changed. Top Gun: Maverick made him a star in 2022. Anyone But You made him a romantic lead in 2023. Twisters made him a blockbuster leading man in 2024. He was thirty-four years old when it happened, and he had been working in Hollywood since he was a teenager. The overnight success took nineteen years. This is the story of those nineteen years, and of what he did with the two that followed.

Austin, Football, and a Kid Who Loved Movies

Glen Thomas Powell Jr. was born on 21 October 1988 in Austin, Texas, to Cyndy and Glen Powell Sr. He has two younger sisters, Lauren and Leslie, and he grew up in a close, supportive family that would later become famous in its own right for turning up in his films. Austin in the late 1980s and 1990s was a city that loved film and music, home to the South by Southwest festival and to a thriving independent film scene, and Powell grew up inside that culture. He played football at Westlake High School, one of the best high school programmes in Texas, and he was good enough to take the sport seriously. But he was also drawn to the stage. He acted in school plays, and he discovered that he loved the feeling of an audience responding to a performance. His parents encouraged both sides of him, the athlete and the actor, and they drove him to auditions and rehearsals without ever pushing him toward one path or the other.

His first film role came when he was fourteen. In 2003, he appeared in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, the third film in Robert Rodriguez’s family franchise, playing a character credited as the Long-Fingered Boy. It was a tiny part, and it was filmed in Texas, and it gave him his first experience of a real film set. Rodriguez, a fellow Texan, remembered him. The experience did not make him famous, and it did not make him rich, but it showed him that acting could be a real job, not only a school hobby. He kept acting through high school, and after graduating he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied radio, television, and film. He was a good student, but Hollywood kept calling. He took a role in The Great Debaters in 2007, Denzel Washington’s film about a Black college debate team in the 1930s, playing a Harvard debater, and the experience of working with Washington left a deep impression on him. Washington told him to keep learning, to keep working, and to be patient. Powell took that advice seriously, even when patience was hard.

Los Angeles and the Long Apprenticeship

In 2009, Powell moved to Los Angeles and began the long apprenticeship that most actors go through and few survive. He took small roles in television and film, and he learned the unglamorous side of the business: auditions in crowded rooms, rejections that arrived without explanation, and months when the phone did not ring. He appeared in The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, in a small role as a trader, and he was on screen for only a few seconds. He took guest spots on television shows, including CSI: Miami and Rizzoli and Isles, and he played a young man in the war drama The Expendables 3 in 2014. None of these roles made him a star, but each one taught him something about working on a set, and each one kept him in the room with directors who might remember him later.

The turning point of this period came in 2015, when he was cast as Chad Radwell in Scream Queens, Ryan Murphy’s horror-comedy series on Fox. Chad was a rich, dim, preppy fraternity president, and Powell played him with such cheerful arrogance that he became the breakout character of the show. He wore pastel sweaters, he said terrible things with a smile, and audiences loved him for it. The role showed something important: Powell could be funny, and he could play a character who was ridiculous without ever winking at the audience. He took that lesson into his next major film, Everybody Wants Some!! in 2016, Richard Linklater’s warm, funny film about a college baseball team in 1980. Powell played Finnegan, the smooth-talking philosopher of the group, and critics singled him out. Linklater, a fellow Texan who had become one of the most respected directors in American cinema, became a mentor and a friend, and the two would work together again years later on a project that mattered even more.

Hidden Figures, John Glenn, and the Serious Actor

In the same year, Powell played astronaut John Glenn in Hidden Figures, the film about the Black women mathematicians whose work made NASA’s early space flights possible. Glenn was a real person, a national hero, and Powell played him with a quiet decency that stood in contrast to the flashier roles he had been known for. He researched Glenn carefully, studied his speech and his manner, and gave a performance that was respectful without being stiff. The film was a huge success, earning more than 230 million dollars and receiving three Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Powell was part of an ensemble that included Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe, and he held his own among them. It was the first time many people in the industry saw him as a serious actor rather than a charming supporting player.

