There’s that famous line in the first episode of The Sopranos, where Tony laments his place in the timeline. “Lately I’m getting the feeling,” he confides, “that I came in at the end. The best is over.” I know Tony was talking about the mindful joy of building an incredibly violent organised crime enterprise from the ground up – but lately I’ve been thinking about his words every time I watch Glen Powell giving it 200% as a movie star. Glen Powell is Hollywood’s hottest mid-level actor; but because of the harsh realities of modern movie stardom, a lot of people still don’t know who he is. You get the feeling he’s coming in at the end of something.
Yet barely a week goes by where I don’t hear of an uncast starring role – the bodyguard in the Bodyguard remake, the cybercriminal in the Matrix remake, the hot soldier in the Starship Troopers remake – and not think: tell you what, Glen Powell could do that for you. Glen Powell could deliver that. He’s not going to turn up late to set, he’s going to work harder than anyone else, he’s going to promote the arse out of it – and if all that can open a wormhole back to the era when literally everyone knew who movie stars were, then Glen Powell is sure as hell going to take the opportunity. He is, quite simply, a one-man cargo cult for Hollywood’s vanished primacy.
