We’ve got another acting podcast today! Actor Glen Powell joins us on the Box Angeles podcast episode 290. Glen stops by Studio 309 and discusses getting out of town, submitting unsolicited self tapes to casting directors early on in his career, taking tap dance classes, and more!

“If you’re trying to be somebody else,
it’s never gonna work.”
— Glen Powell

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Beats

00:00 – Introduction
02:55 – Box talks traveling away from Hollywood.
08:11 – The Guest Beer of the episode.
12:43 – Glen’s workout regimen.
15:12 – Glen’s audition process.
23:15 – Self tapes and reaching out to casting.
30:10 – Getting nervous and on set tricks.
32:30 – Hobbies like screenwriting and ranching.
38:50 – Growing up in Austin, TX, taking tap dance classes and going to the movies with dad.
41:30 – Doing both the arts and playing sports.
45:20 – Skipping school for auditions and booking work.
52:40 – Focusing on yourself rather than others and co-star jobs.
57:25 – Texas being a right to work state and a Coogan account.
1:00:03 – Attending the University of Texas for a freshman year.
1:02:30 – Denzel going to bat for Glen on ‘The Great Debaters’.
1:05:36 – Getting representations after moving to LA.
1:08:05 – The Box Angeles questions.
1:21:48 – Promoting stuff.

Guest Beer – Oskar Blues, Mama’s Little Yella Pils

More Glen

 
– Check Glen’s IMDb.
– Follow Glen on Instagram @glenpowell.

Transcript

MIKE ELDER (00:00)
Yes, welcome to Box Angeles, everybody. Coming to you today from Studio 309. Of all the podcasts out there you can listen to, thank you for checking out mine.
 
Who’s my guest today? It’s actor Glen Powell.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:15)
Thanks, man.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:17)
Glen, I gotta tell you something. I host a romcom night.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:20)
Oh, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:21)
Monthly romcom night at my house. Me and a bunch of my friends. And when I reached out to you this time last year, we had watched ‘Set It Up’, and you were such a charming fuck. I was like this.
 
Who is this guy? He’s such a charming.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:34)
I appreciate that, motherfucker.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:36)
And everyone was like, he’s lovely. So I was like, I got to get it. I got to talk to this guy. You’re so great in that film.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:41)
Most people think I’m a dick in that movie.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:43)
I disagree.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:43)
Oh, I appreciate that.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:45)
I hate to say, I hate to look down on your delightful co star Zoe, but I thought her character was. Was.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:50)
Oh, really? Wow.
 
MIKE ELDER (00:51)
I thought you were nicer.
 
GLEN POWELL (00:53)
I feel like I have fewer redeemable qualities. But no, I appreciate it. I had a great time making that movie. That’s it.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:00)
Seem like you guys had a lot of fun.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:01)
We did. We did.
 
Zoe and I have known each other for a long time. Since the link later movie. Everybody wants them. Oh, sure. That was our second. Our second at bat, which is pretty damn fun. And yeah, we’re about to.
 
We’re about to make a third one.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:15)
Oh.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:16)
About to make a. A movie called Most Dangerous Game.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:18)
Oh, amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:19)
Another Netflix romcom.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:20)
Oh, hell yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:21)
But very different from the other one. This one’s way more action packed. It’s gonna be fun.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:25)
Oh, I can’t wait for the romcom night to digest that one.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:28)
Totally, totally.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:29)
I also wanted to say, I did email you, like, a year ago.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:31)
Y.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:32)
You wrote me the nicest email. And now it’s a year later you’re doing this podcast. Thank you so much for sticking with me.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:37)
Of course, man.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:37)
Of course. I hate to bash my fellow actors, but when I get pawned off to, like, assistants and publicists, that’s kind of the end of it. I never hear from them again. But your assistant was delightful.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:47)
You guys, I’m committed to making it happen. I really did want to make it happen. The problem is over the Top Gun.
 
MIKE ELDER (01:53)
Oh, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (01:53)
Which I’m not allowed to talk about, but it did own me for the past year. It. I totally took up every single ounce of my schedule. So the problem is when you’re at the mercy of, you know, Tom Cruise’s work ethic. It’s just hard to make stuff happen.
 
MIKE ELDER (02:08)
And I totally get that. But I just wanted to say I really appreciate you sticking to it because it’s. Scheduling in this town is a nightmare. I don’t know. You have an assistant now, so you don’t have to deal with it, but it’s. You mentioned improv earlier. Try scheduling a UCB team, even.
 
That’s a fucking.
 
GLEN POWELL (02:25)
I know, I know. Well, and honestly, that’s like. To really make it out in this town, I think there’s a level of who’s really committed to what. Like, there’s so many bright, shiny objects in this town you can join in on and be a part of, but you really start to understand this town because there are so many options and people are inherently flaky. You really start to see who’s committed to getting something done and who’s not. So I’ve been committed to getting this done.
 
So let’s do it.
 
MIKE ELDER (02:51)
My man. Hey. I usually start this off with a rant, but I wanted to run something by you because we’re at very different stages in our careers. Okay. I would venture to get.
 
GLEN POWELL (03:01)
We’re drinking the same man. Let’s just do this.
 
MIKE ELDER (03:02)
That’s right. You just were traveling for a little bit.
 
GLEN POWELL (03:05)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (03:06)
I wanted to run this by you because I’m just curious if this ever changes. I love to travel, obviously. I know a lot of people at my level that love to travel, but we fucking hate to do it because we feel like the moment we leave town, we’re gonna miss an opportunity. Like, I’m supposed to go to Banff next week with a really good friend. I still haven’t booked my flight.
 
GLEN POWELL (03:23)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (03:23)
Because I just know the moment I book my flight, I’m gonna get a co star gig on some Netflix show or whatever. So I’m, like, so afraid to. I love to travel, but I’m so afraid to leave this town because it’s. And once you do, it wants you.
 
GLEN POWELL (03:36)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (03:36)
Do you experience that too? Do you feel guilty or scared to leave town at all at this point in your career?
 
GLEN POWELL (03:42)
You know, I totally understand where you are, by the way, because. No, but seriously, because it’s. The problem is every opportunity, if you miss that opportunity, could be the opportunity that changes it.
 
MIKE ELDER (03:52)
Right, right, right.
 
GLEN POWELL (03:53)
But I have also realized that, you know, whether you’re sort of a believer in it or not, is that whenever you start making other plans, whenever you are sort of too busy to. To hire.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:07)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:08)
That’s when people want you.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:09)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:09)
I’ve. I have now Understood the power of the word no in this town. And when people are like, hey, I want you to do this, and I’m like, I probably can’t.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:16)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:16)
Or no. Or like, you know, this is what I’m after. It just makes people want you more. It’s just Hollywood is dating. You know what I mean? It’s just dating.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:24)
It is. Especially with reps too. This has come up on my podcast more than once. There needs to be like a dating app for reps and actors. Swipe right.
 
But left, you’re like, oh, this guy’s co. Or this guy’s not.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:34)
Yeah, it’s.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:34)
It’s very much like that. Which is so funny.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:36)
Yeah. I’m. I’ve just, I’ve just sort of been under the belief that I used to be exactly like that because you the. It’s not, it’s not. It’s not easy to make this career happen. And you do see people miss opportunities and sort of never get another one.
 
MIKE ELDER (04:50)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (04:51)
But I also think that, you know, go to Banff, man. Like, just get it done. Because truly, I think that there’s a thing where he’s like, hey, he can’t come in because he’s, you know, doing this thing. Sometimes it makes people just go, what are we missing out on? You know, like, I don’t know.
 
MIKE ELDER (05:05)
I wonder what level that hits that though. It’s definitely not my level. Like at costar level, they’re not going to be like, oh, he said no, we want him for this.
 
GLEN POWELL (05:13)
I get.
 
MIKE ELDER (05:14)
So I wonder where that level does occur. But it is interesting. And let me ask you something else that happens to me and this might just be me, but I think other people experiences when you do travel.
 
GLEN POWELL (05:23)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (05:24)
And you’re. And you finally get. You go and you’re. I went to Australia earlier this year. I was there for two weeks and I was like, I. Why did.
 
Why am I in Hollywood? I should move here, have like a low stakes bartender job where I don’t have to stress about anything. Live in somewhere exotic location that people come to you.
 
GLEN POWELL (05:39)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (05:40)
Rather than fucking chasing people in auditions. Do you romanticize that? What do you think about fuck you Hollywood when you go to. Or you.
 
GLEN POWELL (05:48)
You know what’s interesting is, is I personally think it’s so important to get out of this town because it is. It’s just an echo chamber everybody’s thinking about.
 
MIKE ELDER (05:58)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (05:58)
And ideas are sort of recycled out here. You know, it’s when you’re all thinking about the same stuff, drinking the same drinks, frequenting the Same place. There’s never going to be anything exciting or new.
 
MIKE ELDER (06:10)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (06:10)
So I think like, getting out is important. I do have a great crew here. I’ve like after I’ve been here in 11 years. So I really have, I think, assembled a amazing, adventurous group of friends who, you know, aren’t overthinking this thing too much and are down to leave. But I get bored. I have like, I have like a hard time sitting still. So. So, like I feel like Australia for me, like a week.
 
Go surf, go hang, go drink with people, go meet new people. I’m down for a week max. Like when I go back to Austin, which is a very low key town, I still, that’s where I’m from. I still get, I’m like, all right, I got to get out. Like, I love this town, but I got to get back clicking because this, this business is, is something I’ve been Dr. Dreaming about for my whole life.
 
MIKE ELDER (06:57)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (06:57)
And I do love talking with people about movies. Like if I meet a stranger and they want to talk about movies, I’ll talk to you for hours.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:04)
Yeah, just a little.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:05)
So I do feel like it’s a privilege to be out here because this town does try to kick you out as soon as possible.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:09)
Oh, absolutely. And then when it kicks you out, it wants you back immediately.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:12)
Exactly. Go to Banff, man.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:15)
Yeah, I am going to go to Banff, but I, I just know I’m going to get an audition the moment I leave. Which is funny.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:19)
It’s how it works.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:20)
I know, it’s so funny.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:21)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:22)
But I love that. I love that idea of saying no. I read a book recently and now I’m going to blank on the title. I think it was, I want to say it was like the Power of no or something like that where people respect you more when you do say no.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:32)
Absolutely. I think, I think in everything, not just. It shows, it shows a level of quality control, confidence. And I think in a town, in a world where everybody kind of questions who they are, what they represent, you know, what their moral compass is and how far they’re willing to go, I think that, I think that people that are willing to draw the line and say, yeah, there’s.
 
This is what I’m worthy of.
 
MIKE ELDER (07:58)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (07:59)
I think people respect it because inherently we’re all sort of hoping that we live up to our own idea.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:04)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:05)
You know?
 
MIKE ELDER (08:05)
Yeah. I love that. That was my rant. It wasn’t really a rant.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:08)
That’s cool. Rant, man. I’m travel rant down to be a part of it. It was good.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:12)
Hey, the guest beer is Mama’s Little Yellow Pills. You’re drinking it with me.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:15)
That’s good.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:16)
Not my beer sponsor anymore, but it works. It’s good, right?
 
GLEN POWELL (08:19)
Yeah, still good.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:20)
You were talking about how you. You drink less beer. We started. You started something before we started recording.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:26)
Yeah, well, when I first moved out here, I. You know, being from Texas, you obviously drink a lot of beer.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:32)
Yeah, from the Midwest. Yeah, similar.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:33)
Yeah. So you. You take down a lot of beer, but very quickly you realize what that looks like on screen and what sort of the expectations are, like, body wise, you know, if you’re going to try to do the whole leading man thing out here. So. So I have switched to tequila. So I just do tequila rocks.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:51)
Oh, wow.
 
GLEN POWELL (08:51)
Orange slice.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:52)
What kind of tequila?
 
GLEN POWELL (08:53)
Casamigos. Yeah, I love casamigos.
 
