Glen Powell Wants to Sell Out—and That’s a Good Thing

The year 2024 has been a great one for Glen Powell. The Hollywood Reporter named him one of the new A-list alongside Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler. Anyone But You, his rom-com co-starring Sydney Sweeney, was a box office hit grossing over $220 million from a mere $25 million budget. The Netflix action-comedy Hit Man, directed by his regular collaborator Richard Linklater, has earned him some of the best reviews of his career, as well as a major streaming hit. It’s been a long time coming for Powell, who’s been referred to as a rising star for several years now and has finally broken out into the mainstream. Up next? Megastardom, and he’s not shy about letting the world know how much he wants it.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Powell got surprisingly candid about how heavily he’s strategizing his career to become an undeniable star. “I find the gamification of the business fun,” he said. “To be a lasting success in Hollywood, you have to make people money. You have to go, ‘Who is the audience for this? Are you giving people a reason to buy tickets?’ And if you don’t have a very clear answer, move on, no matter how much you may love the script or want to work with the director.”

He talked about how he wants to make himself appealing to wide audiences because that's how you get the power to make your passion projects: “Rewatchable is an important world. This is where I think actors who want to be serious get it wrong. Flogging yourself and showing how tortured and serious you can be—people often don’t rewatch, which takes all of the power out of it.”

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