I generally ignore Glen Powell because, in my opinion, he doesn’t actually have “it.” That watchable It Factor. He’s perfectly handsome, with a nice body and a full head of hair. But do you want to actually watch him on screen? When you’ve seen him in a movie, are you like “oh, he’s something special?” Well, I guess I’m alone here, because the industry has decided that Glen Powell is the next big thing. It’s particularly painful because he fully admits that the success of Anyone But You is what “made” him a hot property – you know, the rom-com which Sydney Sweeney produced, cast him in and which she hustled all over the place. This should be Sweeney’s victory lap, not Glen’s. But Hollywood sexism, I guess. Sidenote: I love hirsute men but I find his chest hair unsettling on this THR cover. Anyway, here are some highlights from his Hollywood Reporter cover story:

He’s moved to Austin, Texas: At 35, he’s ready for a change, and the real benefit of “getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood,” he says. “It’s like I’ve earned the ability to go back to my family.”

The success of Anyone But You: To my surprise, and, frankly, to his, this is a very new development — despite all the media attention surrounding Top Gun, Powell’s career didn’t fundamentally change back in 2022. Instead, it was the runaway success of his recent Sydney Sweeney rom-com, Anyone But You, that proved to studio heads that he not only had leading-man charisma but also the increasingly rare ability to open a movie. In the months since its $200 million-plus box office haul, Powell, who’s more reminiscent of his buff, all-American predecessors than some of his more waifish contemporaries, has watched his stock in the industry soar.

The next Tom Cruise? “First of all, there will never be another Tom Cruise,” he says of his co-star, who has become a friend and mentor. “That is a singular career in a singular moment, but also movie stars of the ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s, those will never be re-created.”

On the radar: “I’m on the radar for the first time in my whole life, and it’s weird. I mean, after Top Gun, a guy would literally be wearing a Top Gun shirt and I’d be talking to him, and it was clear he had no idea.”

The advice of fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey. “He’s like, ‘Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in and it’s all fake world,’ ” says Powell, who does a remarkably good McConaughey. “He’s like, ‘Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It’s all real. Those are my friends, that’s my family, my actions matter there.’ And he’s right. If you’re here, you live in the Matrix all the time, there’s no separation of those worlds. And for me, especially as my parents get older and my niece and nephew are growing up, I want a separation of those worlds.”

He turned down a ‘Jurassic’ role: “Jurassic is one of my favorite movies. It’s one of the things I’ve wanted to do my whole life. I’m not doing that movie because I read the script and I immediately was like, my presence in this movie doesn’t help it,” he explains. “And the script’s great. The movie’s going to f–king kill. It’s not about that. It’s about choosing where you’re going to make an audience happy and where you’re going to make yourself happy.”

[From THR]

I hope he said no to the Jurassic movie because he hates my nemesis Laura Dern! As for all of the stuff about how famous he is now… it feels forced, but what do I know. It feels like his larger point is that LA is an industry town and he wants more of a work-life balance, which I understand. But again, to me, Glen is basically getting credit for Sydney Sweeney’s work and he’s not showing enough appreciation for that?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty Images for Netflix, cover courtesy of THR.