MIKE ELDER (08:57)
See, what I wanted to say to you was I’m kind of the opposite of that.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:01)
Okay.
 
MIKE ELDER (09:01)
I feel like I have to drink beer to maintain my, My, you know, I’m rocking the dad bod at this point.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:07)
Gotcha.
 
MIKE ELDER (09:08)
And when I go out for all these fucking commercial auditions, I’m goofy dad bod guy. If I stop drinking beer, man, I’d be in this weird no man’s land.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:16)
That’s so funny, dude. I mean, I get it. It’s really funny. It’s almost like when Jonah Hill got too skinny.
 
MIKE ELDER (09:22)
No, absolutely. That’s what it is.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:23)
I was like, oh, it’s kind of. It doesn’t really make sense. Or like Seth Rogen right now. I saw the Lion King premiere. He was, like, kind of, I don’t know, shredded. But, like, yeah, he was. He was definitely very lean in me.
 
And I was like, oh, that’s like a different Rogen.
 
MIKE ELDER (09:37)
Yeah. I’m afraid to get bulked up. You know, I could. If I. If I really wanted to, I could do it in, like, three weeks.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:44)
We’re all, like a couple of weeks away from something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (09:48)
I’ve thought about going vegan, but I got to maintain my.
 
GLEN POWELL (09:53)
Yeah, the vegan. The vegan thing that I actually am gearing up for something that I’m going to try it out. But being from Texas, I don’t think I do it. I really don’t. I really want to. I know it’s, like, good for the environment. It’s, like, super healthy.
 
And all my friends who are doing. I just.
 
I just don’t. I would lose all my friends. I really think I would.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:16)
But were they ever your friends in the first place, then?
 
GLEN POWELL (10:19)
Yes. Actually, I. Honestly, I’ve tried to date. I’ve tried to date girls that are full vegan.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:23)
Oh. Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (10:25)
It’s a very small list of restaurants.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:27)
I know.
 
GLEN POWELL (10:28)
Yeah. It’s tough, I think.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:30)
Are you a single guy? I assume, then.
 
GLEN POWELL (10:31)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:31)
I feel like it’s harder for single people to do that sort of special diet because it’s like, to buy fresh fruit, you have to go. Or veggies, you have to go out every other day.
 
And it’s just. It’s. It doesn’t seem economical for a single person to do that.
 
GLEN POWELL (10:46)
Yeah, I would have to. I think I would have to learn how to cook differently. I got, like, you know, smokers and grills and things like that. I’d have to just learn how to do them for vegetables.
 
MIKE ELDER (10:55)
Smoked beets.
 
GLEN POWELL (10:56)
Yeah, smoked. It’s like, this guy. Sounds like a real fun time. No, I just. I. The problem is that it is so intensive, like, in terms of, like, the prep.
 
MIKE ELDER (11:09)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:09)
You know, there’s so many rules.
 
MIKE ELDER (11:10)
That’s right.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:11)
Yeah. Again, taking people to the ranch. There’s some vegans, and it’s.
 
It’s tough, you know, Like, I. I realized. I was like, all right, there’s a lot of prep. There’s so many rules around it that if you’re cooking for mass quantities, which I love to have, like, you know, a bunch of people around for football games or whatever, it’s like. It’s tough.
 
MIKE ELDER (11:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:26)
I mean, Dallas Cowboys and vegans don’t really work. It’s just tough.
 
MIKE ELDER (11:30)
It doesn’t seem accessible either to me.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:33)
What do you mean, accessible?
 
MIKE ELDER (11:34)
It’s not easy to get, as you said. It’s the. There’s not a lot of restaurants.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:37)
No, I can’t.
 
MIKE ELDER (11:38)
I can’t imagine I can go to Vons and buy vegan, easy, but maybe I could. Maybe I’m just too lazy to figure it out.
 
GLEN POWELL (11:43)
No, I know. I. Honestly, it’s intensive. Like, the. The interesting part is, you know, we have sort of talked about, you know, there’s a Captain Planet movie sort of coming down the pipeline. And what’s. What’s interesting is we’ve sort of talked about how do you actually save the planet?
 
And one of the things that we’ve talked about is it is to truly be able to do it. There’s so much sacrifice and so much, like, time that goes into actually being an individual who cares about the environment. And I have realized that no one has a lot of time for that.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:13)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (12:14)
And so it’s really about finding solutions that don’t require people to make sacrifices, that almost require them to do things like that that are just. It’s not going to happen.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:23)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (12:23)
Like you going vegan. Right where it’s not going to happen. Right, right, right. Like, it’s just too much damn time. I’m not going to see you at the market, you know, like it requires.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:32)
It’s also a career choice. Let’s remember it’s a career choice.
 
GLEN POWELL (12:34)
Remember, it’s also a career choice. Like, nobody really wants that Channing Tatum Magic Mike body. No, no, I don’t want it.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:40)
It’s too bulky for me.
 
GLEN POWELL (12:41)
Gross.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:43)
Hey, I like to ask about, like, process and ritual. So speaking of that, I feel like you got to work out a little bit, right?
 
GLEN POWELL (12:49)
Yeah, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (12:49)
Are you always. Is that a ritual of yours?
 
GLEN POWELL (12:52)
Well, you know, I tend to. Between projects, like, while I’m actually shooting a movie, I tend to try to cut out as much alcohol as possible. You know, just kind of keep the, the brain firing. It’s a very brain and energy intensive kind of job. So sometimes if you’re drinking, you’re talking about, right? Exactly. I throw everything I have into drinking when I drink.
 
But I also, I also. So I try to chill out. That. So that means between jobs, you know, I go, I go full spring break, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, I just let it loose and that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m just, I’m just chilling, I’m catching up with people, you know, not saying no to a drink and.
 
MIKE ELDER (13:33)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (13:33)
Having a great time. But, you know, as we sort of are gearing up for the next one, you’ll, you’ll start to see me back in the gym and start cutting out those things that, you know, make the body, you know, getting the body shape a little tougher. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (13:47)
Do you have a trainer or do you do Pilates or something? What do you, what are you rocking?
 
GLEN POWELL (13:50)
What do you do? Pilates? I don’t know.
 
MIKE ELDER (13:52)
Tai Bo, what’s so hot right now?
 
GLEN POWELL (13:54)
Tai bout? I’m this very end. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (13:56)
I haven’t been in a gym in 15 years.
 
GLEN POWELL (13:59)
No. You know what’s my.
 
I try to switch it up all the time, but really I’ve been, I’ve been training with this, this guy, Nick Mitchell, who owns this gym called Ultimate Performance. And that’s who, that’s what I got in shape for Top Gun for that guy. This guy is an animal. Very, very focused, smart British guy who has created like these gyms that have been like, now there’s Hundreds around the country. I mean, around the world. But what’s the emphasis?
 
MIKE ELDER (14:28)
Is it weight training?
 
GLEN POWELL (14:29)
Cardio? It’s heavy weight training. Which I’ve actually usually stay away from because on camera, like, you look too.
 
MIKE ELDER (14:35)
Yeah, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (14:36)
You know, you just look too. Like, it almost. You look fat. Like, sometimes I’ve just been told to like lean out, but this guy just has a system that just like works.
 
And I just got gnarly.
 
MIKE ELDER (14:45)
That’s dope.
 
GLEN POWELL (14:46)
Best shape of my life.
 
MIKE ELDER (14:47)
Like two hours a day. How much were you doing an hour a day? Oh, wow.
 
GLEN POWELL (14:50)
Yeah. And it was like way less work than I’ve done before.
 
MIKE ELDER (14:53)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (14:54)
Like on Scream Queens, I like, worked out like crazy and I was way less. Cut. So anyway, this is such a bro conversation. Geez. Okay, let’s talk about Douche Meathead.
 
MIKE ELDER (15:06)
Not really.
 
GLEN POWELL (15:06)
That’s pretty basic.
 
MIKE ELDER (15:08)
I feel like. I feel like that’s pretty normal. What about like acting wise, before you audition for something or before you are on set, do you have any rituals or process, like prepping for an audition? Break it down.
 
What would you do?
 
GLEN POWELL (15:20)
Prepping for an audition or at the audition? It just sort of. It just sort of depends on what you are going for.
 
Like, what is the. I mean, there’s no one. There’s no one way to prefer role. I said, sometimes I go, okay, like, what’s his character’s job? Learn a little bit more about the job. Like, let’s say he’s a lawyer. I’m like, okay, is he a guy that’s doing the paperwork?
 
Is he a guy that talks fast? Is he a used car salesman?
 
Or is he an. Is he Atticus Finch?
 
MIKE ELDER (15:49)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (15:49)
You know, and like, you know, like, what. What is. Is he. Is he a guy that, you know, has been punched in the face a bunch of times? Like, is this like a repo guy? Like, yeah, maybe that affects the way he breathes. You know, is this a guy who is used to winning or is this a guy who carries himself like a loser?
 
It’s like you just sort of like start asking those sort of questions. It sort of informs again the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you carry the self. If you look people in the eyes, you know, and just sort of the intention behind everything, and you just sort of look at what that.
 
That forces behind a character. And I feel like that’s the way I just sort of approach it. So there’s no one real way. I think I just sort of like throw as many pebbles at something and just see what Happens.
 
MIKE ELDER (16:33)
Yeah. Throw the pebbles in the lake and see where the ripples go.
 
GLEN POWELL (16:35)
Yeah, exactly. Or just like, you know, if you’re, you know, they see like a squirrel in a tree, right?
 
MIKE ELDER (16:42)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (16:42)
If you throw a pebble at a squirrel. I don’t do that. I’m just saying if I did. Does the squirrel run at you? Does the squirrel run away? Does it go up? Does it go down?
 
Is he fall off the tree? Is he freeze?
 
MIKE ELDER (16:53)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (16:53)
You know, there’s, it’s just human, human nature. All movies are conflict. Right. So you’re throwing pebbles essentially at characters and seeing how they react. So I just try to do that process and just try to figure out what makes a character tick and how essentially they’re dealing with conflict.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:10)
Sure.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:10)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:11)
I love that.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:11)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:12)
Do you, when you go into an audition room, do you have a way of winning the room? I’ve been asking a lot of people, I’ve had a lot of casting directors on lately and I’ve been asking this.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:20)
I like which casting directors I’ve been a lot.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:23)
I just had Sherry Thomas on.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:24)
Great. She’s great.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:25)
I just had Amanda Linker Doyle. Yeah, I’ve had a lot of great ones on. So Dorian Frankel had on.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:32)
I would love to know what they think. I mean, now. Lox angeles.com I, I, I truly think that a lot.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:42)
No, go ahead.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:43)
No, I, I, I, I, I think that you have. There is no, there is no one way to win a room. But I do know that the art of auditioning, the art of actually shooting are such different process.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:57)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:57)
Processes or processes.
 
MIKE ELDER (17:59)
Process, Process.
 
GLEN POWELL (17:59)
I process. I don’t think that it translates. I’ve seen a lot of people crush an audition. Totally screwed up when they get on set.
 
MIKE ELDER (18:10)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (18:10)
And people that, you know, because really you don’t have the power of the edit in an audition scenario. You really, all you have is a one or two take wonder and you have to do it in one take. Right. That’s just not the process of how, you know, acting on screen works. Theater, maybe.
 
MIKE ELDER (18:28)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (18:29)
You know, and then also what you sort of bring into the room in terms of dress, in terms of your sense of able to work the room, in terms of actually being able to kind of manipulate the camera angles. Like, are people even watching these tapes? Because I’ve realized that, you know, sometimes people are sort of auditioning in the room, like theater, but really I feel like a good actor knows the canvas, the, the, the composition of what they’re working through. And that determines how close you are to the Camera, you know, you don’t have the power of the lens, like, you don’t know, have what folk like, what sort of focal length you’re dealing with. So you’re just dealing with sort of a handheld camera. It just changes the effect. And you’re not always dealing.
 
It’s not an even playing field.
 
