Glen Powell on his 'authentic chemistry' with Sydney Sweeney and staying sane while playing the Hollywood game
Glen Powell denied having an off-screen relationship with Sydney Sweeney in an interview with Business Insider.
The actor told BI the advice Matthew McConaughey gave him to survive Hollywood.
He revealed the action movie he's developing with his "Top Gun: Maverick" costar Jay Ellis.
You would never be able to tell that Glen Powell hasn't slept in days.
The 35-year-old actor was clean-shaven and wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt and all-black University of Texas baseball cap when he popped up on my Zoom screen with a huge smile, appearing as to not have a care in the world.
However, for the last week, he's been pinballing back and forth from Oklahoma City — where he's doing night shoots on "Twisters," the sequel to the classic 1996 blockbuster — and New York City, where he's doing press for his latest movie, the rom-com "Anyone but You."
His busy schedule means he's been working on set from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., squeezing in a quick shower at the hotel before jumping on a 7 a.m. flight to NYC.
"Two nights ago, I wrapped on 'Twisters' at 3 a.m., went back to my hotel, got picked up at 5 a.m. for the airport, I think I landed in New York at noon, then I had to be at 'Fallon' by 4," Powell told Business Insider.
This is life as a movie star, Powell has quickly learned.
Though the Texas native has been working consistently as an actor for two decades, it was his role as hot-shot pilot Jake "Hangman" Seresin in 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick" that jolted him into the rarefied air of movie-star status. Bigger roles have followed ("Twisters" is set for a summer 2024 release) as well as a screenwriting credit with legendary filmmaker Richard Linklater for his next movie, "Hit Man" (out on Netflix next year).
But a lot of noise comes with that level of fame, especially if you have chemistry with your costar.
In "Anyone but You," Powell and "Euphoria" actor Sydney Sweeney play Ben and Bea, two people who can't stand each other but are forced to hang out together when they are both invited to a destination wedding in Australia. Their hostility frustrates their friends and threatens to ruin the event, so Ben and Bea decide to pretend to be a couple to keep the peace.
You likely know the movie for another reason.
For months, tabloids and social media users have been speculating that Powell and Sweeney's chemistry is too good to be fake. The chatter got pretty loud in April when the stars presented footage of the movie at CinemaCon in Las Vegas and looked so flirty that the internet was convinced they were an item.
Soon after, news hit that Powell broke up with his girlfriend, model Gigi Paris, which only fueled the theory. Sweeney, however, continues to be in a long-term relationship with fiancé Jonathan Davino.
A well-caffeinated Powell set the record straight to BI about his relationship with his costar. He also discussed the action movie he's developing with "Top Gun" costar Jay Ellis, and the advice Matthew McConaughey gave him on how to navigate his new stardom.
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney utilized their 'authentic chemistry' to sell a movie
I was at CinemaCon when all of the rumors of you and Sydney began, and if I'm correct you had wrapped on "Anyone but You" and were flying from Australia to Vegas —
Yes.
At what point on that flight did you and Sydney decide to Ben and Bea the press tour? Because, since seeing the movie, I feel you guys decided, like in the movie, to act like you two were a couple.
I'll pretty much give Sydney all the credit for this. I don't have the mental capacity to pull anything like this off, but she's very smart. She's very smart. And look, Sydney and I do have authentic chemistry —
Um, yeah!
I had such a wonderful journey with her on this thing. But in terms of actual dating and actually being together? [Laughs.]
All that great chemistry on-screen and on stage at Vegas led to a lot of headaches for you, I would assume.
Well, look, the only reason it made things harder for me to lean into that stuff was that I was going through a very real breakup amidst a promotional tour. I was with someone that I really loved and cared about and was trying to kind of make sense of a lot of stuff.
It was a lot easier for Sydney to lean into something like that because she's in a very committed and wonderful relationship and she's very happy. So it was a little harder for me.
But the movie has amazing casting and the chemistry you two share is on the level of the great rom-com pairings of the past: William Powell and Myrna Loy, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.
Have you and Sydney talked at all about taking the rom-com torch and doing a few more movies together?
Well, thank you for that. Sydney and I have talked about that. I find that Sydney is one of the few people I have worked with who is so impressive in front of the camera and behind the camera. She is an executive producer on this movie.
She has such an impressive sense of marketing, story, what is new and fresh and cool. She's an impressive person and what she does on-screen is electric. I would work with her again in a heartbeat.
Did you make any changes to the Ben character?
