Glen Powell Is the Rom-Com Stud We Deserve

When Glen Powell signed on to star in Anyone But You alongside Sydney Sweeney, he was more than ready to fulfill the classic romantic-comedy tropes: a few steamy love scenes, some silly and borderline cheesy dialogue, and, of course, plenty of shirtless beach shots. So imagine his surprise when he also found himself dangling from a broken-down helicopter flying above shark-infested waters while filming in Australia’s Sydney Harbour. “The helicopter had serious mechanical issues, and we had to emergency land in a field nearby. If we crashed, we would’ve been history. There would’ve been nothing left of us,” Powell tells Rolling Stone. “I didn’t survive Top Gun: Maverick only to die in a rom-com.”

Luckily, they survived the helicopter ride, and the rest of filming in Australia was pretty much picturesque. “It was like a nonstop vacation,” Powell says, crediting Sweeney, who also serves as an executive producer on the film, with creating a family-like environment on set.

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In the film, they play two twenty-somethings who are at odds after their first (and only) date goes south. When they later find themselves attending the same destination wedding in Australia, they decide to fake a relationship with one another in order to get their well-intentioned loved ones off their backs. Their undeniable chemistry does the trick, and they successfully bamboozle their friends and families into thinking they are in love.

That same chemistry, however, also found Powell and Sweeney the subject of real-life romance rumors after photos of the pair filming went viral. The two have maintained that they are not an item (Sweeney is engaged to producer and restaurateur Jonathan Davino, and Powell is single), but it hasn’t stopped the internet from doing what it does best: taking a story and running with it. “I had never dealt with anything like this before. This life and this job have been very simple up until this point,” Powell says. “But until you’ve been on the other side of it, no one can really describe to you how it feels.”

Ahead of the film’s December 22nd release, Rolling Stone spoke with the ever-charming Powell about everything from returning to his rom-com roots and the best advice he’s gotten from Tom Cruise to learning to shut out the noise and just how much he’s craving some tequila and ribs after all his shirtless scenes.

How did you get involved in Anyone But You?
I went to the MTV Movie Awards the year Top Gun came out and presented Sydney with the award for Best Fight for Euphoria. We literally didn’t even talk. I just handed her the popcorn, let her do her speech, and then walked off-stage with her. A few months later, I got a call saying, “Hey, Sydney is putting together this rom-com. Would you want to Zoom with her about it?” So Sydney and I Zoomed, and we got along great. It was very clear to me right off the bat that Sydney is a boss. Once we got [director] Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends with Benefits) to sign on, the three of us took the film out to all the different studios, and surprisingly, it ended up becoming this major bidding war in a very exciting way. Sony came on and said, “We want to make this a big theatrical event,” so then it was just up to the three of us and writer Ilana Wolpert, who is fantastic, to really transform the script to a place that necessitated people leaving their homes and going to the theater.

You became a rom-com favorite after the 2018 Netflix film Set It Up, which earned a cult-like following. How does working on this film compare to that experience?
We made Set It Up for not much money. Netflix really didn’t pay attention to it when we were making it. We kind of made it in private. Whenever it came out, it just did gangbusters on the platform, and everybody was like, “Hey, this movie’s way better than it has any business being.” Set It Up changed my life in a lot of ways. The difference is that I felt no pressure making Set It Up. It felt like we were just making a movie with a bunch of our buddies. Anyone But You was different because the studio was investing in a theatrical thing, so the bar for success or failure was different.

Also, we were building the parachute on the way down with Anyone But You because we were changing things on the fly — it was originally in Italy, and we changed it to Australia. Ensemble movies, so few of them work for a reason. It’s pretty hard to do. I wouldn’t say it was more stressful, but I definitely felt the pressure.

Filming on the beaches of Australia had to help relieve some of that feeling, though. Did the cast get to do any exploring?
One thing that I’ll say for Sydney is she is such an activities person, and extremely type A and organized. I’m an adventure guy, but I’m not type A, so I’m always down for the cause. But Sydney, as soon as we were like, “Hey, let’s go do something this weekend,” she would put together a whole itinerary, and she’d be like, “We’re going here, we’re going here, we’re going here.” So this cast really just got along like a house on fire. Everybody just loved each other. Honestly, I attribute the chemistry of this cast to Sydney because she really went out of her way to make it an experience on and off set.

