Glen Powell gave his all — and almost bared it all — while filming his latest action flick, The Running Man.
“I had to abseil down eight stories of a building in freezing conditions half-naked and wearing a harness which cinched me,” Powell, 37, said during a Friday, November 7, appearance on The Graham Norton Show. “Believe me, nothing looked good.”
While Powell was focused on his onscreen antics, there was more happening behind the scenes while shooting physically demanding scenes.
“The crazy thing I found out after was that there was a guy whose only job was to stop me kicking a window, which means he was looking up my skirt all night,” Powell quipped. “I wondered what he was seeing take after take.”
Powell stars in the upcoming remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 film of the same name, in which a group of reality TV contestants travel around the world while being pursued by “hunters” attempting to kill them.
“He’s fully charged up the whole time and around every corner could be anyone trying to kill him,” Powell exclusively told Us Weekly of taking on the role of Ben Robinson. “It’s like the most deadly game of hide and seek ever. So your adrenaline’s gonna be up the whole time.”
While preparing for The Running Man and its multitude of stunts, Powell underwent a grueling training regimen.
“The physical toll of the stunts, I don’t know if I fully anticipated what that was going to be,” he told Us. “The reality is, [director] Edgar [Wright] and I looked at each other before the movie started and we just said, ‘No shortcuts. Get it right.’”
Glen Powell in ‘The Running Man.’ Ross Feguson / Paramount Pictures /Courtesy of Everett Collection
He continued, “Edgar really gave every bit of himself to make sure this movie was told correctly. And I definitely told him, ‘If you hire me, there’s nobody who is going to work harder.’ We really pushed each other to the limit on this one for sure.”
Powell also turned to his Top Gun: Maverick costar Tom Cruise for stunt advice given the 63-year-old’s own action-packed Hollywood career.
“I hit up Tom as soon as I got the role. You know, he is the running man. There’s probably no one more synonymous with ‘the running man’ than Tom,” Powell said, recalling speaking on the phone for “two and a half hours” about how to approach the role. “He just walked me through all the things he’s learned over his entire career, you know, of putting his life on the line to entertain audiences.”
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He continued, “I don’t think everybody appreciates what he does in terms of how far he’s willing to go. I don’t know if there’s anyone like him, that sends the elevator back down and just makes sure that you’re taken care of. And to survive a movie like this, I couldn’t have done it without him.”
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Powell didn’t just get advice from Cruise — he also had help from original Running Man star Schwarzenegger, 78.
“He’s like, ‘No one realizes it, action movies are brutal, they’re not fun,’” Powell recalled to Us of Schwarzenegger. “He goes, ‘They’re fun to watch. They’re not fun to shoot.’ … I was licking my wounds, and I was icing my body down at the end of every day. There was not one easy day on set.”
The Running Man premieres in theaters Friday, November 14.