One of the things that I told Will Gluck early on is, I believed we are taking this journey in the movie through the eyes of Bea, Sydney's character, and the job of a male in a rom-com is to not look cool. If that character leaves the movie looking cool you have failed the audience.
He needs to take as many punches, get your clothes ripped off, and be as embarrassed as possible. So I told him to throw as much at me as humanly possible because that's my function.
In hindsight, maybe I took that a little too far. [Laughs.]
No. It worked.
I appreciate that.
Powell has developed a movie with Jay Ellis that feels like 'Lethal Weapon' meets 'Man on Fire'
I talked to Jay Ellis back when "Top Gun: Maverick" came out and he mentioned that you two have developed a script and even pitched it to Tom Cruise. What's the latest on it?
It's still alive and well.
Can you give the elevator pitch?
My mom and dad met in Washington D.C. and she had a Secret Service component to her job. So when I was growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of Secret Service people. I was always fascinated with that world. And I felt, since "In the Line of Fire," there really hasn't been a good Secret Service movie.
One of my favorite movies growing up was the Sinbad movie "First Kid," so I thought, how can we do a "Lethal Weapon" thing in the Secret Service world with saving a kid? So we want it to be "Lethal Weapon" meets "Man on Fire."
Oh, wow!
Yeah. So Jay and I had such a wonderful collaborative experience on "Top Gun," we just started developing it.
Through the press tour of that movie, you two started writing it?
Yeah. The movie took so long to come out. We shot "Top Gun" in the fall of 2018 into the summer of 2019. I remember, on set, we came up with the idea. Jerry Bruckheimer and Joe Kosinski came up to us separately and told us, "You two have a natural chemistry," and that's how it came about. We're still pecking away at it.
What we learned from Tom is what story necessitates a big-budget action movie. I actually talked to Tom two days ago, he's been a real friend and mentor. What has happened is there's a certain type of movie that's being made for theaters and another kind for streaming platforms. They are two very different things and two very different price points. Jay and I have developed this thing to be a theatrical thing. What we have to have is something that demands audiences to leave their homes.
Speaking of Cruise, another thing that would demand people to leave their homes is a Hangman movie. Is that possible?
To do another "Top Gun" movie?
I mean a spin-off focused on Hangman.
Oh! That's very kind. I would say anything in the "Top Gun" universe goes through Tom Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer. I would never dream of putting that flight suit back on unless I had the full blessing of those two guys.
Matthew McConaughey explained to Powell how to play the Hollywood game
You have been working and building up your career for some time, but in the last few years, the temperature has really turned up. Did you always want to be a movie star? Some actors want to just do the work, others crave the stardom that's hitting you right now. Did you always crave this?
No. I thought just being a working actor, to be able to pay the bills doing this job would be enough. Where it has gone, it's a conversation I have with my parents all the time.
I would say the people that I grew up watching made such a diverse body of work: early Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Russell.
Matthew McConaughey, a fellow Texan.
McConaughey. And he's a great example. Honestly, he's become a real mentor of mine across the board. In terms of how to lean into certain things.
Everyone is going to have a perspective on your career at any given moment and when you have your name on a poster. This is very new for me, so you and I are on the therapy couch right now.
Let's do it.
The wins and the losses are a lot more public. Yet, you also have to divorce yourself from those results and just put your head down and make movies you love and believe in. That's it.
McConaughey told me, "That's why I moved to Austin as quick as possible," because, basically he went out to Hollywood, plugged into "The Matrix" and was Matthew McConaughey and played the game, and then went back to Austin to be the father and husband.
This is fascinating to hear from you because you haven't just gotten guidance from McConaughey, someone who rode the rom-com wave to more challenging roles and eventually an Oscar, but early in your career, you worked for Lynda Obst, who is a renowned rom-com producer. So you are very much a student of the game.
The education that Lynda gave me was incredibly valuable because I read so many rom-com script submissions that were sent to her office. I really got an education from one of the masters. I learned what people expect from the genre while also serving them something new.
From what you've said here it sounds like you're following the McConaughey playbook: play the game, plug into "The Matrix," until you get so big you don't have to anymore.
You know, there's a gamification and that's what McConaughey was talking about. You have to play this game.
I am the same person with everyone on set as I am at home, but what I've realized is what people are consuming, they will take certain elements — headline, soundbite, photo — and they define you. It becomes public perception. I have no control over that. So I don't worry about that. I just continue to be me and as long as I continue to make movies with the people I want to make movies with I'm happy.
What I've learned from McConaughey is there's a part of the game you have to enjoy, even though it's so much out of your control.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Read the original article on Business Insider