He followed it with Set It Up in 2018, a Netflix romantic comedy in which he played Charlie, an overworked assistant who schemes with another assistant to set up their terrible bosses. The film was a surprise hit, and it became one of the most-watched romantic comedies on the streaming service. Powell and his co-star Zoey Deutch had a genuine, funny chemistry, and the film reminded audiences that romantic comedies could still work when they were written well and acted with sincerity. It also showed Powell something about his own career. He was good at comedy, he was good at romance, and he was good at playing men who were trying to do the right thing and failing entertainingly. But he was still not a star. He was a reliable, likeable actor who kept getting good reviews and small paycheques. He was thirty years old, and he had been working for fifteen years, and he was starting to wonder how long he could keep going.

The Top Gun Audition He Lost and the Role He Won Instead

The story of Top Gun: Maverick is the story of a door closing and a window opening. Powell auditioned for the role of Rooster, the son of Goose, the pilot who died in the original Top Gun. It was a major part, the emotional heart of the film, and Powell wanted it badly. He did not get it. Miles Teller won the role. Powell has been honest about how much that hurt. He had prepared for weeks, he had flown himself to the audition, and he had believed he could do it. When he got the call saying no, he thought his chance had passed. But Tom Cruise, who had been watching the auditions, saw something in Powell and asked the writers to expand the smaller role of Hangman, a cocky, competitive pilot who antagonises Rooster throughout the film. Powell accepted the smaller part, and he made it unforgettable.

Hangman is the kind of character who could have been a cartoon, an arrogant rival with no depth, but Powell played him with a swagger that was also, underneath, a kind of honesty. Hangman says what he thinks, he flies brilliantly, and in the final act he arrives at exactly the right moment to save Maverick and Rooster, proving that his confidence was earned. The film, released in 2022 after pandemic delays, became the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise’s career, earning nearly 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Powell’s performance was singled out by critics, and audiences left the cinema remembering Hangman as much as they remembered Maverick. The role changed his career overnight. Casting directors who had seen him as a supporting player now saw him as a leading man. He was thirty-three years old, and the ten years of small parts had, without him realising it, prepared him perfectly for the moment. He knew how to be on a big set, how to work with a star like Cruise, and how to make a small role feel big.

Anyone But You and the Return of the Romantic Comedy

If Top Gun made him a star, Anyone But You made him a romantic lead, and it did so in a way nobody expected. The film, released in December 2023, paired Powell with Sydney Sweeney, one of the most talked-about young actresses in Hollywood, in a modern version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. They played Ben and Bea, two people who hate each other and pretend to be a couple at a wedding in Australia, and the film was filled with sun, sea, and arguments. Critics were mixed, and some dismissed it as a lightweight comedy. Audiences disagreed. The film opened modestly and then kept earning money week after week, eventually grossing more than 220 million dollars worldwide on a budget of 25 million. It became the highest-grossing romantic comedy in years, and it proved that the genre, which studios had declared dead, was still alive if the leads had real chemistry.

Powell and Sweeney leaned into the film’s success with a marketing campaign that played on rumours about their off-screen relationship, appearing together at events and joking about it in interviews. The campaign was clever, and it was also a little controversial, because both actors were in relationships at the time, and the speculation was uncomfortable for the people involved. Powell has since said that the marketing was a team decision and that he learned from it. What matters for his career is that the film showed he could carry a romantic comedy on his own name, and that audiences, especially younger audiences, would pay to see him do it. He was no longer the handsome supporting player. He was a movie star who could open a film, and the industry noticed.

Twisters, Hit Man, and the Leading Man Years

In 2024, Powell starred in Twisters, the sequel to the 1996 disaster film Twister, playing Tyler Owens, a charismatic storm chaser who livestreams his tornado hunts to millions of followers. The role was written for a movie star, a man who could be funny, brave, and romantic in the same scene, and Powell filled it completely. The film earned more than 370 million dollars worldwide, and his performance was praised as the best thing in it. He had now headlined three successful films in three years, in three different genres: an action sequel, a romantic comedy, and a disaster blockbuster. That versatility is rare, and it is the reason studios now consider him one of the most bankable actors of his generation.