You have a very famous shirtless scene in Top Gun when you’re playing football, and in this movie, you have several shirtless workout scenes on the beach. Is it now written into your contract that you must have a shirtless beach scene in every movie going forward?
No, absolutely not. From here on out, I will have something that says, “Please, no shirtless beach scene.” Look, I’m a corn-fed Texas boy. I have to actually work for this shit. I’m always down to take my shirt off, but to take your shirt off every day, you’re like, “When do I get to just eat ribs and tequila?” Yeah, it’s not fun. So, anyway, I’m glad we got it done. We maxed out our nudity rider on this one. Took it all off. Gave the audience every dollar.

Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder spoofed the intro you filmed with Sweeney for the trailer. How did it feel to be trolled by them in such an epically hilarious way?
It’s so hard to get people to pay attention to anything. So Emma and Nathan did us the greatest gift. I literally couldn’t believe it. When that thing showed up, I was like, “Oh my God, thank you so much. You guys are the best.” So to be trolled by those two is like a dream come true. A real honor. And you know what? When moments like that happen, that is where I go, “Oh, the internet’s so fun.” The internet can be such a terrible, negative, mean place, and then when it’s those sorts of moments, I’m like, “Oh, this is a blast.”

Speaking of the internet, you and Sweeney became the subject of some rabid tabloid fodder. Was that hard to deal with while trying to finish and promote the movie?
When that all first happened, it did bother me because I had never dealt with anything like this before. I’m a very private person to anybody that knows me. I really love my privacy. Now that I’ve been on the other side of it, I have a better sense of just not giving a shit. Right before Top Gun came out, Tom Cruise gave me some advice: “When things pop off, things are going to get crazy. You will not change at all. You will be the same person. Things around you will get very, very loud and chaotic. It is up to you to determine how loud that volume goes. You can turn it up, and you can turn it down. But it’s all just noise.”

At the end of the day, the news cycle will spin around to something else. It’s been a year of experiencing a lot of new things, but I will say I feel more prepared for the future on the other side of this because, at the end of the day, it’s all an education, and it’s all just a new, fun phase of life.

Aside from Anyone But You, you’re also reuniting with Richard Linklater, who you worked with on Everybody Wants Some!!, for the upcoming film Hit Man, which you co-wrote together. What was it like getting to work with him again?
This was a Covid baby of ours, and it wasn’t like we set out to make a movie. But any conversation with Richard Linklater is going to lead to something profound, I’ve found. I sent him an article from Texas Monthly about this guy who works for the New Orleans Police Department as basically an actor setting up people on sting operations in murder-for-hire cases. Rick and I were talking about it, and we found an element of it that we thought was worth exploring. It became a really great character piece and an exploration of identity and passion, and it just became really fun. And this movie, it’s like his brain and my brain completely melded together. I think it utilizes what makes him special as a director to its fullest. So I really am excited for people to see it. It’s awesome.

We recently talked to your Everybody Wants Some!! costar Wyatt Rusell who said the cast still has a group chat going where they troll you over your shirtless photos.
Pretty constantly, yeah. I think right now, the actual logo of the Cherokee group text is a picture of my butt for Men’s Health. Look, we all give each other shit. But I’ve definitely given them more ammo than, I think, most of the other guys in the group. I’m definitely taking more hits than anybody else in that group thread, for sure. That’s why I can’t be shirtless in another film for a while. The group thread is finally getting to me.

Between Set It Up, Top Gun, Anyone But You, and the year of films you have coming up, your star power is only ramping up. Have you felt a shift in your life?
I’ve always believed you should just keep living your life, so I’ve never really noticed it. I think this is the first year that I’ve felt a difference in the type of people who are fans, even just for my family. I’m very close to my family. I keep my family very close, and I tend to put my family out front. I’ve realized not everyone is a good type of fan, and not everyone has your best interest in mind. It’s just made me a little bit more aware of protecting the people around me that I love.

But my favorite thing that’s happening now, because I think I’ve played in so many different boxes and genres, is I can tell when someone walks up to me what role they probably recognize me from based on their energy and their age. It’s very fun. My favorite, though, and one that throws me off constantly, is when I’m walking by a construction site, and a guy’s like, “Hey, dude, you mind if I ask you a question?” I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be Top Gun.’ He’s like, ‘Are you in Scream Queens?'” It’s hilarious. Also, the number of professional athletes, the biggest, most terrifying men you’ve ever seen in your whole life, are all Scream Queens fans. It surprises me every time.

Last question: In Anyone But You, you have what’s called a “serenity song.” Without giving the song in the movie away, what is your real-life “serenity song?”
Easy: Enrique Iglesias, “Hero.”

I haven’t thought about that song in forever.
Well, I think about it every morning.

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