MIKE ELDER (19:10)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (19:10)
So you sort of have to just be aware of all the factors in the room and I guess just sort of work them to the best of your ability.
 
MIKE ELDER (19:15)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (19:16)
You know, I love that I’m in.
 
MIKE ELDER (19:18)
An acting class and they encourage John Rosenfeld Studios and they encourage us. Yeah. Oh, you’ve trained with him?
 
GLEN POWELL (19:23)
I trained with Leslie Khan, and he and Leslie Khan were together when I was over there.
 
MIKE ELDER (19:27)
Yeah. They love to encourage us to, like, every week when we bring in a scene or whatever, see what it looks like on camera. Because it’s like a lot of actors don’t even think about that. People are looking at this on a camera. Why would you not put yourself on camera and see what it looks like?
 
GLEN POWELL (19:41)
100%.
 
MIKE ELDER (19:41)
I love that. But what I was gonna say is, I think a lot of the casting directors essentially said, if I boil it down to what they say wins the room, it’s obviously preparation, but also being present in the room and being like in the room not in your head or in the pages. Being in that room and connecting with the reader and making eye contact.
 
GLEN POWELL (19:59)
Absolutely. I think.
 
I think where most actors fail is trying to hit the beats, trying to hit the marks over preparing and almost. Almost not knowing. I think the best advice I could give to actors is what is the thrust of the scene? Like, what is what. What is your character attempting to do? What is that launching point. Point. What is the moment before?
 
And then just take the ride.
 
MIKE ELDER (20:23)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (20:23)
Don’t try to force it. Don’t try to get to a certain point. Let yourself be surprised, because then they’re going to be surprised. But I always know that every time I’m trying to. To. To hit. Hit a beat when it’s not organic, then it will never translate.
 
MIKE ELDER (20:40)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (20:41)
You know, And I find that even just kind of attempting to do something different, to do something that. That seems like a big swing. Like, you might as well take the big swing.
 
MIKE ELDER (20:51)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (20:52)
Then. And go down in flames. Then. Then play it safe.
 
MIKE ELDER (20:56)
Yeah. I don’t disagree.
 
Which is funny. I think in life I do that. But maybe not so much in auditions, which is funny.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:02)
Yeah. Well, that’s. But if you really think about it, it’s like you’re either going to be the top 1%. But then the other 99 do not matter. Right. Like, that was very bleak. No, but like, it’s.
 
No, it’s very. Like you’re kind of a dick. Glen Powell. No, it’s like they don’t matter. It’s like if you’re number two.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:22)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:23)
You’re not getting that job.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:23)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:24)
Right. So you might as well be with the rest of 99.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:26)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:27)
Right.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:27)
Fair.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:27)
You missed it by one, but you still get the job.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:29)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:30)
So being playing it safe, you might as well take that one. That top 1%. That one person. A top slot is going to go to somebody who you. You. You’re sort of flawless. You crush it or you bring something original or magical to it.
 
And if you look at somebody who’s watching so many, so many things over and over, you’re start. It’s almost like a song they’ve heard over and over.
 
MIKE ELDER (21:53)
Oh, absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (21:54)
And everybody’s doing it the same way, and everybody has the same take that they think is original, but the person that sort of does something a little different, a little off, somebody takes a risk. Do you ever see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?
 
MIKE ELDER (22:05)
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:05)
You remember that scene where he stumbles, like they just robbed the toy store.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:09)
Okay.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:10)
He’s gonna get a toy for his kid.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:11)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:11)
Robert Downey Junior’s kid.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:12)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:12)
And he stumbles into this room. And they’re holding an audition in this room.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:16)
Yes.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:17)
And it literally happens. The sides were like a cop that, like, accidentally got his partner killed and like he, like, literally organically just sort of like breaks down crying, and he’s like, holding the person in his hands, like, clutching them. And I remember looking, I was like, oh, that is what appeals to somebody. Like, it’s method. Like, it’s so good. But what it just says to me is that, number one, you have to find a personal way to connect with the character, but also take the big swing.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:39)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:40)
Because that’s the guy that’s going to get it, you know, it’s not the guy that’s, you know, that’s. That’s just trying to be amicable or. Or, you know, do a service.
 
MIKE ELDER (22:50)
I think there’s something to. To. To. To the idea that you can bring somebody back, but you can’t necessarily push them there, too.
 
GLEN POWELL (22:58)
What do you mean?
 
MIKE ELDER (22:59)
Like, if I go to that point where I’m method and I’m crying, I think it’s easier to reel me in than it is to draw that out of somebody. And I think when they see that, they’re like, oh, okay, he can stretch.
 
GLEN POWELL (23:09)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (23:10)
We can bring that back down.
 
GLEN POWELL (23:11)
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think that’s, that’s a really, really smart. I think it’s a very smart way to go.
 
MIKE ELDER (23:15)
What do you do self tape much?
 
GLEN POWELL (23:18)
Does that happen for you at all? I mean, yeah, I used to quite a bit. I never enjoyed self tapes because I don’t think that you sort of have the same magic. I agree.
 
MIKE ELDER (23:29)
But that’s because we’re charismatic in the room, I’d like to say. And I’m. I mean that is me being confident. But I think there is something to it.
 
GLEN POWELL (23:36)
I think. I think with self tapes, my whole strategy was I might as well. If I’m going to do a self tape, I might as well actually shoot the movie. Like I’m going to shoot the movie.
 
MIKE ELDER (23:47)
Right, right, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (23:48)
Where I would literally have camera movements and, and I would shoot it like. Like if I were in a kitchen. I’m shooting it in my kitchen and I’m like opening the microwave and talking to somebody and I’m like throwing it over my shoulder and like.
 
MIKE ELDER (24:00)
And you did that for a lot of them?
 
GLEN POWELL (24:01)
Yeah. And it worked a couple times. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (24:04)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (24:04)
Yeah, but, but for me, like I would. That’s. That’s the only benefit of that medium. Right. Like having a self tape at home. You have access to a set and props and all that stuff. So you might as well do that. Not. Ages don’t necessarily like it.
 
Casting directors don’t necessarily like it. They’d rather you just be on a blue screen. I’m not saying they’re wrong. I’m just saying that it worked a couple times and, and, and that I feel that the art of acting is not being in an office building in Burbank trying to do everything with, you know, like, if I’m just having a beer with you, I might as well have a beer in front of me. Right, right.
 
Instead of going.
 
MIKE ELDER (24:44)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (24:44)
Miming, it’s like, what is that? Like, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (24:47)
How hard you do great space work, by the way.
 
GLEN POWELL (24:49)
I did see that. Incredible. Yeah. What a talent.
 
MIKE ELDER (24:54)
Did the casting directors comment on. On your tapes where you were doing it, like a kitchen stuff? Did they. Did that ever come back to you?
 
GLEN POWELL (25:00)
You know what’s really weird is there’s a lot of casting directors that. So there was a while there. So when I first came out here, I got signed very quickly. I did this movie called the Great Debaters when I was 17 and Denzel’s.
 
Who directed the movie? His agent, Ed Lomato.
 
MIKE ELDER (25:16)
Denzel who?
 
GLEN POWELL (25:16)
Denzel Sendel Washington. Oh, yes.
 
MIKE ELDER (25:20)
I didn’t know if it was Denzel Smith.
 
GLEN POWELL (25:22)
Denzel Smith. I just tried to say Denzel and hope people don’t correct me on it. Yeah, no, Denzel Washington was, like, really, really generous and. And sort of a big, you know, a help with me coming out here. And he. He and his agent were sort of my only friends when I first moved out here. And when Ed Lamatto, who was this legendary agent, he passed away, you know, about a year and a half, two years after I was.
 
I moved out here, he. I was sort of. The agency sort of turned their back on me, and I sort of didn’t have an agent for a while.
 
MIKE ELDER (25:55)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (25:56)
And it was really. It was really tough. So I actually got a lot of casting director emails, and I basically got the breakdowns. I paid some guy to give me the breakdowns. I’m sure you probably know what that’s about, right?
 
MIKE ELDER (26:08)
Yeah, I do, but this year they’ve gone dark, bro.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:11)
Oh, no.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:11)
I think the one. The one intern that had them got caught.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:14)
Oh, no.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:15)
I had, like, three sources in January. All of them are dried up now.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:18)
That’s not good. I know. It sucks.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:20)
Especially for somebody that knows a bunch of casting directors from his podcast, by the way.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:24)
That’s like. Yeah, that’s. That’s really tough because, honestly, that was my approach.
 
Mine too, is I. There was this one movie, you know. Oh, you don’t get a lot of bites because casting directors don’t like it. Right. Of course, they’d rather, you know, they don’t want.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:37)
They want the normal channels.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:38)
Yeah. So, you know, but I. What I would do is I would. I would get the breakdowns from our sketchy friends.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:44)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:45)
I would get show facts. I would tape the audition. So. And then I would email it directly to the casting director.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:51)
Oh, wow.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:52)
Or their assistant.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:52)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:54)
And I would do that pretty much every day for a couple years.
 
MIKE ELDER (26:57)
Good for you.
 
GLEN POWELL (26:57)
Just. Just plugging away, trying to get something.
 
MIKE ELDER (27:00)
And that’s great reps, too.
 
GLEN POWELL (27:01)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (27:02)
Like, repetition wise.
 
GLEN POWELL (27:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (27:04)
No, not representation.
 
GLEN POWELL (27:06)
Yeah. And then. And then it did come about that there was a movie called Flight, the one A. One that Denzel did that I basically sent it to the cast director, but also sent it to Denzel. And. And it.
 
The process kind of kept going on. I didn’t really hear much, but then it. I found out it was like, basically between me and another guy.
 
MIKE ELDER (27:31)
Oh, wow.
 
GLEN POWELL (27:31)
And so, like, I was unrepresented. Like, nobody knew it. I was like Wait, it was a pretty good role. And there was like, who is this guy? So it ended up sort of working out in my favor there. But then I ended up the guy that I’ve been with since, this guy named Joey Stanton. And I followed him from Paradigm.
 
MIKE ELDER (27:50)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (27:50)
Where we. No one wanted me at Paradigm, and no one really wanted him there either. Oh, he basically had like a fire escape ladder in his office. Like, like where his chair was supposed to be. There was a fire escape ladder. Like he couldn’t even sit down at his own desk.
 
MIKE ELDER (28:04)
That’s ridiculous.
 
GLEN POWELL (28:05)
And then we went to this company called Resolution. And then we went to caa, and then I followed him to, to icm. So we’ve had a real run together. But he’s. It’s actually his birthday today.
 
MIKE ELDER (28:18)
Oh, happy birthday.
 
GLEN POWELL (28:18)
Yeah, that’s me. But yeah, happy birthday.
 
Happy birthday, Joey. But yeah, he’s. He, he and I have the same perspective and the same sort of work ethic about this town. And, and you know, I think at a town where a lot of people just sort of agent with their wallets, he definitely agents with his heart. And I think that’s why we sort of stuck with each other and stuck together and, and done some things I think a lot of people didn’t think we were gonna do.
 
MIKE ELDER (28:41)
That’s awesome.
 
GLEN POWELL (28:41)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (28:41)
I like the idea that you, you don’t love self tapes, but it seems like you submitted so many of them and it worked for you for a while.
 
GLEN POWELL (28:47)
Well, you don’t love self tapes because the odds, I feel like, are stacked against you. I feel like if you’re not in the room, there’s the politics that you have to look at the politics of the casting directors too. They have to service. They have to service the agency.
 
MIKE ELDER (28:59)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:00)
And the agents, you know, and there’s, there’s politics that go around that, like. And you hiring some random guy who self taped it, it doesn’t benefit you. There’s no political capital exchange.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:11)
Sure.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:11)
In that scenario.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:12)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:13)
So you do have to realize that the odds are not only stacked against you in terms of the medium, but I do feel like the odds are also stacked against you in terms of the politics that surround getting that role.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:22)
Sure. Do you, do you hold sides when you go into a room for an audition?
 