The same year, he starred in Hit Man, a film he made with Richard Linklater, the director who had given him his first major break in Everybody Wants Some!!. Powell co-wrote the screenplay and played Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered college professor who works undercover for the police, pretending to be a hitman for people who want someone killed. The character invents different personalities for each client, and Powell played each one differently, showing a range that surprised even his fans. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2023 and was released on Netflix in 2024, and Powell was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. It was the first major awards nomination of his career, and it came for a film he had written himself. That matters, because it showed he was not only an actor waiting for good roles. He was creating them.

Writing, Producing, and Building Something That Lasts

Powell has been careful about what comes next, and he has talked openly about wanting to build a career that lasts rather than one that burns brightly for a few years. He co-created and starred in Chad Powers, a comedy series for Hulu that premiered in 2025, in which he plays a disgraced college quarterback who disguises himself to get a second chance. The show is based on a sketch by the former NFL player Eli Manning, and Powell worked on it as a writer and producer as well as its star. He also signed on to star in The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel, released in 2025, playing a man who enters a deadly game show to save his family. The role required physical transformation and serious dramatic work, and Powell took it because he wanted to prove he could carry a dark, intense film as well as a comedy.

His family remains central to his life and his work. His parents, Cyndy and Glen Sr., have appeared in cameos in his films, and his sisters are part of his close circle. He has spoken about the importance of keeping his life in Texas, even as his career has moved to Los Angeles, and he returned to the University of Texas to complete his degree, graduating in 2024, fifteen years after he first enrolled. His dog, Brisket, a rescue terrier mix, has become a minor celebrity in his own right, appearing in interviews and on social media. Powell’s public image is that of a friendly, funny Texan who is enjoying his success without taking it too seriously, and that image seems to be genuine. He is known on sets for being prepared, professional, and kind to crews, and directors who have worked with him, from Linklater to Cruise, have praised his work ethic.

Devotion and the Serious Work Between the Hits

Between the big successes, Powell made a film that showed a different side of him, and I think it deserves more attention than it received. Devotion, released in 2022, told the true story of Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in the United States Navy, and Tom Hudner, the white pilot who tried to save him after his plane was shot down in the Korean War. Powell played Hudner, and Jonathan Majors played Brown, and the film was a quiet, serious war drama about friendship across a racial divide. It did not earn much money, and it did not receive the awards attention its makers had hoped for, but Powell’s performance was the best dramatic work he had done up to that point. He played Hudner as a man of duty and decency, a pilot who understood that courage meant more than flying well, and he did it without any of the swagger that defined Hangman. The contrast between the two roles, filmed around the same time, is striking. In Top Gun he was the cocky rival who stole scenes with a grin. In Devotion he was a restrained, honourable man who carried the film’s emotional weight. That he could do both, in the same year, told directors something important: Powell was not a type. He was an actor, and he could be trusted with material that asked for subtlety as well as material that asked for charm.

The film also mattered because of how Powell talked about it. He spoke in interviews about the responsibility of telling a true story, about the research he did into Hudner’s life, and about the friendship he formed with Majors on set. He was not promoting a blockbuster. He was talking about history, and about a man who had been largely forgotten. That seriousness surprised people who had only seen him in comedies, and it hinted at the career he wanted to build: one that mixed big commercial films with smaller, more meaningful ones. Devotion did not make him a star, but it made him a better actor, and it gave him a performance he could point to when anyone questioned whether he was only a handsome face. He was not. He never had been. The film proved it to anyone who was paying attention.

