Glen Thomas Powell Jr. (b. October 21st 1988 in Austin, Texas) is an American actor.
He has been acting since childhood, and has only started to gain real traction in The New '10s. Early roles included bit parts in the Spy Kids franchise, episodes of Jack & Bobby, CSI: Miami and NCIS. At the age of eighteen, he was filming The Great Debaters when a man came up to him and told him he resembled a young Richard Gere. The man was Hollywood superagent Ed Liamato - who advised Glen to move to Los Angeles, which he did after his freshman year of college. He got a big boost by starring in The Expendables 3 as Thorn - and has started to gain more traction in movies. He's been lucky enough to collaborate twice with Richard Linklater - first on Fast Food Nation when he was just fifteen, and later on Everybody Wants Some!!!! - the Spiritual Successor to Dazed and Confused.
The role that a good amount of fans associate him with (though time will tell of course) is that of Jerk with a Heart of Gold Chad Radwell on Ryan Murphy's horror comedy show Scream Queens (2015). As Chad is considered to be the show's Breakout Character, this naturally sent a lot of positive attention Glen's way.
Apparently his parents work as extras on most of the films he stars in, his mother playing a bit of a prank on Mel Gibson on The Expendables 3. Oh and he's also got DC Comics cred via a small role getting choked to death by Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
Selected Filmography:
- Spy Kids 3D: Game Over (2003)
- Jack & Bobby (2004)
- Into the West (2006)
- Fast Food Nation (2006)
- The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
- The Lying Game (2012)
- NCIS (2012)
- Red Wing (2013)
- Sex Ed (2014)
- The Expendables 3 (2014)
- Scream Queens (2015-2016)
- Beyond Deceit (2016)
- Ride Along 2 (2016)
- Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
- Hidden Figures (2016)
- Set It Up (2018)
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020-22)
- Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
- Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
- Devotion (2022)
- Anyone but You (2023)
Tropes present in his body of work:
- The Danza: He plays John Glenn in Hidden Figures.
- Dawson Casting:
- Inverted. John Glenn was in his forties when he went into space at the time Hidden Figures depicts. Glen was twenty-seven.
- He was also twenty-six playing a college freshman in Everybody Wants Some!! and Scream Queens (2015).
- Dyeing for Your Art: He gained about 20 pounds in three weeks for Sand Castle.
- Enforced Method Acting: A scene in Everybody Wants Some where he hugs a girl goodbye was meant to look awkward. So the actress was not told Glen would be hugging her.
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Memetic Mutation: He's now very used to people throwing Chad Radwell quotes at him in public. - Mr. Fanservice: In a few of his roles with the trailers for Top Gun: Maverick even allowing him to appear shirtless in a recreation of the first film's famous volleyball scene.
- Production Posse: With Richard Linklater in Fast Food Nation and Everybody Wants Some!!.
- Real-Life Relative: His mother usually gets to be a featured extra in the films he stars in.
- Star-Making Role: Scream Queens (2015) marked the transition between bit parts in The Dark Knight Rises and The Expendables 3 to Everybody Wants Some!! and Hidden Figures.
- Throw It In!:
- He broke his arm shortly before Fast Food Nation, but Richard Linklater suggested just putting the cast on, since it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a high school student to be seen with one.
- Finnegan's "asshole crabs" comment in Everybody Wants Some was an ad-lib by him.
- Those Two Actors: Stars with Zoey Deutch in Everybody Wants Some!! and Set It Up.
