Glen Powell reflected on stepping into full-blown action-hero territory with advice from Arnold Schwarzenegger himself.
“It was funny talking with Schwarzenegger the other day,” Powell told People magazine at the premiere of his upcoming film “The Running Man.” According to Powell, Schwarzenegger “saw the movie” and “lost his mind for it.”
“He was so excited, but he told me, he said… And every single one of my buddies who have starred in action movies told [me] this,” Powell recalled. “They were saying, ‘I don’t think you realize going and being out in front of an action movie where’ — again, in this movie, the entire world is hunting this one guy — I would tell them the premise. They’re like, ‘Oh, that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be something. That’s gonna be intense.’ And it’s true.”
“To do it right, to do one of these movies right, and I really am so proud of what we did in this movie… It’s very, it’s very physical. It’s very emotional, it’s all those things,” Powell said.
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Schwarzenegger starred in the original 1987 “Running Man” film directed by Paul Michael Glaser. The film focused mainly on the core premise of Stephen King’s dystopian novel of the same name.
The 78-year-old action star gave Powell his “full blessing” to shoot the remake of the original movie, which will align more with the book.
“Arnold gave us his blessing,” Powell previously told People magazine. “[His son] Patrick Schwarzenegger is a great friend of mine, and I asked Patrick if I could talk to Arnold and I hadn’t seen Arnold since we shot ‘Expendables’ in Bulgaria.”
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Powell shot “Expendables 3” with action greats such as Dolph Lundgren, Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas and more in 2013.
The actor recalled the advice Stallone gave him while filming the action movie during a recent episode of “Hot Ones.”
“He gave me this advice one time,” Powell began. “He said, ‘At the end of every day, you win or you lose.’ And I was like, that is a hardcore way of viewing every day.”
“But he’s a guy that just… he’s so headstrong,” he continued. “And I remember when I was in the gym, you know, just like working my a– off, but like I never take my shirt off in this movie. You know, I’m wearing like long sleeves. He’s like, ‘You’re doing it all wrong.'”
Powell added: “He goes, ‘It’s the traps and the forearms, the cinema muscles.’ It’s really true. It’s like you’re not taking your shirt off. He’s like, ‘Just focus on the traps and the forearms. Just bulk those puppies out, stop wasting your time. Go have fun.”
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Powell also got advice from “Top Gun: Maverick” co-star Tom Cruise on how to survive while filming your own stunts.
“I had to abseil down eight stories of a building in freezing conditions half-naked and wearing a harness which cinched me – believe me nothing looked good,” Powell said while describing one particularly tricky stunt during an appearance on “The Graham Norton Show.”
“The crazy thing I found out after was that there was a guy whose only job was to stop me kicking a window – which means he was looking up my skirt all night – I wondered what he was seeing take after take!”
“Tom rang me to give me the lowdown and, what I thought would be a 10-minute call, lasted two and half hours – he basically told me how not to die!” the “Twisters” star said.
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Cruise gave Powell one other valuable piece of advice.
“He also gave me running lessons. He said, ‘You should film yourself running because you don’t look as cool as you think you do.’ He was so right,” Powell recalled.
“The Running Man,” out Friday, also stars Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra and Jayme Lawson.