The Family Cameos and the Texas Base He Refuses to Leave

One of the most charming details of Powell’s career is the way his family keeps appearing in his work. His parents, Cyndy and Glen Sr., have made cameo appearances in his films, including a memorable moment in Twisters, and they have become minor celebrities in their own right, interviewed at premieres and followed on social media. His sisters are part of his inner circle, and his dog Brisket, a rescue terrier mix, has appeared in interviews and on his social media so often that fans ask about the dog as much as they ask about the films. This is not an accident. Powell has deliberately kept his life grounded in Texas, even as his career has taken him to Los Angeles and around the world. He has said that Austin is where he feels like himself, and that the distance from Hollywood helps him make better decisions about which roles to take.

That grounding shows up in the way he works. Directors and crews describe him as prepared, punctual, and kind, the kind of actor who knows everyone’s name on set and who treats the work as a team effort rather than a solo performance. Tom Cruise, who is famous for his own work ethic, praised Powell’s dedication during the filming of Top Gun: Maverick, and Richard Linklater has said that Powell is one of the most disciplined young actors he has worked with. Part of that discipline comes from his background. He grew up playing football in Texas, where coaches demand effort and teamwork, and he carried that attitude into acting. He also completed his degree at the University of Texas in 2024, fifteen years after he first enrolled, a decision that says a great deal about the way he thinks. He did not need the degree. He already had a career. He finished it because he had started it, and because finishing what you start matters to him. That is a small detail, but it tells you more about Glen Powell than any box office number.

What Ten Years of Waiting Actually Taught Him

The story of Glen Powell is, in the end, a story about waiting. He waited ten years for the breakthrough, and he waited by working, not by complaining. He took the small roles, he learned from the directors he admired, and he kept himself ready for the moment when it came. When Top Gun arrived, he was ready because he had spent a decade getting ready. When Anyone But You arrived, he was ready because he had learned comedy in Scream Queens and Set It Up. When Twisters arrived, he was ready because he had learned to carry a film on his own shoulders. None of it was luck, though luck played a part. It was preparation meeting opportunity, over and over again, until the opportunities became too big to ignore. He is now one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood, with a production company, a writing career, and a list of projects that stretches years into the future. The boy from Austin who played a long-fingered boy in a children’s film is now a movie star, and he got there the slow way, which is the way that lasts.

My Take:

What I like most about Glen Powell is that he did not skip the hard part. Hollywood is full of actors who became famous at twenty-one and spent the next twenty years trying to learn the craft they should have learned before anyone knew their name. Powell did it the other way round. He spent ten years learning, in small roles, in bad television, in films where he had three lines, and when fame finally arrived at thirty-four, he was ready for it. He knew how to behave on a set, how to work with a star like Tom Cruise without being intimidated, and how to carry a film on his own shoulders without panicking. That readiness is the whole story, really. The overnight success was nineteen years in the making, and the nineteen years are the reason the success has lasted.

I think about the Rooster audition a lot, because it is the kind of story that tells you who a person is. He wanted the part badly, he prepared for weeks, he flew himself to the audition, and he lost it to Miles Teller. Most actors, in that position, would have been bitter. Some would have turned down the smaller role of Hangman out of pride. Powell took it, and he made it the most memorable part of the film after Maverick himself. That is not a small thing. It takes a particular kind of confidence to accept the smaller role and then outshine the bigger one, and it takes an even rarer kind of maturity to do it without resentment. He has talked about that experience honestly, saying how much it hurt, and I respect the honesty. He did not pretend it was easy. He said it hurt, and then he did the work anyway. That is the difference between an actor who lasts and an actor who does not. The ones who last can absorb a disappointment and turn it into fuel. Powell did exactly that.

Scream Queens is the role I would show to anyone who wants to understand his comedy, because Chad Radwell is a character who should not work. He is rich, ignorant, sexist, and shallow, and in the wrong hands he would be unbearable. Powell played him with such innocent enthusiasm that he became the funniest thing in the show. The trick was that Chad never knew he was ridiculous. He believed every terrible thing he said, and Powell committed to that belief completely. That commitment is the secret of all good comedy. The actor cannot be in on the joke. The audience has to discover the joke by watching a person who takes himself completely seriously. Powell understood that at twenty-seven, and he has used the same technique ever since, in Set It Up, in Anyone But You, and in Hit Man, where he plays a man inventing different personalities and committing to each one as if it were real. Comedy is not about being funny. It is about being serious in a funny situation, and Powell is very good at that.

