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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<\/a>, he owes much of that success to a Marvel Cinematic Universe veteran and his similarly charming on-screen performance. Speaking to GQ<\/a>, 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 \u2014 not being brooding or dark,” reasoned Powell, who otherwise recalled an era where the industry was dominated by brooding sad boys.<\/p>\n 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”<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n