Affable, charming, handsome man Glen Powell has made a name for himself in recent years, mostly by playing affable, charming, handsome leading men. For the star of Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man” remake, he owes much of that success to a Marvel Cinematic Universe veteran and his similarly charming on-screen performance. Speaking to GQ, Powell credited Chris Pratt’s portrayal of Star-Lord in 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” as prompting a shift in Hollywood that allowed for more upbeat, positive leading men to come to the fore. “There’s no doubt it really helped — not being brooding or dark,” reasoned Powell, who otherwise recalled an era where the industry was dominated by brooding sad boys.
In Powell’s view, it was Robert Pattinson who kicked off the golden era of lugubrious loners in Hollywood in the 2000s, with the “Twisters” star describing Pattinson as “the prototype.” That was a bad time for Powell, who made his acting debut alongside Selena Gomez in the truly ridiculous “Spy Kids 3: Game Over” back in 2003. For a long time, the actor told GQ, he and his all-American good looks rarely got calls from casting producers for anything other than bit parts. As Powell put it, he was mostly cast as “the jock or the fraternity guy or the very vanilla next-door-neighbor.” But when Pratt danced his way onto screens as Peter Quill/Star-Lord in James Gunn’s inaugural Marvel movie, things started to change.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” was also a notable change of pace for the MCU at the time. The franchise always had its famous (now infamous?) sense of humor, but Pratt was a new kind of protagonist. Sillier than Robert Downey Jr.’s wry take on Tony Stark and representing something much more playful and lighthearted than what audiences had seen in then-recent Marvel offerings such as “Thor: The Dark World” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Pratt’s Star-Lord was just a fun-loving guy who found himself caught up in a story much bigger than he ever seemed prepared for. He was relatable and, as Powell described him, “buoyant.” More importantly, he made it okay for leading men to be massive dorks.
Read more: The Greatest Character Actors Of All Time, Ranked
Chris Pratt made it okay to be a huge dork
Chris Pratt as Star-Lord is seen in closeup standing on his ship in Guardians of the Galaxy – Marvel Studios
In his GQ interview, Glen Powell compared himself to arguably the most prominent example of the age of brooding loners in superhero movies: Christian Bale’s Batman. “I’m not Christian Bale,” he said. “Christian Bale has a gravitas and a weight, and Pattinson had his thing.” But as the actor went on to explain, when Chris Pratt debuted in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” things changed. “He was doing things that were a little more silly and buoyant,” said the star of the frisky, fun rom-com “Anyone But You,” the film that transformed him from a relative unknown to the internet’s boyfriend. “That’s where I feel most at home,” he continued, “and that’s where I feel like I had a gear that is a necessary flavor in terms of Hollywood, and not a gear that a lot of guys can play.”
It seems his “Running Man” director Edgar Wright agrees. The filmmaker told GQ he thought of Powell as “a conduit for the audience because he’s someone you can identify with or relate to.” That’s certainly true in terms of the man’s on-screen persona. It’s also part of the reason Richard Linklater’s light 2024 comedy “Hit Man” worked, as Powell’s down-to-earth persona clashes with the image of a ruthless killer to hilarious effect. But he’s also just an unreasonably handsome man, which isn’t the most “everyman” attribute you can imagine. Still, it worked for Pratt, and it’s clearly working for the star of “The Running Man,” whose career is on the up and up at this moment. Even if James Bond isn’t in Powell’s future, he’s still set to appear in J. J. Abrams’ upcoming fantasy movie “Ghostwriter” and will also star alongside Margaret Qualley and Ed Harris in the thriller “Huntington.”
Meanwhile, though Pratt remains one of the biggest stars of the last few years, he doesn’t necessarily always get the credit he deserves for changing the way Hollywood thinks about leading men. Sure, there’s always been room for handsome charmers, but the actor brought an undeniably endearing silliness to Star-Lord that certainly wasn’t the fashion at the time.He might even deserve forgiveness for appearing in Netflix’s awful “The Electric State.”
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