GLEN POWELL (29:25)
Yeah. I think it makes people nervous when you don’t hold sides because if they, if they, if you lose your track.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:31)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:32)
They’re like, oh, this is about to be a fiery helicopter crash. You know, they’re like, you know, somebody’s going to you know, when somebody lose it and they don’t have their sides, that bad things can happen. Awkward for everyone. I always keep the mayor just in case. But I’m always trying to be off book.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:46)
Yeah. I found with the casting directors, it’s split. Some say hold them and some say don’t.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:51)
Really?
 
MIKE ELDER (29:51)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:51)
Interesting.
 
MIKE ELDER (29:52)
It’s really kind of. It’s divisive a little bit with the casting directors.
 
GLEN POWELL (29:57)
Interesting. I actually that’s more of a casting director, you know, answer. I just know that I prepare to not use those things. But look, when nerves get ahold of you, you never know what’s gonna happen, right? Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (30:09)
How did nerves manifest themselves for you? Do you get nervous?
 
GLEN POWELL (30:11)
Yeah, yeah. You know, it just depends on sort of what you have to sort of bring in the room. I think, I think for me it’s. It’s really about headspace for me. It’s like I can get to a lot of places emotionally. I know that. But the hard part is when you’re in an audition scenario, you have to be the funniest guy in the room.
 
Then you have to break down into tears and then you have to do like an intimate scene. You have to do something really broad and crazy. Like you. You have to be a complete psychopath to be able to pull off, you know, or just the most well trained actor I. Or, you know, maybe that’s it. I have no idea. But like for me, getting to those places on set when I have, you know, again, the frame working for me and can kind of be in a certain head space to surprise myself, I can.
 
It’s just a lot easier. I feel like.
 
MIKE ELDER (31:02)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (31:02)
Yeah. I think somebody told me recently.
 
Who was it? Some well known actress, I can’t remember. It was like Denzel Smith, my favorite actress. Denzel Washington. No. They said that that acting is like walking onto a construction site full of strangers, breaking down into tears and then walking back into your truck. And I thought it was so genius because that is exactly what it feels like.
 
You know, it’s like there is nothing. There is nothing organic about it.
 
MIKE ELDER (31:34)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (31:34)
Necessarily. But I do have tricks, I feel like on set that allow me to sort of get into a different headspace. And I don’t feel like those. Those tricks necessarily come into play as well in an audition scenario. But I do think audition scenarios or auditions are good practice to, you know, practice like you play.
 
MIKE ELDER (31:52)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (31:52)
But I do not think it’s reflective of what we do.
 
MIKE ELDER (31:55)
What are your tricks on set?
 
GLEN POWELL (31:57)
On set, I think, I think a lot of it is you know, music helps me a lot. I feel like I can kind of, like, find my. I just tell people, like, hey, like, I’m gonna go off over here. Let me know when you guys are ready.
 
But I’m just gonna. If it’s super emotional, I can stay in a certain headspace. Yeah, easily.
 
MIKE ELDER (32:14)
If it’s emotional. What do you do, Adele or something?
 
GLEN POWELL (32:17)
Tell. Yeah, Adele gets me every time.
 
MIKE ELDER (32:20)
Hello.
 
GLEN POWELL (32:21)
Bruno Mars gets me.
 
MIKE ELDER (32:23)
Bonnie Ivor Lizzo. Do you have any, like, hobbies or rituals outside of acting or performing? Do you have any, like.
 
GLEN POWELL (32:33)
Absolutely. Well, I think one of the things that keeps me incredibly busy is screenwriting.
 
MIKE ELDER (32:37)
Oh.
 
GLEN POWELL (32:38)
You know, that was actually something that. When I was sort of, you know, finding no one that wanted to hire me as an actor, screenwriting paid the bills. I sold a couple really bad screenplays.
 
MIKE ELDER (32:49)
Oh, wow. I didn’t know that.
 
GLEN POWELL (32:50)
At least people bought them, and it paid the bills for a bit. And now that sort of skill set is coming in handy because we’ve sold some more. But now, as an actor, now that the acting stuff, we’re finding a little bit, you know, fewer people saying they don’t want me. That it. You know, the writing side is. It’s an understanding story and understanding, you know, what makes you lethal as an actor. All those things come into play when you at least understand screenwriting.
 
MIKE ELDER (33:19)
Oh, absolutely. And you know, what. What that writer’s going for in the beats.
 
GLEN POWELL (33:22)
Exactly. Exactly. And you’re able to talk to writers about those. And you don’t sound like an egotistical actor.
 
MIKE ELDER (33:27)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (33:27)
A lot of actors are like, yeah, I should be stronger here. And you’re like, that’s not the note. Like, that’s not a. That’s not. That’s. That comes from ego rather than story. And, like, a writer doesn’t want to hear that.
 
There’s, like, I cannot wait for this person to be out of my trailer. I don’t want to talk to them.
 
MIKE ELDER (33:41)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (33:41)
And if you can talk to them about truly the. The things that make your character tick within the ecosystem of the story, then you find way less resistance because they know that you’re not just trying to, you know, have the bigger gun in the scene or, like, have the last punch or. Or, you know, have the bigger moment, you know, or just look cool or, you know, have a better dramatic arc than this other person. You know, it comes when you can give notes that truly also lift your fellow actors up.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:12)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (34:12)
And then just make it a. More of a story that crackles. You know, people know that you’re not just out for yourself, that you’re out to make a great movie. And I think that’s what the difference between actors that survive in this town and actors that don’t. I think it’s actors that are in great movies, and if you can be an actor that can only enhance the movie as a whole. I think people know that and they want to keep hiring.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:32)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (34:33)
You know, Totally agree.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:34)
What about just outside of entertainment, do you have anything you do to unwind or relax?
 
GLEN POWELL (34:39)
Yeah, I go. I go to the ranch in Texas. I decompress there a bit.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:43)
And you ride horses and bulls?
 
GLEN POWELL (34:45)
Yeah, yeah, we do a little stuff like that. Yeah, so we’re.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:48)
That’s the. That sounds like the opposite of relaxed to me.
 
GLEN POWELL (34:51)
Well, I think. I think it’s just getting, you know. I mean, I don’t know. You. Do you play sports growing up?
 
MIKE ELDER (34:55)
Oh, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (34:56)
Yes.
 
MIKE ELDER (34:56)
Oh, yeah. Play a little football, play a little puck.
 
GLEN POWELL (34:59)
There we go. Oh, you play some puck?
 
MIKE ELDER (35:00)
Ran a little hurdle.
 
GLEN POWELL (35:01)
I played football in lacrosse. I just feel like. I don’t know about you as, like.
 
As growing up. Like, I feel like you sort of missed the physical nature of. Of like, sort of like physical competition and going headache. You just get softer. Like, there’s not those opportunities to, like, square up and, like, you know, get that sort of out. And I feel like Texas. There’s an aspect for me where I actually feel, like, not so soft.
 
You know what I mean? Like, I just feel like it’s going back is, like. Makes me a little bit more of, like, a man again. Yeah. I can come back here and, like, drink kombucha and go to Erewhile.
 
MIKE ELDER (35:32)
Vegan.
 
GLEN POWELL (35:33)
Go vegan. You know, I was thinking that when.
 
MIKE ELDER (35:35)
Football just started out, how I was like, what was the last time I caught a football? I want to go play some football.
 
GLEN POWELL (35:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s another thing I do on set. That’s actually another thing that I find before I act. I have a football on set, so I always toss around, like, a football.
 
MIKE ELDER (35:50)
Who do you toss it to?
 
GLEN POWELL (35:51)
Other actors. Other people. Other people with hands. I figure.
 
MIKE ELDER (35:55)
I figure actors are like, what is this thing?
 
GLEN POWELL (35:57)
Oh, yeah. I mean, some people are. I just find that there’s. There’s. If you’re just like, tossing a baseball or football, something that can sort of not only get your blood pumping, because I think you get your mind pumping. And also, like, even if it’s like. If it’s like dancing or, like, throwing a football or like, just being goofy, like, getting on your you know, telling a joke, but like sweating a little bit, laughing a little bit, whatever it is.
 
Mel Gibson had that trick on Expendables. If people were ever in their own head, he would always tell jokes, people laughing and it sort of just diffuses any sort of. Some people have to like ramp up into acting, but that’s not what great acting is. Great acting is actually disarming.
 
MIKE ELDER (36:39)
Right, Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (36:39)
Completely. And I think those sort of skills, I think for, for me throwing a football is just like, it’s just a connection with people. So you’re, you’re sort of listening and responding the same, but just as throwing and catching is listening and responding.
 
MIKE ELDER (36:52)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (36:52)
And so it sort of translates.
 
MIKE ELDER (36:54)
That’s kind of beautiful.
 
GLEN POWELL (36:55)
You know what I mean? Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (36:56)
What size football?
 
GLEN POWELL (36:57)
We taught college football.
 
MIKE ELDER (36:59)
Okay.
 
GLEN POWELL (37:00)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (37:00)
Forget the NFL. One’s giant.
 
GLEN POWELL (37:02)
Yeah. Just too many. Yeah. It’s like actors that have never thrown footballs. It’s like this is going to be awkward for everybody.
 
MIKE ELDER (37:07)
Do you do anything with your right brain? Like I’ve been asking people this lately because I like to do like a puzzle.
 
GLEN POWELL (37:12)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (37:12)
Because you go to like an acting class where there’s no answers, there’s no solution to it. There’s many. Choose your own adventure ways to get through it. And then you come home and you do a puzzle and there’s something just so that tickles my brain about having a solution. Do you have any right brain things you.
 
GLEN POWELL (37:26)
That’s really even.
 
MIKE ELDER (37:26)
It’s like a crossword puzzle or like sudoku. Sudoku.
 
GLEN POWELL (37:30)
Sudoku, Sudoku. No, that’s a really, that’s a really interesting thing. I think, I think a lot of brainstorming for me tends to be very right brained. Like I do love, I do love like when I try to turn off logic as much as possible. When I’m like, okay, here’s a story beat. And we like see what’s the most fun thing to do with. Usually lives in the fun.
 
The fun is the right brain. You know, as a writer, writers have to operate off of logic, plot beats, story beats, what the empirical things that make a character work. Whereas the actor. The great part is I find the greatest actors tend to be sort of flighty, bananas people because they live in the right brain. And the right brain is all creative. And you don’t have to subscribe to as many rules.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:19)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:20)
I mean left brain, the left brain obviously has already layered those rules for you. So you just get to live. You just get to color between the lines.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:28)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:28)
You know, and figure out what shade you want to do. And it’s a much more fun place to live. So I personally find I love talking movies with people. I love just watching movies while I’m shooting a movie. I try to watch as many movies that are like kind of tonal comps.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:41)
Oh, that’s cool.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:42)
You know, steal and borrow from there.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:43)
Yeah, that’s smart, actually.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:45)
Yeah. So that’s maybe my most. Right. Brain thing.
 
I love that.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:48)
Yeah, that’s dope.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:49)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:50)
Where are you from? You mentioned Austin.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:51)
Austin. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:52)
Born and raised.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:53)
Yeah, Born and raised in Austin.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:54)
That’s fun.
 
GLEN POWELL (38:54)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:55)
Did you feel like you’re in the country when you were growing up?
 
GLEN POWELL (38:57)
Were you.
 
MIKE ELDER (38:58)
Were you on a ranch?
 
GLEN POWELL (38:59)
I’m in the hill country. I mean, I’m like, I’m not like, in downtown Austin right now. But what were you doing for fun as a kid?
 
Oh, it’s for fun. I man all sorts of stuff. I mean, obviously I played a lot of sports. I loved musicals as a kid. Yeah, I was a big musical fan.
 
MIKE ELDER (39:16)
Okay.
 
GLEN POWELL (39:17)
Yeah. It’s really crazy. Like, when I was my grandmother, my grandmother spent a lot of time like my Grammy, who I just saw Grammy, and I would spend a lot of times, like, watching old musicals.
 
