Glen Powell Admits He Was ‘Kind of Like a Manny’ Before Hitting It Big in Hollywood, More Fun Facts

Glen Powell stars in the new remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 blockbuster The Running Man, about a man who must survive 30 days of being hunted by professional assassins on a futuristic TV show.

Here are 10 things you probably don’t know about the 37-year-old actor.

1. Glen was born on Oct. 21, 1988, in Austin, Texas, to executive coach Glen Powell Sr. and homemaker mom Cyndy Powell. He has two sisters.

2. As a prank in the eighth grade, Glen set 3,000 crickets loose in his school. “By the time the cricket thing was executed, I’m in this room with the principal,” he told The Ringer. “All of the sudden, the hallways, you started seeing people run past. People are just running past like, ‘Oh my God!’ They’re like, ‘Crickets, crickets!’ There’s a dude going nuts. You can see crickets flying around. [The principal] looks at me, and he’s like, ‘Did you have anything to do with this?’ I was like, ‘I’ve been here the whole time, man.’ ”

3. In high school, Glen was a unique blend of lacrosse, football and basketball jock and theater nerd.

4. At age 13, he landed a small role in Spy Kids 3: Game Over, then had his mom drive him to Shreveport, La., to audition for a part in Denzel Washington’s 2007 film The Great Debaters. He impressed Denzel, who introduced him to legendary Hollywood agent Ed Limato. On their advice, he dropped out of college and moved to L.A.

5. Years later, after Glen hit it big, he moved back to Austin on the advice of fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey. Glen told the Hollywood Reporter that the benefit of “getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood,” he said. “It’s like I’ve earned the ability to go back to my family.”

6. While in L.A., Glen spent time living with a wealthy family in Bel Air in exchange for teaching their son football, basketball and lacrosse, noting to The Ringer, “I was kind of like a manny.”

7. Glen and Glee star Chord Overstreet were roommates for years.

8. Glen’s Top Gun: Maverick costar Tom Cruise paid for him to become a real pilot! “For Christmas, Tom bought me an iPad with my flight school downloaded and prepaid,” he wrote on Instagram in 2020. “After months of flying, studying and testing … I’m the real deal.”

9. While filming Anyone But You in Sydney, Australia, Glen and others were in a helicopter over Sydney Harbor when the aircraft had a serious mechanical problem. “We had to emergency land in a field nearby,” Glen Powell explained to Rolling Stone. “If we crashed, we would’ve been history. There would’ve been nothing left of us.”

10. An unknown in 2014, Glen had a role in The Expendables 3, which starred the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham, Wesley Snipes, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren. At a Cannes party with the cast, Glen told the Hollywood Reporter that was ejected by “a large bouncer who was convinced that I shouldn’t be in the VIP section, so it kind of turned into a physical altercation where I got hit in the face, because no one recognized me even though there was a banner at the party of my face.”