Thirty minutes before breakfast, Glen Powell went to the wrong restaurant. Esquire’s profile of the actor, in its October 2026 issue, says he realized his error, grabbed his Chihuahua mix, Brisket, and ran across Savannah. He arrived glistening. “I didn’t look like this a second ago,” he told the writer.
That is Powell in miniature, according to the magazine: a man in constant motion. Esquire’s question is what all the motion is for.
Four years without a pause
Since “Top Gun: Maverick” came out four years ago, the thirty-seven-year-old has not slowed down. Esquire says the film grossed a billion and a half dollars at the box office. His 2023 rom-com “Anyone but You” took in more than $220 million globally, and a year later “Twisters” passed $372 million. “Hit Man,” which he co-wrote with director Richard Linklater, piled up billions of minutes of streaming on Netflix.
When the writer visited in early June, Powell was shooting “The Comeback King” in Savannah, a country-music comedy he co-wrote with Judd Apatow, due out in February. Apatow barely cuts. He shouts out alternate punchlines until something makes him chuckle, or mutter “That’s funny.” Powell, who memorizes every line and sometimes the entire script, found that style a challenge. “For a guy like me, who likes to be prepared, it’s a nightmare,” he said.
He had already finished the second season of “Chad Powers,” his college football comedy on Hulu. Next came Europe, to wrap J.J. Abrams’ “The Great Beyond.”
The delay
Then the schedule shifted. In July it was announced that “The Great Beyond” would move out a year, to October 2027. Esquire puts the cause on a mix of unglamorous forces: the Warner Bros. and Paramount merger, IMAX material requirements and shifting production dates on other studio projects. There is an estimated $1 billion in projects attached to Powell’s name, and all of them needed new slots.
The writer expected a meltdown. Powell shrugged. “I really am built for this.”
From Austin to Los Angeles
He was born in Austin, the middle child and only son of Cyndy and Glen Powell Sr., with sisters Lauren and Leslie. The family mantra, his father says, is “Advance on all fronts.” Powell played lacrosse, football and violin, and pulled pranks. After a quick elimination on the TV show “Endurance,” he learned to joke about himself first. “You realize that if you’re the first to make a joke about yourself, that neutralizes it for everyone else,” he said.
He left the University of Texas at Austin after a year, at the urging of the late agent Ed Limato, who had spotted him in “The Great Debaters.” Limato died not long after, and the roles dried up. Powell lost out on parts including Captain America, a young Han Solo and Tim Riggins. His father remembers the reality being “a lot harder” than the family had expected.
Today he drinks cold brew with steamed almond milk until his body protests, and spends off days with his girlfriend, “Landman” actress Michelle Randolph.