MIKE ELDER (39:27)
That’s awesome.
 
GLEN POWELL (39:28)
So I grew up and, like, when I was a kid, I asked my parents if I could take an acting class at part of that acting class there was a tap portion of in that same theater. And so I was like, yo, I’d love to. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.
 
MIKE ELDER (39:41)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (39:41)
Donald Connor, some of my favorites. They all learned that tap dance. Frank Sinatra. And so I was like, yeah, can I take tap dancing? So I, like, learned how to do that.
 
MIKE ELDER (39:49)
That’s awesome. How old were you then?
 
GLEN POWELL (39:52)
Maybe like, 10, 11, 12.
 
MIKE ELDER (39:54)
And that was just. You just want to take an acting class from your love of music?
 
GLEN POWELL (39:57)
No, I know my acting. Acting I want to do since I saw Indiana Jones.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:01)
Oh, really?
 
GLEN POWELL (40:02)
Yeah. Indiana Jones was like. I was like, all right, I want to be Harrison Ford. Like, that’s the coolest guy on the planet. That. That was one of the reasons I became an actor. And I think since my dad and I would just spend all day in the theater sometimes and just.
 
He’s a huge movie geek. And I became one, too.
 
And so was he not working? What’s crazy is, like, the weekends I would play. Like, I just remember what we would do is, like, I would wake up, I was taking violin.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:30)
Okay. Wow.
 
GLEN POWELL (40:31)
Learn how to fiddle.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:32)
Jack of all trades.
 
GLEN POWELL (40:33)
Right. So I took violin. I would take it early in the morning on Saturday days. And then right after that, we would get. We would go to this place called Walkaholic, which is this Chinese restaurant near our house. And then I would just. We would literally just spend.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:47)
That’s a funny name.
 
GLEN POWELL (40:48)
It’s a great name. Right? Walkaholic. And then we just spend literally the rest of the day in the movie theater and just, like, talk out the movies.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:54)
And did you pay for every movie?
 
GLEN POWELL (40:56)
No, that’s.
 
MIKE ELDER (40:56)
You just did the one and done.
 
GLEN POWELL (40:57)
Just. Just one and done. Just eat a big Chinese meal and just stay in all day. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:03)
That’s really cool.
 
GLEN POWELL (41:04)
Yeah. My dad and I are the reasons that the. The theaters are dying.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:06)
Yeah, I think we all did that at some point. It was. It was an obvious move to do.
 
GLEN POWELL (41:11)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:11)
Until they funnel you out the back exit. Why wouldn’t you just pop into another.
 
GLEN POWELL (41:16)
You guys still here. Just disguises after every movie.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:20)
Wait, so you played sports and you did acting and you played violin and you tap danced?
 
GLEN POWELL (41:24)
Yeah, yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:25)
Literally did a little everything. Yeah, I get that. I still haven’t been to Texas, but I get that Austin is sort of the blueberry and the tomato soup or whatever they say.
 
GLEN POWELL (41:33)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:34)
But did you get flack for being in the arts with your, like, athletic buddies? Were you. Did you have, like, a real high school musical moment where.
 
GLEN POWELL (41:41)
No, I didn’t do it in school. That was like the weirdest. I sort of had a.
 
I sort of had my. My. My secret passion, you know, outside of school. In school, I really. I did. You know, I was again, I was an athlete in school, and I was a pretty good student. And then outside of school.
 
MIKE ELDER (41:59)
You trailed off there. Pretty good student. Pretty good student.
 
GLEN POWELL (42:02)
I was. I was a pretty good student.
 
MIKE ELDER (42:03)
Pretty good student.
 
GLEN POWELL (42:04)
Lame. So I did. And then outside of that, I would really. One of the big. In middle school. Middle school, early high school is where I did all the musical theater. Musical theater company went under, and at that sort of time, the film started coming to Austin.
 
There was a tax incentive. Tax incentive. So I started becoming the go to guy. There weren’t that many, you know, actors my age out there. Yeah. So I became kind of the go to guy for a lot of those roles. And.
 
MIKE ELDER (42:34)
Sorry, how did you find the time to do sports practice after school, I would presume. And then musical theater.
 
GLEN POWELL (42:40)
So sports practice in middle school is just not as intense as it. When you’re sure. In middle school like, that. That then was just like, no time. There’s no way I could have done it.
 
MIKE ELDER (42:48)
Oh, you abandoned it. In high school.
 
GLEN POWELL (42:50)
What?
 
MIKE ELDER (42:50)
You abandoned sports in high school?
 
GLEN POWELL (42:51)
The company. The company. I mean it, it, I couldn’t have done it anyway. But the company went under. So they were doing these like huge Broadway level sort of productions. I mean they would literally have.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:00)
No wonder they went on.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:01)
Yeah, no, I mean it was like, it was, he was millions of dollar shows. Right.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:04)
They shouldn’t have put up Spider man.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:05)
Into the exact same company. No, no, but they, they, they, they had all these, they had all these like Broadway performers they would fly in and it was like, wow, huge, huge deal.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:20)
How many people are in Austin? It’s like 200 grand in Austin. Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:23)
Oh, no. Million.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:25)
There’s a million people in Austin.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:27)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:27)
Oh, shit.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:28)
I bet you million five.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:30)
Oh my goodness.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:31)
I bet you always fact check. You want give us your best winner gets two tickets to I bet you box Angeles Live Austin at the popular romans Chinese Theater 2019. Awesome population.
 
MIKE ELDER (43:49)
You know, it’s kind of embarrassing that you don’t know for sure the answer.
 
GLEN POWELL (43:52)
No, that’s, that’s what’s weird. Oh, hold on. It’s not really giving me like very good stats.
 
Here are 2018. 1.1.1.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:01)
Oh my gosh. I didn’t realize. Epic. And you were the only actor in your age bracket when the movies came.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:05)
No, not the only actor.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:06)
I only good one. I get it.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:08)
You know what I mean? You know what I mean? No, no, no. I think, I think what happens is like, look out here in la, you, everyone comes out here to be an actor.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:18)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:18)
You know, or something in entertainment. And so you are dealing with the best of every. Everywhere.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:24)
A big, big, big pond.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:26)
Big pond, big pond. And look, Austin, Austin. There was other people that I would kind of constantly go out against, but it was never. It’s not like this kind of competition.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:35)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:35)
You can be good. Like I was fine. But like you didn’t have to be like stellar. I didn’t have to blow people away. They were like, he’ll do for these.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:42)
Few lines, which I oddly feel like is. I mean this kind of goes without saying, but it’s a nice little benefit to have. I mean you, you, you sharpen your skills, you hone your skills in a smaller market. I got very comfortable legitimate productions.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:55)
I mean, 100.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:56)
It’s a, it’s a good leg in.
 
GLEN POWELL (44:57)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (44:58)
Is that a safe.
 
GLEN POWELL (45:00)
I don’t know. Now you’ve literally made me rethink that entire saying. I’m like, is that a saying?
 
MIKE ELDER (45:06)
Toe in foot in foot.
 
GLEN POWELL (45:07)
It’s a good foot in Foot in the door.
 
MIKE ELDER (45:09)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (45:09)
You put a whole leg. I don’t know.
 
MIKE ELDER (45:11)
So did you have a rep? Representation?
 
GLEN POWELL (45:13)
Yeah. Yeah. There are agents off.
 
MIKE ELDER (45:15)
Okay. And you just submitted as you would, and then you just started. Once those films started coming, you just started going out.
 
GLEN POWELL (45:20)
Yeah. So did they have auditions during school?
 
Not in school. I said none of this was ever in school.
 
MIKE ELDER (45:26)
It was like, while you were supposed to be at school. Did you ditch out to go to auditions?
 
GLEN POWELL (45:30)
Like, there was. There was this one time where I was in algebra class and my mom came and. Sick. Algebra’s dope. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (45:42)
Shout out to algebra.
 
GLEN POWELL (45:43)
You’re easy to please. Algebra. So it’s an algebra class. Like a badass. Yeah, dude. So finding out what those letters meant, and then my mom knocked on the door to the. To the portable and said, can I borrow Glen for a second?
 
And so I walked outside, and she literally drove me down the street to a parking lot. I was doing a movie called the Wendell Baker Story where the stunt guy. I had a stunt in the movie where I got hit by a car. So the stunt guy hit me, like, 20 times with his car in this church parking lot. And then I just walked right back into algebra class. Right. Because I had missed, like.
 
Because you can only miss so many days of school that I had to sort of, like, sneak around. And I also had my high school counselor. Michelle Kateris was an angel, and Nancy Driscoll, who worked with her, were the two people that helped me manage when I could I should leave and when I shouldn’t leave.
 
MIKE ELDER (46:46)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (46:46)
And when. When, you know, when it was important to stay and miss, like, a opportunity and when I could go. But they. But without them, I don’t think I would be able to attend most of those auditions.
 
MIKE ELDER (46:57)
Were you. So were you the only person, like, on set when you.
 
GLEN POWELL (47:01)
What do you mean?
 
MIKE ELDER (47:02)
Just that example you were talking about on set. Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (47:05)
Which one?
 
MIKE ELDER (47:06)
When you got hit by a car.
 
GLEN POWELL (47:07)
Oh, that. That was prep for the movie. So I had.
 
MIKE ELDER (47:09)
Oh, you were actually leaving your school?
 
GLEN POWELL (47:11)
I didn’t go. I had to leave. I had to leave class to go to a part.
 
MIKE ELDER (47:15)
You said portable, so I thought you meant like, a trailer. What’s a portable?
 
GLEN POWELL (47:17)
Oh, a portable. Where they don’t have enough space in a school. They have these things called portables outside. There’s those. Like, they’re, like, kind of usually, like, ugly, like, tan buildings. They have, like, a wooden ramp up to them. It’s just like a classroom, but it’s not in the school.
 
MIKE ELDER (47:32)
Gotcha. Okay. That makes more Sense. I thought you were on.
 
GLEN POWELL (47:34)
It’s not a good look. No.
 
MIKE ELDER (47:36)
Gotcha.
 
GLEN POWELL (47:36)
So basically, this was just. This was just prep for the movie. But it sort of resembled, you know, honestly, like, it worked out on some of them. Like, I shot a show called Jack and Bobby. It was a Greg Berlanti show, and I did, like, two weeks on that, but it happened to fall on the Friday before spring break and. And right afterwards. So I missed, like, I think two or three days of school, maximum. The only.
 
The hardest one was a show I did called into the west, and that was a mini series. And that’s when I had to, like, do you know they have to have, like, the tutor for you. You have to be like. And the school was not that cool. Me missing because I was a lot of AP IB sort of classes. And they don’t like you having, like, some random tutor and doing this class. We’re far away.
 
So again, like, I had a lot of people that bent over backwards to make it work. That’s awesome. And without them, I couldn’t.
 
MIKE ELDER (48:31)
You don’t happen to know Ryan Kelly? Do he was on tv Teen Wolf on mtv? No, he had a very similar situation. He was in Chicago, and he was just booking commercials after commercial. But they were not supportive at all. They, like, sat down with his parents and were like, he can’t be in the school anymore because he’s missing so much. It’s distracting.
 
So that’s awesome that they bent over to help you out. Well, it’s look bent over to help me out.
 
God damn it.
 
GLEN POWELL (48:54)
Yeah, we all make it to Hollywood differently. The thing about it is that I find that schooling is there. Obviously there needs to be rules to, you know, not have, like, complete anarchy. But I also find that at people, like, kids that are attempting to do something great doesn’t necessarily line up within those. Those walls. Right. And kids that are, like, down to throw themselves out there to try this thing, like, I don’t think it should be punished necessarily.
 
MIKE ELDER (49:23)
I agree.
 
GLEN POWELL (49:23)
You know, and it’s like, these kids are attempting to work and try to make money and, like, attempting to swing at a profession that’s really freaking hard. And this is the highest percentage time. It’s the most likely time that will ever happen.
 
