Glen Powell attends The Running Man New York premiere at AMC Lincoln Square. Photo / Getty Images
It is often said Hollywood doesn’t produce movie stars anymore.
So when someone with a square jaw and loads of charisma like Glen Powell is cast in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role for a reboot of The Running Man, people get excited.
But Powell, an unfailingly courteous Texan who quit the Los Angeles life and moved home to Austin as his fame grew, is having none of it.
“I don’t find myself to be exceptional,” the 37-year-old told AFP.
“That era of action stars and movie stars? You can’t really compare apples to oranges.”
Powell’s role in the new The Running Man, out on Friday, is certainly a far cry from the indestructible bluster of Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson’s 20th-century action heroes, who were usually soldiers, cops and trained fighters.
Powell’s protagonist Ben Richards is an everyman, with no special skills beyond a rugged toughness and a very short fuse.
He reluctantly enters a deadly game show in which the entire world is trying to kill him because he needs to survive long enough to win prizemoney and buy life-saving medicine for his daughter.
“I’ve always identified myself as an underdog,” Powell said.
“Some of my favourite movies are ordinary people against extraordinary odds. And you don’t get more ordinary than Ben.”
The movie sees Powell’s hero get bashed and bruised, blown off a bridge and abseiling down the side of a building in only a bath towel to escape from hoodlums.
The night before his AFP interview, Powell and director Edgar Wright screened the movie for Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger’s response? “Oh, I feel so bad for you ... It must have hurt!” Powell recalled.
“Arnold knows the pain that it takes to do an action movie properly. It was pretty bad ass to get his blessing.”
The film hews more closely to the original Stephen King novel than its 1987 big-screen predecessor.
Powell’s hero is pursued from city to city by professional killers with the contest’s producers rigging each moment for maximum TV ratings.
Eerily, King set his novel in the United States of 2025, a then futuristic vision of divisive autocrats, deepfake videos and a healthcare crisis that drives everyday people to extremes.
Was it a stretch for Powell to imagine today’s public enjoying mayhem and slaughter, some of it fake and artificial intelligence-generated, on their screens?
“We do live in this TikTok universe,” Powell said.
“We are seeing carnage ... and yet we’re sort of away from it. You don’t engage with it as a human anymore.”
Powell said he is regularly sent deepfake videos by people who have not questioned the veracity or source of the content.
“That’s a really fun thing that we get to play with in this movie ... ‘Where do you get the news from and who is controlling information?’”.
Though he has been acting for years, Powell only shot to prominence as cocky fighter pilot Hangman in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.
In a remarkable streak since, Powell appeared opposite Sydney Sweeney in rom-com Anyone but You, chased deadly storms in Twisters and both co-wrote and starred in Hit Man.
Up next, he will lead a new fantasy film from Lost creator J.J. Abrams. Powell’s production company has a deal with Universal Pictures.
Those ventures into writing and producing are reminiscent of another classic action star, Stallone, who famously penned Rocky and insisted on being cast as the lead.
“I really didn’t ever want to wait for the phone to ring. Because I realised it never will, at least not with the calls you want,” Powell said.
“That’s sort of how I’ve moved through this town, trying to do it with a sense of initiative.
“Hollywood, it’s the Wild West right now,” he added. “I can’t really look backwards.”
The Running Man is in New Zealand cinemas now.