Hidden Figures is the performance I respect most from his early career, because it asked him to disappear. John Glenn was a real person, a national hero, and Powell played him without any showiness, without any attempt to steal scenes from the women whose story the film was really telling. That restraint is hard for a young actor, especially a handsome one who is used to being noticed. He chose to serve the film rather than himself, and the film was better for it. I think directors noticed. When Richard Linklater cast him in Everybody Wants Some!!, and when the makers of Top Gun trusted him with Hangman, they were trusting an actor who had shown he could be part of an ensemble, not only a star. That trust is earned slowly, and Powell earned it one small role at a time, over a decade when nobody outside the industry knew his name.

The Anyone But You phenomenon fascinates me, because it was not really about the film. The film is a pleasant, sunny romantic comedy, well made and funny, but it is not a masterpiece. What made it a phenomenon was the chemistry between Powell and Sydney Sweeney, and the marketing campaign that played on rumours about their relationship. I have mixed feelings about that campaign. It worked, and it made the film more than 220 million dollars, but it also fed gossip that was uncomfortable for the people involved, including their actual partners. Powell has said since that he learned from it, and I believe him, because he seems like a person who thinks about the consequences of his choices. What I take from the episode is not the gossip. It is the proof that audiences still want romantic comedies, and that they will show up for them if the leads are charming and the film is fun. Studios had spent years saying the genre was dead, and Powell and Sweeney proved it was not dead at all. It was only waiting for someone to make one properly.

Twisters is the film that convinced me he is a real movie star, not just a charming actor who got lucky. Tyler Owens is a character who could have been a caricature, a storm chaser who livestreams tornadoes for fame, and Powell played him with a warmth and a physical confidence that made the film work. He is funny, he is brave, and he is romantic, and he does all three in the same scene without ever seeming to try. That is what movie stardom looks like. It is not about being the best actor in the room. It is about being the person the camera loves and the audience trusts, and Powell has that quality in a way that cannot be taught. He also did his own work in the film, running through mud and rain and wind, and the physicality of it mattered. He is an athletic actor, and he uses his body the way a football player uses his, with confidence and without fear. That comes from his Texas childhood, from the sports fields of Westlake High School, and it is part of why he is so convincing in action roles.

Hit Man is the film that makes me most optimistic about his future, because it is the one he wrote. He did not wait for someone to give him a good role. He created one, with Linklater, and he built it around his own strengths: comedy, charm, and the ability to play multiple personalities. The Golden Globe nomination that followed was his first major awards recognition, and it came for a film that was personal to him, not for a franchise. That matters, because it shows where his ambitions lie. He does not want to be only a franchise star. He wants to write, to produce, and to make films that interest him. Chad Powers, the Hulu series he co-created and starred in, is another step in that direction. He is building a career that he controls, rather than a career that controls him, and that is the smartest thing a young star can do.

His family is the part of his story that makes me smile, because it is so unusual in Hollywood. His parents appear in his films, his sisters are part of his life, and his dog Brisket has become famous in his own right. He finished his degree at the University of Texas in 2024, fifteen years after he started it, because finishing what you start matters to him. These are not the actions of a man who is desperate to be famous. They are the actions of a man who is famous and still remembers where he came from. Austin is his home, and Texas is his identity, and he has not tried to hide that or to reinvent himself as a Los Angeles person. I think audiences can feel the difference. There is something grounded about him, something that does not feel manufactured, and in an industry full of manufactured images, that groundedness is rare and valuable.