MIKE ELDER (49:35)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (49:36)
Because the pool is smaller, the competition is not as stringent, and it’s usually more off of, like, a look or a thing rather than, like, pure performance. And once you get out here, it is. It’s definitely not a meritocracy, but it’s much harder to Win the job. So I. I think, you know, not that I think that, you know, school should be promoting people missing, but my family. The old adage of my family is, like, the lamest people on earth are people with perfect attendance at school. I never want to be friends with that person. Right. Means you’re not doing anything.
 
It means you’re literally just coloring the lines in every way. Like, I want to be around the guy that’s like, yo, you’ve been detention a lot of times. You know, like, you seem like a good time. You know, I love that.
 
MIKE ELDER (50:17)
Were you booking right away when you were auditioning as a kid, or did it take a little time before you started to get.
 
GLEN POWELL (50:23)
I tried. I tried a bunch of. I wasn’t like, I wouldn’t like booking right away right away, but I remember one of my first. My first auditions was for Spy Kids 3D Game over, which was my first movie.
 
MIKE ELDER (50:35)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (50:37)
But, yeah, it was a big movie, and it was really exciting. It was like the biggest project in Austin. And I. I auditioned for this.
 
This character called E. Dawg. And logos. And they were like these two, like, badass. Like, they had. They had, like, goatees, and they were sort of like the bad boys. And I was 13, and I sounded like Mickey Mouse.
 
And I was like, I just looked like a kid off a life commercial. Hey, how you doing? It’s, like, not gonna work. Right. So the problem is, I literally get to the callback with Robert Rodriguez, and it’s three or four guys. It’s three guys with full beards, right. They’re all like 18, 17, 18 years old beards and, like, kind of grungy.
 
And then there’s me. And I was, like, looking up.
 
I was like, what? What am I doing here? Right? Like, I was like, like, if they put a goatee on me, it’s gonna look creepy. You know, it’s like, what is gonna happen? And I ended up getting a better role in the movie. I ended up getting, you know, audition for this thing.
 
And it kind of taught me that you’re never sort of out of the fight.
 
MIKE ELDER (51:43)
Absolutely. You know, and it’s back to what we were talking about earlier. Like, if you swing for it, you stand out more. And in those situations, I always find if I don’t look like everybody else, it means they’re considering changing the role because I brought something that they really like.
 
GLEN POWELL (51:56)
Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (51:56)
So I think that’s always a benefit. I completely schmucked. I look identical.
 
GLEN POWELL (52:00)
Oh, that’s always. Yeah, that’s always sort of a Soul sucking thing. Whenever I think they had that moment, La La Land when. When she like walked in the audition room and just saw like every derivative of her. Yeah, there is something soul sucking in this town. When you start going, especially commercial auditions. I don’t know if you’ve gone out for commercial.
 
MIKE ELDER (52:18)
That’s all I pretty much go for.
 
GLEN POWELL (52:19)
It’s just the worst. There’s, there’s. There’s no time that you feel like your personality matters less.
 
MIKE ELDER (52:26)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (52:26)
Than in that.
 
MIKE ELDER (52:27)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (52:27)
You know, in that scenario, tell you.
 
MIKE ELDER (52:29)
Book, I just booked one where it was all guys and they were like, you’re fucking hilarious. I was like, yeah, sweet. Great story, right?
 
GLEN POWELL (52:38)
Yeah, sweet.
 
MIKE ELDER (52:40)
Can I ask you something? Because I feel like you might do this. And when I brought, when I brought this up, I feel like other actors are kind of like, back away from me saying this. When you go into an audition room, do you size up the other people?
 
GLEN POWELL (52:52)
Nah. I mean, here’s the problem is that you start sizing up people. You start sizing up people.
 
You, I think will. You will start, even on accident, competing against them or trying to highlight attributes that they don’t have or trying to. Denzel told me he goes, never look in the other lanes. Right. You’re running your own race. And I think it’s the truest piece of advice I’ve ever gotten. Because ever since I’ve been out here, the people that were taking all the roles where I was like, man, this guy’s gonna be the biggest movie star.
 
And you know, God, I’m always going to be picking up his scraps. And if I could only get to there. It’s like some of them aren’t even in the business anymore.
 
MIKE ELDER (53:34)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (53:34)
And what you do is you. You try to be. I remember. And look, I’m. I’m so excited for Robert Pattinson.
 
The moment he’s having. He’s a really nice guy. But I remember when we. When I first got out here and Robert was obviously having his twilight moment. You know, my agents were like, Glen, you got to be more brooding, man. Like, you got to be like, you got to be more like mysterious and brooding. And I’m like, like, that’s not who.
 
It’s not who I am, man. I’m like a Texas guy is just like, look in the eyes, shake your hand. I’m not like, you know, awkward or whatever. It’s like, that’s not what I’m selling. Yeah, like, that’s what’s selling in the business. And it was sort of a weird. It was A weird in.
 
They were looking at what the marketplace was. Was taking rather than what I could offer. The marketplace.
 
MIKE ELDER (54:15)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (54:16)
And Denzel knows that, like, yo, if you. You are running your own race, like, you are the best guy for the movies that you. You know, that you. What you will bring is, you know, only you. And if you’re trying to be somebody else, it’s never gonna work.
 
MIKE ELDER (54:30)
Yeah, I love that. I feel like it’s more applicable to commercials again, because when I go in for a bald guy, I. It all looks the same. But, like, I went in for. For my first TV audition in months last week, and nobody looked like me. It was. I was like, this is just crazy.
 
It was like a security guard role. Under five.
 
GLEN POWELL (54:46)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (54:46)
And everybody there was women, men. Everybody looked different. I was like, oh, okay. So I do like that. Stay in the lane for that, especially because it’s like, how are you gonna be anybody but yourself in that situation?
 
GLEN POWELL (54:55)
Well, also, those. Those, like, under five rolls are.
 
Are always funny auditions. Like, you know, I remember auditioning for, like, it was like Cold Case or something. It was like, for one line, and it was like, oh, yeah, bathrooms that way or something like that, you know, and like, everybody.
 
MIKE ELDER (55:09)
Oh, I felt it.
 
GLEN POWELL (55:10)
Oh, my God. Right? I was like, oh, I didn’t see.
 
MIKE ELDER (55:12)
Glen there for a second. I saw. I just picked him number two.
 
GLEN POWELL (55:14)
Yeah, yeah. The guy that’s about to get the stabbed when that guy goes to the bathroom. But the thing about it is, there’s such. Because there’s such a drum roll to that moment. There’s such a. You realize the stakes of it.
 
It feels so important. You always try to sell the shit out of that line. Bathrooms that way. You’re like, that’s not gonna work. Right? And if you just literally throw it away, that’s what’s gonna work. They’re like, great.
 
That guy’s not gonna be an idiot on set. But. But those under five ones, I think, are the toughest. The. You have one. I was. I was on a movie I recently did.
 
I was telling one of the other actors that came in for one of those roles, they just had, like, a line and they were having, like. Because they knew this was their moment.
 
And I was like. And they were having trouble, and they were trying to, like, coach him down. I was just like, yo, like, the best thing you can do here is literally throw it away, and you’re going to look like a champ. Yeah, you’ll look so cool and whatever, but if you don’t, it’s going to. It Tonally, you know, it’s like, yeah. And it’s tough. And I felt I went up to mattress.
 
Like, that is the toughest job in Hollywood, having one line in a scene or you. It is the toughest job.
 
MIKE ELDER (56:20)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (56:21)
Because you just want to make it good.
 
MIKE ELDER (56:22)
Good for you for fucking supporting.
 
GLEN POWELL (56:25)
I know what it’s like.
 
MIKE ELDER (56:26)
Nobody on set while you were.
 
GLEN POWELL (56:28)
It’s.
 
MIKE ELDER (56:28)
I appreciate that.
 
GLEN POWELL (56:29)
I. Look, we’ve been there. We’ve. We’ve all been there. And it’s like, yeah, you and me, we’ve been there. No. Yes, we have.
 
It’s like, it sucks to be. To be the guy that comes in that is not part of the group, that’s not part of the ensemble that nobody’s really paying attention to.
 
They don’t really. You know, they’re not gonna remember your name. Like, you know that. Whatever. And it almost feels like when they have, like, their big character moment, the characters are always drift. The cameras are always drifting away from you to them, and you’re like, okay, like, this isn’t as big of a moment, like, is this line off camera? And, you know, they’re just trying to come in and kill it. Yeah, right.
 
And I always appreciate actors that just come in and work their ass off. They’re. You know that they’ve written pages of character research and stuff for the back. All their pebbles just to make. Yeah, just to make it great. And you know that there’s very little glory in that job, but they’re coming in and they’re gonna try to make it the best they can. And I always appreciate that as an actor, seeing somebody that’s like, put in the work and wants to be great.
 
Absolutely, you know.
 
MIKE ELDER (57:25)
Absolutely. So back to. Back to your early acting.
 
Did you get it? You got into SAG right away then, I presume.
 
GLEN POWELL (57:32)
Oh, no, actually. All right, so Texas is the right to work state, so you don’t need to be sag.
 
MIKE ELDER (57:37)
Okay.
 
GLEN POWELL (57:39)
So after. After Spy Kids, I was SAG eligible, Right.
 
For a while. But it wasn’t until I did the Great Debaters, that one that Denzel directed, that I had done enough projects outside of Austin that SAG basically said, you’re no longer not allowed to join. So they basically threatened me and said, like, we’re gonna shut down production if you don’t join. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:01)
Were you getting SAG rates on those films in Texas then? While.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:05)
Yeah, you get rates. Yeah, you get SAG rates, but because if the project is sag, they have to pay you sag.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:10)
Gotcha. That’s fascinating.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:12)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:12)
Okay, so then you. Did you have a.
 
What’s it called? Duty. Duty account.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:16)
A duty account. What’s that, what’s it called?
 
MIKE ELDER (58:19)
The count. Where the kids have. Have to put like 60% of their money.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:22)
Yeah, you’re like the Macaulay Cole kick. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:24)
What is it called? Tom Holland account.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:28)
I think Tom’s.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:30)
I can’t think of.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:31)
No. So. So I.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:32)
Did you have one of those?
 
GLEN POWELL (58:33)
Yes.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:34)
Oh, nice. Was that.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:35)
Yes.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:35)
Was that a nice little.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:36)
Oh, it’s not. I mean, look, I’m not making.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:40)
Yeah, but there had to be something.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:41)
In the strip club. 18. No, I.
 
You know, with acting, I actually, you don’t really make that, but I think people think you’re making more money than you are.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:53)
Like, I thought you were.
 
GLEN POWELL (58:55)
That’s so sweet of you. Yeah. There was nothing about me I don’t think I could have.
 
MIKE ELDER (58:59)
I’ve had some very successful child actors on here and, like, they bought a house with theirs when they turned 18 or whatever.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:03)
Yeah, but I was not a successful child actor. I would do like a one or two line thing. I mean, I’d done things right. But, like, nothing where you’re getting.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:11)
Right. You’re doing like two weeks or whatever. Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:13)
If I were on, like, your boy that’s on like Teen Wolf or whatever.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:16)
Your boy.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:16)
Your boy, Ryan Kelly.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:18)
Yeah, he did great.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:19)
Right. So you’re making banks on a show like that.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:22)
Like Coogan Account.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:23)
What?
 
MIKE ELDER (59:24)
Coogan Account.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:25)
That’s not a thing. Is that really a thing?
 
MIKE ELDER (59:26)
Yeah, that’s what it is.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:28)
I would pass on that Jeopardy. Category for sure.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:30)
The moment he said Ryan Kelly, it said Coogan Account.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:32)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:33)
It came back. Yeah, he. Yeah, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:35)
Something that you shout out in the middle of the night when you have night terrors.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:38)
Cool.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:38)
Get account. It’s like everybody’s like, what?
 
