“Twisters,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Anyone But You” star Glen Powell says that fellow actor Chris Pratt changed Hollywood in a way that it allowed for people like Powell to become stars.
In a new cover story for GQ Magazine ahead of the release of Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man” starring Powell, the actor says Pratt’s breakout role in Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy” in 2014 that shifted how the industry saw leading men on screen and the behaviour of such characters.
At the time, Powell had a supporting role in “The Expendables 3” and had been trying to break through in Hollywood for years with mixed success. Two years afterwards, Powell finally broke out with his role in Richard Linklater’s “Everybody Wants Some”.
He explains how Pratt, essentially borrowing from the young Harrison Ford playbook, opened the door to a different type of leading man – someone a bit more goofy and decidedly less brooding than what had been the flavour of the industry in the years before:
“I remember when Chris Pratt broke out in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. There’s no doubt it really helped – not being brooding or dark. Like, I’m not Christian Bale. Christian Bale has a gravitas and a weight, and [Robert] Pattinson had his thing. And when Pratt kind of appeared on the scene where he was doing things that were a little more silly and buoyant, that’s where I feel most at home. And that’s where I feel like I had a gear that is a necessary flavour in terms of Hollywood, and not a gear that a lot of guys can play.”
Also considerably helping Powell was his “Top Gun: Maverick” co-star Tom Cruise who the actor says he still calls for guidance, and one time Cruise “gave me s–t” for bringing a coffee on-set with ground-up mushrooms.