I also think about what his career means for actors who are still waiting. He is proof that the long road can work, that ten years of small parts is not a failure but an education, and that the actor who keeps working, keeps learning, and keeps showing up will eventually get the chance he has been preparing for. That is a hopeful message, and it is a true one, but I want to be honest about its limits. Most actors who wait ten years do not get a Top Gun. They get more small parts, and then they quit, or they find another career. Powell’s story is inspiring, but it is also a story of luck, of being in the right audition at the right time, and of Tom Cruise noticing him when he could easily have been overlooked. The lesson is not that waiting always works. The lesson is that waiting works only if you are ready when the chance comes, and Powell was ready because he had spent a decade becoming ready. That is the part anyone can control, and it is the part that matters.

If I were recommending his films, I would start with Hit Man, because it shows everything he can do in one film: comedy, romance, drama, and the ability to change personalities at will. Then I would watch Top Gun: Maverick, and see how he steals a film with a supporting role. Then I would watch Devotion, the quiet war drama that most people missed, and see how serious he can be when the material asks for it. Those three films, taken together, show you the full range, and they show you why the industry is betting on him. He is not a one-genre actor. He is a leading man who can do comedy, action, romance, and drama, and he can write as well. That combination is rare, and it is the reason I think he will still be working in twenty years, long after the current wave of attention has passed.

The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s 2025 adaptation of the Stephen King novel, is the project I am watching most closely, because it asks Powell to do something he has not done before. He plays Ben Richards, a desperate father who enters a televised death game to earn money for his sick daughter, and the role is dark, physical, and angry in a way that none of his previous leading roles have been. There is no charm to hide behind, no romantic comedy to soften the edges, and no swagger to carry the scenes. If he succeeds in it, and the early reactions suggest he does, it will prove that he can carry a serious, intense film on his own, and it will open a whole new set of doors. If he does not, it will still have been worth trying, because an actor who only takes safe roles stops growing. Powell has never been afraid of a risk. He took the risk of writing Hit Man, he took the risk of co-creating a television show, and now he is taking the risk of playing a man who is frightened and furious rather than charming. That willingness to be uncomfortable is what separates a star from a celebrity, and I think Powell knows the difference.

I also think his Texas identity matters more than it might seem, because Hollywood has a narrow idea of what a movie star looks like and where a movie star comes from. Powell is a Texan who talks about Austin the way other actors talk about Los Angeles, and he has not tried to smooth away his accent or his background. He plays football, he talks about his family, he brings his dog to interviews, and he seems genuinely happy to be from where he is from. That sounds like a small thing, but in an industry that rewards reinvention, staying yourself is a choice, and it is a brave one. Audiences respond to it because it feels real. They can tell when an actor is performing a personality and when an actor simply is a person, and Powell, for all his polish, feels like a person. That is the quality that will keep him working when the current wave of attention fades, because audiences do not stay loyal to a performance. They stay loyal to a person they trust, and trust, once earned, is hard to lose. It is the image of a man who lost the role he wanted most, took the smaller one instead, and made it unforgettable. That is the whole career in miniature: a disappointment turned into an opportunity, a small part played as if it were the lead, and a decade of patience finally paying off. If there is a lesson in it for anyone reading this, it is that the role you get is not always the role you wanted, and the work you do with what you are given matters more than the part you were denied. Powell understood that at thirty-three, and it changed his life. I think it is a lesson worth carrying into any career, in any field, at any age.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Glen Powell become famous?

He became widely known as Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, after more than a decade of small roles in film and television.

Is Glen Powell from Texas?

Yes. He was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and he has spoken with pride about his Texas roots.

What is Glen Powell’s biggest film?

Top Gun: Maverick in 2022 was his breakthrough hit, followed by the romantic comedy Anyone But You in 2023 and Twisters in 2024.

Did Glen Powell write Hit Man?

Yes. He co-wrote Hit Man in 2023, in which he also starred, and the film showed his talent as a writer as well as an actor.

Is Glen Powell in Twisters?

Yes. He played Tyler Owens, a storm chaser, in Twisters in 2024.

What is Glen Powell doing next?

He continues to star in large films and to develop projects as a writer and producer, including television work.