MIKE ELDER (59:41)
Yeah. And the difference being that he was doing commercials. So those residuals pile up.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:45)
Yeah. Probably didn’t have that Money’s real. I mean, those people make. Make money.
 
I mean, I. I was making Bare Minimum, you know, the one movie that I would do like a year. You’d make, like, if you work today, you make like 800 bucks.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:56)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:56)
You work a week, you make 2,000 or whatever.
 
MIKE ELDER (59:59)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (59:59)
So it’s not. You’re not. You’re not ever stacking. No, you’re stacking chips.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:00:04)
So when you turned 18, did you move right to LA or was the great debaters a little bit later?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:00:07)
I did a freshman. I did my freshman year at the University of Texas.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:00:10)
Oh, you did? Why’d you do that?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:00:12)
Because I didn’t really believe it was going to work out.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:00:14)
Oh, really?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:00:15)
Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of my buddies that had moved to, moved to la, attempted to do the acting thing over the course of, like, since I’d been, I’d been acting since I was like 10 years old. Right?
 
MIKE ELDER (1:00:25)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:00:26)
So they’d move. I had buddies that were like, well, I’m going to LA. And over the course of, basically from 10 to 18, I had so many of my buddies that had been like, that town is the worst.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:00:37)
Oh, my God.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:00:38)
Nothing happened. They moved back. They got like a guest star. Somebody touched them.
 
You’re just like, I’m out. I mean, like I said, was it cold case?
 
It’s cold case. Damn cold case. Never trust those five and unders. No, I, I, I, I feel like people just had doomsday stories. Doomsday. Bad experience after bad experience. It says, not worth it.
 
It’s never gonna happen. So I just never put my chips on, on, on that.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:01:06)
What was your intended major at Texas?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:01:07)
It was econ.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:01:08)
Oh, funny.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:01:09)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:01:09)
So macro or micro?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:01:11)
What is both? Different classes, but same major, but, but it was just like, yeah, just. It just never seemed like a viable profession to me, like a true career. I think I was like, all right, I’ll learn how to make money. And if I can act a little bit on the side, that’s great.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:01:28)
Yeah, I think that’s a common thing in the middle of the country. Like, nobody thinks art is like a violent. Like in my hometown, there was nothing art artistic.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:01:38)
The, the thing about it is the barriers to entry are changing.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:01:42)
Oh, absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:01:43)
I think that, I think that back in the day, there were very. There were the gatekeepers, you know, there were the casting directors, there were the agents, There was all those things. Now I feel like you have these really interesting people who are starting YouTube channels and Instagram, whatever, and it’s like you can amass a following and sort of put your talent out there and see how people react to it and sort of be a creative. And at least there’s not as many barriers to entry. I think, I think, I think you can, you could think your way into a career a little bit more. Yeah, but I think old, old school, it’s like the nepotism thing was way more of a, of a thing like you were either the son of a movie star or you just got really lucky.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:02:26)
Right. Yeah. So you’re at Texas, you booked the great debaters, and then that’s the impetus to move.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:02:31)
I, so when I did the Great debaters. I was 17 years old. Oh, that was high school. Okay, So I was still in high school. I did. I auditioned for the Great Debaters when I was a senior in high school.
 
They didn’t know I wasn’t 18. So that was an interesting scenario about missing school is I went to. This is a crazy scenario. I went to auditioned in Shreveport, Louisiana, for the casting director. Then I got a call back that said, denzel really, really enjoyed your tape or enjoyed your audition, and he’s gonna invite you to the table read. Oh, actually, no, I take that back.
 
Denzel was in the callback. I went back. I had to go all the way back to Shreveport for the callback. Geez. Met Denzel, who was so nice and so cool. And I leave that audition. I get a call from Denzel.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:03:21)
Oh, shit.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:03:21)
And Denzel basically tells me, hey, I believe in you. They don’t believe in you. And I was like, who’s they? And he’s like. He’s like, basically the producers. He’s like, I’m gonna invite you to the table read.
 
You’re gonna read your part. You’re the only person at the table read not cast. But he’s like, come in and kill it and prove him wrong.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:03:42)
Oh, geez, that’s high stress.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:03:44)
I was like, so I go back to Shreveport to do the table read, and everybody else is. You know, they’re like, oh, high five. And each other like, man, we’re all here. They’re so cool. They do, like, a speech, like, how awesome it is to be a part of this movie. Meanwhile, I’m just, like, sweating bullets. I have in front of me Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington, Oprah Winfrey.
 
It is, like, so stressful. And when it comes. And I thought, to look older is so dumb to look older.
 
And the character is from Harvard. He’s a Harvard debater. And it says in the movie he’s wearing a tuxedo. So I wore tuxedo to the table. So, yeah, if I didn’t, like, stick out like a sore thumb already, like, I wore a tuxedo to the table read. Everybody’s like, who is this guy? Right? So. And not only that, during my reading of my speeches, I stood up and I delivered them to Denzel and Oprah and Forrest, right? And I remember at the very end of my speech, he looks over to the producers and he gives, like, a thumbs up. And they gave a thumbs up.
 
And then he came over to me after. After the table read, and he said, said, hey.
 
He’s like, he’s like, you got the role, kid.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:04:51)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:04:52)
He’s like, you’re. He’s like, you’re shipping off to debate camp with me right now. So I literally flew down to Texas Southern University with he and the rest of the cast, the rest of the main four, and we went to and learned debate camp.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:05:05)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:05:05)
I got to learn how to debate in front of Denzel Washington.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:05:07)
Oh my gosh.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:05:08)
Yeah, that’s hilarious. So I’m always, I’ve always felt just truly indebted to Denzel because he did not have to go out of his way to obviously get me that role. He didn’t have to tell me, hey, I think you got the chops to make it in Hollywood. He didn’t have to, you know, connect me with his agent. He didn’t have to do any of that stuff. And he’s been nothing but a stand up gentleman.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:05:32)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:05:32)
Since I moved out.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:05:33)
What a fun story. Yeah, that’s cool.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:05:34)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:05:35)
So what was the impetus to move to LA then? Or would drop out of?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:05:39)
So, so basically what happened was I did the movie. I get a call from Ed Lamato, who is Denzel’s agent, and he said, are you coming out for the premiere? And I said, yeah. He said, I think we should sit down when you come out. So I sat down with him when I came out there and he said, what’s your plan? I was like, he’s like, you are you plan on moving out here? I was like, no.
 
And he’s like, I think you should give it a shot. You know, Denzel, not Denzel. And I talked and you know, he thinks, he thinks you can actually make this happen. I think you can make this happen. And I wasn’t really planning on doing it. Then we had a follow up meeting. Spring break, I flew out to LA and met with some folks and I decided to leave the University of Texas after freshman year.
 
So I left. I arrived June 3, 2008.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:06:25)
That’s awesome. And then how did you meet your current agent that you’ve connected with?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:06:29)
Current agent. This is the crazy part is so I was at William Morris. When I was at William Morris, he was actually on the desk next to Ed. Okay, right. So as an agent or like an assistant?
 
MIKE ELDER (1:06:40)
Assistant. Okay.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:06:41)
So he was an assistant at that company. And when I would come by and say all the assistants, I didn’t have any friends. So I’m just like, I’m literally like hanging, like being like, hey, do you guys want to hang Out. Yeah, I’m coming by saying hi to people. And so I’d go out with the assistance and. And he was one of the assistants that was like, next to all the guys. I never really kicked it with him, but, like, he was friends with all those guys.
 
And he told Melissa, who is my agent’s assistant, said, you know, I think someday I’m gonna represent that guy. I have this weird feeling. And then, you know, years later, that’s it. It all came.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:07:13)
Agents are, like, dating.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:07:14)
It’s. It’s a. It’s a.
 
You know, it really is. It’s like a. It’s a really weird thing. It’s like, because actors, their value goes up and down.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:07:22)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:07:23)
And like, agents value goes up and down with that person.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:07:26)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:07:26)
There’s a lot of insecurity that goes along. Oh, absolutely. There’s a lot of having a fascination and an unbridled belief, and it is very similar to dating. And again, like, we talked about the word no. Like being a little bit. Being a little bit unavailable. You know, hounding an agent and saying, like, please represent me.
 
It’s like, not sexy. And saying that to a girl is not like, please date me. They’re like, geez, you need to leave me alone, sir.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:07:49)
Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:07:51)
Yeah. Please, please just date me. Yeah, you gotta. You gotta be. You don’t have to be Robert Pattinson mysterious, but you just got to be a little bit more mysterious.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:08:02)
I couldn’t pull off broody. I’m too goofy. All right, we got to get to the set. Questions quick.
 
The first one. Describe what you do in three words. You get three words to explain what you do.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:08:13)
Just goof off.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:08:14)
Oh, I like that. Now you can elaborate. How do you just goof off?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:08:17)
I think. I think the best things that every. And I feel like my best performances. I think the. The more I talk to actors that I really respect, the more you can take yourself, the more. The less seriously you can take yourself, the better off you’re going to be. I think. I think it is the silliest job in the entire world, and people build stakes around that.
 
But if you can truly just goof off, I think you’re going to find yourself in really enviable territory.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:08:45)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:08:46)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:08:46)
Why show business? Why have you continued to pursue show business?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:08:51)
I find that show business, this, this. This art form, I. I find that for me, it’s the reason that I find a fascination with so many different things. I think it highlights really cool personality traits. I think it, It, it it can change your perspective on a lot of things. I think, for me, like, some of the things I get to develop, I get to. I get to tell the stories of real heroes that I think deserve to be highlighted hidden figures.
 
I feel like we got the chance to do that.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:09:20)
Oh, absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:09:20)
You know, there’s the. You know, the story of these three African American women who really changed the tide of American history, and no one knew their story. And I feel like getting to do that was such an honor, and I think sort of just epitomized the best of what this business can be, you know, and telling more stories like that, I think that’s. That’s. It’s a medium that, you know, can be seen by millions and millions of people. It’s pretty cool.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:09:42)
Why Hollywood?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:09:43)
Why Hollywood? Well, this is where the entertainment business is.
 
I think that. And it’s also, for me, even as I hopefully move up the food chain a little bit, I think Hollywood’s gonna continue be part of my life always, because this is also the epicenter of where things get done. I’ve never considered myself just an actor. I’ve always tried to not have my hand out, like, looking for a job, but provide a great story, like, write a great screenplay or bring, you know, get the option to a book and, like, bring that and have at least assets that I can. I can work. And I think, you know, when this is the town where everything is happening, this is the place where I don’t think it’s enough just to be the talking prop on screen.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:10:28)
Absolutely. You know, favorite part of la.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:10:30)
Favorite part of la.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:10:32)
Ooh.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:10:35)
I love the vibe of Venice. Oh, I really do love Venice. I don’t live in Venice, but I love everything that Venice is. I think it’s. It’s a lot of people that love to have a good time.
 
They love to relax. I think the food’s great over there. I think I love a good game of beach volleyball.
 
People just seem happy in Venice, you know?
 
MIKE ELDER (1:10:58)
Yeah, they do.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:10:59)
Yeah. It’s just. It’s a good reason. It’s a good existence. You know, maybe I’ll move over there somewhere, but right now I have a. I just have a great existence in.
 
