Long before Glen Powell starred in the hit blockbuster “Twisters,” he played one of the silliest characters in an already-silly Ryan Murphy show: “Scream Queens.” It was a horror series in the sense that a lot of characters died, but it was a comedy series in the sense that most of them had it coming. The main characters are a bunch of shallow sorority girls led by Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), whose love interest is Powell’s frat boy character Chad Radwell.
At first, Chad seems like the standard frat guy jerk you’ll often see in college comedies, and that’s exactly what he is throughout the series: he’s shallow, dumb, vain, rich, and these aspects of him never really change. Still, Chad became a fan favorite through the sheer force of Glen Powell’s charisma, to the point where fans were rooting for his survival far more than they ever rooted for Chanel’s. Chad might be a terrible person, but he was also a funny, terrible person, and that makes up for a lot.
Chad’s most interesting trait, the one thing in the script that sets him apart from other frat guy archetypes, is his obsession with death. In an interview for his 2023 movie “Hit Man,” Powell described Chad as someone with a strong capacity to become a hitman one day. “He’s kind of like a douchebag who’s, you know, entitled and obsessed with death,” Powell said. “That kind of feels like the perfect recipe for a hitman.”
This quality led to many fans suspecting Chad of being the killer in season 1, although they certainly hoped this handsome diva would be proven innocent in the end. Today, Chad Radwell is widely considered to be one of Powell’s best roles.
Caution: Spoilers below for “Scream Queens” season 2.
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Glen Powell still looks back fondly on Chad
Scream Queens, Chad wearing sunglasses while golfing – Fox
When promoting his 2023 movie “Anyone But You,” Powell revealed, “I’d love to revisit Chad.” Later, in an October 2025 interview with People Magazine, Powell described playing Chad as a special moment in his early career:
“That character, that Chad, was a really special time in my life where I didn’t really have a lot going on. … It was an amazing moment where I got to be a part of this really stellar cast of all these exciting people … I was the unknown person coming into this cast with Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Roberts and Lea Michele and Keke Palmer.”
The fact that almost everyone in the cast was more famous than Powell made his character’s standout status all the more impressive. In fact, Powell’s charming performance was so compelling that a lot of viewers stopped watching altogether after he was violently written out of season 2. “RIP Chad Radwell, you will forever be missed,” reads a popular post on the “Scream Queens” fandom site; the post is still one of the top results that show up when you Google Chad’s season 2 fate. The fan wrote to Chad, “Thank you for being the hottest guy on ‘Scream Queens’ and for providing us all with endless laughs and plenty of naked shower scenes. You deserved better.”
Although the show had already been on a clear ratings decline by that point, an estimated 160,000 viewers didn’t return the week after Chad’s untimely demise. Even the show’s finale seven weeks later failed to match the viewership of Chad’s final episode. Powell may have started off playing the main character’s conceited boyfriend, but by season 2, it seemed like he was the only thing keeping the show afloat.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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