In the hills. Oh, nice, nice.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:11:13)
What content are you consuming? What? Tv, books, podcasts, movies? What are you taking in right now? What’s on your dvr? What’s in your podcast app?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:11:20)
You know, what I try to do is the stuff that I’m sort of developing on the producing side and stuff that I’m kind of gearing up for as an actor. What I’m doing is I’m just binging on anything that sort of tangentially related to, to that. Like I watched first man last night for the technical aspect of how they pulled off some of the, the flight sequences. I do love stand up. Like, I watched Bill Burr’s thing last night. I watched Chappelle’s thing the other night.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:11:50)
You go to much live shows?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:11:52)
I do. I live really close to UCB Franklin. So yeah, I go to UCB all the time. I think that is, that’s a great place just to honestly get inspired. You know, there’s a lot of people that are just so much more talented than you are, that are just like so fun.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:06)
Very pointed at me.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:08)
You are more talented than I am. No, but it’s just, it’s just I do find that they’re, they’re, they’re way more like they’re these incredible talents and I think it’s so good to laugh. And just watching how again what we’re talking about, which is like literally just being like sort of goofy and like literally letting it go and that’s what they’re doing is like the art of storytelling for them is obviously they’re, you know, with the Herald, they’re gonna have to sort of like have a little bit of left brain. But for them, they are letting it go in there.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:35)
Awesome.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:36)
And it’s so fun to watch and it just shows you how easy the job really is, not how easy the job really is. But like you, you can overthink this thing.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:46)
Absolutely. I love that you can see like established comedy titans just mess, goof around for an hour.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:51)
It’s the best for $5.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:52)
That’s super cool.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:53)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:53)
Did you ever take improv classes? Oh, you should.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:56)
I really wish I did.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:57)
You still can.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:12:58)
Like, you’re shit at improv.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:12:59)
Now you should. No, now you can.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:13:01)
No, no, no, no.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:13:01)
I, you can finally afford UCB classes.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:13:03)
I feel, by the way, it’s not cheap.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:13:05)
It’s up to 500. When I was here, when I first moved here was like 350.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:13:08)
Yeah. Acting classes.
 
That’s the kind of the weird, that’s the weird paradox that I wish would sort of change, but I understand why it is the way it is. But to have a job, a full time job to like make ends meet and take acting classes, like Leslie Kahns, I think she’s so freaking talented. But I do know that like it’s very expensive. It’s, it’s pretty cost prohibitive for a lot of people.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:13:29)
John has been. John’s really good at keeping it cheaper.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:13:32)
Okay. Okay.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:13:33)
I think it’s like 300amonth, which seems much more reasonable.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:13:35)
Yeah, definitely. That’s. It’s just those classes are so important, but the people that can afford them. You’re just like, I always wondered like somebody’s a trust fund kid, like how people just don’t have jobs and, and make ends meet out here. It’s really, it’s really tough.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:13:52)
Yeah. I think everyone does have jobs. They just don’t want to advertise it because there’s a weird stigma about it. It’s like the, Remember the Cosby guy? Like, what was that nine months ago? He was checking, he was bringing groceries and he got put on social media. Like the Cosby guys ring it.
 
And then it was like this huge thing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:14:07)
It’s like, then he got jobs after that. Like, you know what? I honestly, I, I was so happy for him after that because I go, there shouldn’t be a stigma attached to working hard. Yeah, no, hard, like I, I was like so proud of how people reacted that moment because to, to have a job out in this town to, to work at, you know, Cheesecake Factory and then go prep for your audition. It’s brutal. You know, it very, you know, and then attempt to have like some sort of relationship. That usually doesn’t happen.
 
I, I attempted. I was very quickly gave up on having any sort of relationship when I moved out here because number. You just can’t afford it.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:14:43)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:14:44)
And the other thing is that there is no time.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:14:46)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:14:46)
If you’re truly going to give this profession a, a, a real shot, like a girl is going to, you know, have the bad end of that deal.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:14:56)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:14:56)
You know, true passion, you know, a la whiplash, you know, is going to like, you know, is going to. There, There is a certain amount of fine time, finite time, and there’s a certain amount of bandwidth. You have to actually make this work.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:08)
Yeah. Who would you work with if you could work with anybody, Director wise? Sure.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:13)
Edgar Wright.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:14)
Oh, that’d be fun.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:15)
Yeah. Yeah. I think.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:17)
You ever reached out to him?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:19)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:20)
Oh.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:21)
I always ask that follow up and.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:22)
Everyone’S like, no, I never.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:24)
I’m actually, I’m actually pretty. One of the things I’m getting better at is that. And I think maybe I’m getting a little more brave because I realize I’m not going to get shut down as quickly. But you know, Edgar Wright is one of those guys that I find that really knows how to move the camera. Comedically knows how to tell a story within a frame and knows how to really coach actors into really unbelievable performances.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:15:46)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:15:46)
Wes Anderson’s another guy. He’s a Texas guy that I think is. You know, he’s a true storyteller. He doesn’t just sit there and I say, I’m just going to cover this thing.
 
He really has a. A deft hand on why he’s covering things the way they are. As an actor, there’s no safer place to be. Absolutely.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:16:02)
Did Edgar receive your outreach well?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:16:05)
Yeah, I think I’m gonna. Yeah. Next time. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:16:09)
Hell, yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:16:09)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:16:10)
I learned that from doing this podcast. It’s like, there’s no harm in reaching out. The worst thing they’re gonna do is not reply. It’s not like they’re gonna say, Glen, this is not right. Never reach out to me again.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:16:19)
Totally. It’s like, you know, I think everybody. Okay. It’s hard. Any part of this business is really hard to succeed in. And I think as a director, when you succeed and someone says, hey, I’m a true fan of yours, I would love to meet. Even if you don’t have time, it’s a nice thing to hear.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:16:34)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:16:35)
So for. For me, it’s like, I.
 
You shouldn’t be. I. I do also understand that, like, when somebody’s like, hey, let’s grab coffee. I’m like, oh, man. Like, I’m so, like, there is, like, a certain amount of anxiety where you’re like, can we just, like. I don’t know, like, just catch up real quick? I don’t know, like, on the FaceTime or something.
 
I’m, like, just running around like crazy. So I do understand the anxiety when you’re trying to do a ton of things and you really have no time.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:16:59)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:16:59)
What that feels like. But I also know that, you know, there is no harm in telling somebody you’re a fan.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:17:03)
Yeah. Favorite thing you’ve done in your career is what?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:17:07)
Favorite what movie?
 
MIKE ELDER (1:17:08)
Whatever you want.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:17:10)
You know, what movie that I really learned a ton on was Everybody wants Them. The Linklater movie that will go down as maybe my favorite movie experience ever. Because the collaboration that Richard Linklater, you know, sort of allowed everybody, we just got to kick it as ranch before the movie started. Like, three weeks before the movie started.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:17:29)
Oh, that’s right.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:17:31)
Lived at his ranch in Bastrop, Texas, and we got to riff, and we got to tear apart the script. We got to party at night, play games, play baseball, get to know all the guys. And some of those guys are My best friends today. And I think that’s, like, that moment sort of represented the. What I felt like the movie business could be.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:17:49)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:17:49)
Which is a true troupe. Everybody’s collaboration. Yeah. Everybody’s in it for the same, you know, goal of just making something great. And everybody was lifting each other up. And it doesn’t always work that way. I’ve had.
 
I’ve had the benefit of, like, getting to, you know, work with a lot of great people, but that will go down as, I think, one that will never be beat.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:18:09)
That’s awesome. What’s the least favorite thing you’ve done in your career?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:18:12)
My least favorite thing I’ve done in my career.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:18:15)
You don’t have to name it if you don’t want to, but just the reason why it didn’t go so well.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:18:19)
You know, I think. I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, there’s a leap of faith when you. When you do an acting. Acting job where you don’t feel appreciated. And sometimes, like, you can even lose money on acting jobs. You know, like, people are like, hey, like, you can have the role, but you’re gonna have to put yourself up. Or, like, you have to pay your own meals or, you know, I’ve had a couple of those where you’ve sort of doubled down on something and it’s sort of like it’s.
 
Financially, you lose out, you don’t feel like, respected, you sort of don’t believe in the project, and you’re sort of, you know, out on your own. And it’s always.
 
It’s always a problem. Like, there was one. There was one movie. There was actually a very fun experience. But I remember the director, when we were sitting down, he goes, it was kind of like a. Not a great horror movie. And. But he.
 
I read the script, and I was like, I don’t. I don’t think this script’s good. I didn’t tell him this, but I was like. To my agent, I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know what this thing. He’s like, no, it’s like, I think it’s actually going to be decent. Right? Like, there’s a lot of good producers on it.
 
This guy’s pretty promising. And I was like, okay.
 
And he’s like. I was like, so, what’s sort of the inspiration? He goes, this movie’s not a horror movie. It’s the Deer Hunter. And I was like, oh, maybe it is the Deer Hunter. Then I shot it. I was like, no, it’s a bad horror. Movie. This is not the Deer Hunter, but.
 
But, you know, what’s funny is, is, you know, again, that was a. Actually a really fun experience.
 
So I actually never regret a great experience. And, you know, because you never know what’s gonna end up on the cutting room floor, and you never know what the movie’s gonna be. So you can’t. You can’t. You can only have fun with the process.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:19:56)
Right.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:19:56)
You can’t. One of the greatest. I have this thing on my wall in my. In my house. It’s a rit. It’s a letter from Richard Linklater.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:20:03)
Oh.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:20:03)
And Rick wrote all of us a letter before the movie Everybody Wants Them came out. And basically what he talked about was locking in the experience of making the movie.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:20:13)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:20:14)
Locking in the relationships that you had, the things that you learned, the memories, the things that made you laugh, the things that made you cry, and just what it was like to be at summer camp and hold that tight, because once the critics get to it, once the publicity gets to it, once critics highlight one actor above another and once the box office is stated, there’s. You feel differently in hindsight about the magic that occurred there.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:20:39)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:20:39)
And people tend to have a different colored glass that they highlight an experience with based on how successful it is. And I thought I found so magical about what Richard does and did was he just said, this is what the business can be if you don’t let them get to you.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:20:55)
That’s amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:20:56)
You know, that’s so cool that he wrote.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:20:58)
Hand wrote it for everybody.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:20:59)
Yeah. It’s pretty cool typed up and stuff.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:01)
It’s really amazing.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:21:02)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:03)
Super cool. Last question. How do you define success? What does success mean to you?
 
GLEN POWELL (1:21:07)
I think success is just being fulfilled, you know, creatively, emotionally, spiritually. You know, I find that I feel very fulfilled because I’m getting to do the job that I’ve dreamed about doing my entire life. I have a family. That’s incredible.
 
That’s very supportive. I got a great group of friends around me and, you know, again, I try to be a good person to people around me. And I’m. I couldn’t be happier because I’m hopefully advancing on all those fronts, you know, and I feel.
 
But that’s what I think this. This business is and can be for people is as long as you’re not in it for the wrong reasons, I think you can be fulfilled.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:45)
Absolutely.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:21:46)
You know, it was amazing. Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:47)
You made it to the end.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:21:48)
Yeah. I mean, this was awesome.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:49)
Yeah. What do you got to promote? You got anything, obviously, there’s a movie called Top Gun.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:21:53)
Got Top Gun Maverick comes out June 2020.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:21:56)
June 2020. With a.
 
With Monica Barbaro, who do you know? Oh, that’s the podcast.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:01)
Yes, of course.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:02)
Yeah.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:02)
Monica is incredible. And she’s.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:04)
She’s bad. She looked badass in the trailer.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:06)
She’s badass. She’s actually.
 
Of all the. We did a lot of practical flying, and she’s the most badass of everybody.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:10)
Oh, was that a little teaser? Was that little.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:13)
Not. Not yet.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:14)
Oh, now I can’t pose this now.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:17)
Monica, just know that. That Monica, you know, as far as female aviators go, she’s representing all of female aviators in the Fuck.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:25)
Yeah, she is.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:25)
And I think that what she does in this movie is very incredible and does justice to all those brave women.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:31)
Fucking dope.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:31)
Yeah.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:32)
And then your social media is just Glen Powell.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:34)
Yep. At Glen Powell.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:35)
Awesome. Glen, thank you so much for doing the podcast. You are wonderful. I wish you nothing but continued success.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:39)
I appreciate it.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:39)
You get to choose how we end this now. Whatever you want us to do to finish it, we can do it.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:43)
I’ll finish this beer.
 
MIKE ELDER (1:22:44)
Smash that beer. Cram it down your word hole.
 
GLEN POWELL (1:22:48)
There we go. Anyway, this is such a bro conversation. Jeez.